{"title":"Alan Taylor","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlan Taylor\u003c\/strong\u003e offers gripping explorations of American history, weaving richly detailed narratives that span tumultuous political moments and personal stories alike. His works examine the complexities of civil wars, revolutions, and the evolving identity of the American republic through insightful analysis and vivid storytelling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond political history, Taylor's writing often touches on the interplay between human events and their environments, inviting readers to consider how nature and landscape shape historical developments. His books provide thoughtful perspectives for those drawn to history's deeper currents and transformative epochs.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"american-civil-wars-by-alan-taylor-9781324035282","title":"American Civil Wars","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a fast-paced narrative of soaring ideals and sordid politics, of civil war and foreign invasion, the award-winning historian Alan Taylor presents a pivotal twenty-year period in which North America's three largest countries—the United States, Mexico, and Canada—all transformed themselves into nations. \u003cem\u003eAmerican Civil Wars\u003c\/em\u003e stands at the centre of the story, with its military history and the drama of emancipation being the highlights. Taylor relies on vivid characters to carry the story, from Joseph Hooker, whose timidity in crisis was exploited by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, to Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Black abolitionists whose critical work in Canada and the United States advanced emancipation and the enrolment of Black soldiers in Union armies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe outbreak of the Civil War created a continental power vacuum which allowed French forces to invade Mexico in 1862 and set up an empire ruled by a Habsburg archduke. This inflamed the ongoing power struggle between Mexico's Conservatives—landowners, the military, the Church—and Liberal supporters of social democracy, led ably by Benito Juarez. Along the southwestern border, Mexico's Conservative forces made common cause with the Confederacy, while General James Carleton violently suppressed Apaches and Navajos in New Mexico and Arizona. When the Union triumph restored the continental balance of power, French forces withdrew, and Liberals consolidated a republic in Mexico.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMeanwhile, Canada was fending off a potential rupture between French-speaking Catholics in Quebec and English-speakers in Ontario. When Union victory raised the threat of American invasion, Canadian leaders pressed for a continent-wide confederation joined by a transcontinental railroad. The rollicking story of liberal ideals, political venality, and corporate corruption marked the dawn of the Gilded Age in North America.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46832278044908,"sku":"9781324035282","price":75.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11037213482659.jpg?v=1758374480"},{"product_id":"edinburgh-the-autobiography-by-alan-taylor-9781780278827","title":"Edinburgh: The Autobiography","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom one of the earliest mentions of its name in the sixth century to the Covid lockdowns of the twenty-first, this is a magnificent portrait of one of the world's great cities in its many iterations, from \u003cem\u003eEdinburgh\u003c\/em\u003e, the sink of abomination, to the Athens of the North and everything, including the home of the Enlightenment, the Festival City, the Aids Capital of Europe, and a Mecca for tourists seeking tartan tat in between.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs the nation's capital, it has been critical to its progress and a witness to epochal events, such as the tumultuous reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Reformation, the Forty-Five rebellion, the Disruption of the Church of Scotland, and the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament. All of these and more feature. But this is not simply a book about the great and good, the famous and infamous. There is testimony aplenty from ordinary folk who may not have made their mark on history but who have contributed to Edinburgh's ever-expanding tapestry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere are stories of body snatching and murder, drunkenness and drug-taking, sex and shopping, as well as rants against inclement weather and the city council.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46849041760492,"sku":"9781780278827","price":69.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/23574683482821.jpg?v=1759011621"},{"product_id":"american-republics-by-alan-taylor-9781324005797","title":"American Republics","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this beautifully written history of America's formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNative peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers through strategic alliances with the other continental powers. The system of American slavery grew increasingly powerful and expansive, its vigorous internal trade in Black Americans separating parents and children, husbands and wives. Bitter party divisions pitted elites favouring strong government against those, like Andrew Jackson, espousing a democratic populism for white men. Violence was both routine and organised: the United States invaded Canada, Florida, Texas, and much of Mexico, and forcibly removed most of the Native peoples living east of the Mississippi. At the end of the period, the United States, its conquered territory reaching the Pacific, remained internally divided, with sectional animosities over slavery growing more intense.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTaylor's elegant history of this tumultuous period offers indelible miniatures of key characters from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. It captures the high-stakes political drama as Jackson and Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster contend over slavery, the economy, Indian removal, and national expansion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA ground-level account of American industrialisation conveys the everyday lives of factory workers and immigrant families. And the immersive narrative puts us on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Mexico City, Quebec, and the Cherokee capital, New Echota.