{"title":"Diana Preston","description":"Diana Preston is an Oxford-trained historian, writer, and broadcaster who lives in London, England. She is the author of The Road to Culloden Moor: Bonnie Prince Charlie and the '45 Rebellion and A First Rate Tragedy: Robert Falcon Scott and the Race to the South Pole.","products":[{"product_id":"boxer-rebellion-the-dramatic-story-of-chinas-war-on-foreigners-that-shook-the-world-in-the-summer-of-1900-paperback","title":"Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis acclaimed account of the Boxer Rebellion, by an Oxford-trained historian, is \"an outstanding popular history that also passes muster as first-rate historical research\" (\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the last years of the nineteenth century, the Western powers were bickering over how to slice up the pie of China, while the presence they had already established there was undermining the Chinese people's traditional ways. Then a new movement--mystical, militaristic, and virulently anti-Christian--began to spread like wildfire among the Chinese peasants. The contemptuous foreigners nicknamed them \"the Boxers\"--a snickering reference to their martial-arts routines--never imagining that the group, with the backing of China's Empress Dowager, would soon terrorize the world.... \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"With meticulous research and passionate style, Diana Preston re-creates the tragedy that consumed China a century ago.\" --Iris Chang, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Rape of Nanking\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51365992792287,"sku":"9780425180846","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/ZLDLojDcT59780425180846.webp?v=1789077199"},{"product_id":"before-the-fallout-from-marie-curie-to-hiroshima-paperback","title":"Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 1898, Marie Curie first described a phenomenon she called \"radioactivity.\" A half-century later, two physicists would stand before dawn in the New Mexico desert, slathering themselves with sunscreen-and fearing that the imminent test detonation might ignite Earth's atmosphere in a cataclysmic chain reaction and transform our planet into a burning star. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is the epic story of Curie's quest to unlock the secrets of the material world; of the scientists-Rutherford, Bohr, Einstein, Oppenheimer-who built upon her work; of the day the first weapon of mass destruction dropped on Hiroshima, bringing both sudden terror and sudden peace, and of the new era of global uncertainty that emerged in its wake. With the clarity of great science writing, the vividness of historical narrative and the insight of biography, \u003cb\u003eBefore the Fallout\u003c\/b\u003e is an unforgettable and sweeping account of the scientific discovery that changed the world. \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51368468709599,"sku":"9780425207895","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/oLzEVqT05e9780425207895.webp?v=1789128479"},{"product_id":"a-pirate-of-exquisite-mind-the-life-of-william-dampier-explorer-naturalist-and-buccaneer-paperback","title":"A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eSeventeenth-century pirate genius William Dampier sailed around the world three times when crossing the Pacific was a major feat, was the first explorer to visit all five continents, and reached Australia eighty years before Captain Cook. His exploits created a sensation in Europe. Swift and Defoe used his experiences in writing \u003ci\u003eGulliver's Travels\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eRobinson Crusoe\u003c\/i\u003e. Darwin incorporated his concept of \"sub-species\" into the theory of evolution. Dampier's description of breadfruit was the impetus for Captain Bligh's voyage on the \u003ci\u003eBounty\u003c\/i\u003e. He was so influential that today he has more than one thousand entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, including such words as chopsticks, barbecue, and kumquat. Anthropologists still use his work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51369700851935,"sku":"9780425200377","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/oEnmQi7RBK9780425200377.webp?v=1789144365"},{"product_id":"the-evolution-of-charles-darwin-the-epic-voyage-of-the-beagle-that-forever-changed-our-view-of-life-on-earth-paperback","title":"The Evolution of Charles Darwin: The Epic Voyage of the Beagle That Forever Changed Our View of Life on Earth - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize-winning historian, the colorful, dramatic story of Charles Darwin's journey on HMS \u003ci\u003eBeagle\u003c\/i\u003e that inspired the evolutionary theories in his path-breaking books \u003ci\u003eOn the Origin of Species\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e The Descent of Man\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen twenty-two-year-old aspiring geologist Charles Darwin boarded HMS \u003ci\u003eBeagle\u003c\/i\u003e in 1831 with his microscopes and specimen bottles--invited by ship's captain Robert FitzRoy who wanted a travel companion at least as much as a ship's naturalist--he hardly thought he was embarking on what would become perhaps the most important and epoch-changing voyage in scientific history. Nonetheless, over the course of the five-year journey around the globe in often hard and hazardous conditions, Darwin would make observations and gather samples that would form the basis of his revolutionary theories about the origin of species and natural selection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on a rich range of revealing letters, diary entries, recollections of those who encountered him, and Darwin's and FitzRoy's own accounts of what transpired, Diana Preston chronicles the epic voyage as it unfolded, tracing Darwin's growth from untested young man to accomplished adventurer and natural scientist in his own right. Darwin often left the ship to climb mountains, navigate rivers, or ride hundreds of miles, accompanied by local guides whose languages he barely understood, across pampas and through rainforests in search of further unique specimens. From the wilds of Patagonia to the Galápagos and other Atlantic and Pacific islands, as Preston vibrantly relates, Darwin collected and contrasted volcanic rocks and fossils large and small, witnessed an earthquake, and encountered the Argentinian rhea, Falklands fox, and Galápagos finch, through which he began to discern connections between deep past and present.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDarwin never left Britain again after his return in 1836, though his mind journeyed far and wide to develop the theories that were first revealed, after great delay and with trepidation about their reception, in 1859 with the publication of his epochal book \u003ci\u003eOn the Origin of Species\u003c\/i\u003e. Offering a unique portrait of one of history's most consequential figures, \u003ci\u003eThe Evolution of Charles Darwin\u003c\/i\u003e is a vital contribution to our understanding of life on Earth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51369758916831,"sku":"9780802161222","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/WdRz1Z3h9e9780802161222.webp?v=1789146107"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/diana-preston.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}