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAbsorbing and chilling, \u003cem\u003eAmerican Republics\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates the continuities between our own social and political divisions and the events of this formative period.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46853953618156,"sku":"9781324005797","price":66.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10742363482659.jpg?v=1759227612"},{"product_id":"american-civil-wars-by-alan-taylor-9781324110491","title":"American Civil Wars","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a fast-paced narrative of soaring ideals and sordid politics, of civil war and foreign invasion, the award-winning historian Alan Taylor presents a pivotal twenty-year period in which North America's three largest countries—the United States, Mexico, and Canada—all transformed themselves into nations. \u003cem\u003eAmerican Civil Wars\u003c\/em\u003e stands at the centre of the story, its military history and the drama of emancipation the highlights. Taylor relies on vivid characters to carry the story, from Joseph Hooker, whose timidity in crisis was exploited by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, to Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Black abolitionists whose critical work in Canada and the United States advanced emancipation and the enrolment of Black soldiers in Union armies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe outbreak of the Civil War created a continental power vacuum that allowed French forces to invade Mexico in 1862 and set up an empire ruled by a Habsburg archduke. This inflamed the ongoing power struggle between Mexico's Conservatives—landowners, the military, the Church—and Liberal supporters of social democracy, led ably by Benito Juarez. Along the southwestern border, Mexico's Conservative forces made common cause with the Confederacy, while General James Carleton violently suppressed Apaches and Navajos in New Mexico and Arizona. When the Union triumph restored the continental balance of power, French forces withdrew, and Liberals consolidated a republic in Mexico.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCanada was meantime fending off a potential rupture between French-speaking Catholics in Quebec and English-speakers in Ontario. When Union victory raised the threat of American invasion, Canadian leaders pressed for a continent-wide confederation joined by a transcontinental railroad. The rollicking story of liberal ideals, political venality, and corporate corruption marked the dawn of the Gilded Age in North America.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000528060652,"sku":"9781324110491","price":41.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11789303482659.jpg?v=1763281674"},{"product_id":"american-republics-by-alan-taylor-9781324021803","title":"American Republics","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this beautifully written history of America's formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNative peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers through strategic alliances with the other continental powers. The system of American slavery grew increasingly powerful and expansive, its vigorous internal trade in Black Americans separating parents and children, husbands and wives. Bitter party divisions pitted elites favouring strong government against those, like Andrew Jackson, espousing a democratic populism for white men.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eViolence was both routine and organised: the United States invaded Canada, Florida, Texas, and much of Mexico, and forcibly removed most of the Native peoples living east of the Mississippi. At the end of the period, the United States, its conquered territory reaching the Pacific, remained internally divided, with sectional animosities over slavery growing more intense.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTaylor's elegant history of this tumultuous period offers indelible miniatures of key characters from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. It captures the high-stakes political drama as Jackson and Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster contend over slavery, the economy, Indian removal, and national expansion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA ground-level account of American industrialisation conveys the everyday lives of factory workers and immigrant families. And the immersive narrative puts us on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Mexico City, Quebec, and the Cherokee capital, New Echota.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAbsorbing and chilling, \u003cem\u003eAmerican Republics\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates the continuities between our own social and political divisions and the events of this formative period.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000528683244,"sku":"9781324021803","price":37.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10902423482659.jpg?v=1763281793"},{"product_id":"american-revolutions-by-alan-taylor-9780393354768","title":"American Revolutions","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the nation with its democratic framework. Alan Taylor, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, offers a different creation story in this magisterial history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAmerican Revolutions\u003c\/em\u003e builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain’s colonies, fuelled by local conditions and resistant to control. Emerging from the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, the revolution pivoted on western expansion as well as seaboard resistance to British taxes. When war erupted, Patriot crowds harassed Loyalists and nonpartisans into compliance with their cause. The war exploded in set battles like Saratoga and Yorktown and spread through continuing frontier violence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe discord smouldering within the fragile new nation called forth a movement to concentrate power through a Federal Constitution. Assuming the mantle of \u003cem\u003eWe the People\u003c\/em\u003e, the advocates of national power ratified the new frame of government. However, it was Jefferson's expansive “empire of liberty” that carried the revolution forward, propelling white settlement and slavery west, preparing the ground for a new conflagration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e37 illustrations; 10 maps\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000528716012,"sku":"9780393354768","price":41.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/628563482328.jpg?v=1763281804"},{"product_id":"thomas-jeffersons-education-by-alan-taylor-9780393358575","title":"Thomas Jefferson's Education","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully written history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. It offers an incisive portrait of Thomas Jefferson set against a social fabric of planters in decline, enslaved black families torn apart by sales, and a hair-trigger code of male honour. A man of \"deft evasions\" who was both courtly and withdrawn, Jefferson sought control of his family and state from his lofty perch at Monticello.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNever quite the egalitarian we wish him to be, he advocated emancipation but shrank from implementing it, entrusting that reform to the next generation. Devoted to the education of his granddaughters, he nevertheless accepted their subordination in a masculine culture. During the revolution, he proposed to educate all white children in Virginia, but later in life he narrowed his goal to building an elite university.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1819, Jefferson's intensive drive for state support of a new university succeeded. His intention was a university to educate the sons of Virginia's wealthy planters, lawyers, and merchants, who might then democratise the state and in time rid it of slavery. But the university's students, having absorbed the traditional vices of the Virginia gentry, preferred to practise and defend them. Opening in 1825, the university nearly collapsed as unruly students abused one another, the enslaved servants, and the faculty.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJefferson's hopes of developing an enlightened leadership for the state were disappointed, and Virginia hardened its commitment to slavery in the coming years. The university was born with the flaws of a slave society. Instead, it was Jefferson's beloved granddaughters who carried forward his faith in education by becoming dedicated teachers of a new generation of women.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000827298028,"sku":"9780393358575","price":35.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/666633482328.jpg?v=1763308055"},{"product_id":"thomas-jeffersons-education-by-alan-taylor-9780393652420","title":"Thomas Jefferson's Education","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully written history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. It offers an incisive portrait of Thomas Jefferson set against a social fabric of planters in decline, enslaved black families torn apart by sales, and a hair-trigger code of male honour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA man of \"deft evasions\" who was both courtly and withdrawn, Jefferson sought control of his family and state from his lofty perch at Monticello. Never quite the egalitarian we wish him to be, he advocated emancipation but shrank from implementing it, entrusting that reform to the next generation. Devoted to the education of his granddaughters, he nevertheless accepted their subordination in a masculine culture. During the revolution, he proposed to educate all white children in Virginia, but later in life he narrowed his goal to building an elite university.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1819 Jefferson's intensive drive for state support of a new university succeeded. His intention was a university to educate the sons of Virginia's wealthy planters, lawyers, and merchants, who might then democratise the state and in time rid it of slavery. But the university's students, having absorbed the traditional vices of the Virginia gentry, preferred to practise and defend them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOpening in 1825, the university nearly collapsed as unruly students abused one another, the enslaved servants, and the faculty. Jefferson's hopes of developing an enlightened leadership for the state were disappointed, and Virginia hardened its commitment to slavery in the coming years. 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From \u003cem\u003eEdinburgh, the sink of abomination\u003c\/em\u003e to the Athens of the North and everything – including the home of the Enlightenment, the Festival City, the Aids Capital of Europe and a Mecca for tourists seeking tartan tat – in between.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs the nation’s capital, it has been critical to its progress and a witness to epochal events, such as the tumultuous reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Reformation, the Forty-Five rebellion, the Disruption of the Church of Scotland, and the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament. All of these and more feature. But this is not simply a book about the great and good, the famous and infamous. There is testimony aplenty from ordinary folk who may not have made their mark on history but who have contributed to Edinburgh’s ever-expanding tapestry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere are stories of body snatching and murder, drunkenness and drug-taking, sex and shopping, as well as rants against inclement weather and the city council.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn insightful, entertaining read that I would wholeheartedly recommend.\u003c\/b\u003e – \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eScottish Field\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67708965388524,"sku":"9781780279718","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781780279718-edinburgh-the-autobiography-1.jpg?v=1791839497"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/alan-taylor.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}