New Releases by Richard Holmes

Interest in the greatest military conflict of all time has never been stronger. Written by leading military historian Richard Holmes, the book presents the photographs in year-by-year chapters, covering every theatre of operations. Dramatic, hard hitting and intensely moving, this is a unique visual testament to the millions of men and women who lost their lives in the war, and a reminder to today''s generations of both the heroism and horror of global conflict.

Richard Holmes''s Coleridge: Early Visions won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year Prize. Coleridge: Darker Reflections, the long-awaited second volume, chronicles the last thirty years of his career (1804-1834), a period of domestic and professional turmoil. His marriage foundered, his opium addiction increased, he quarreled bitterly with Wordsworth, and his son, Hartley (a gifted poet himself), became an alcoholic. But after a desperate time of transition, Coleridge reemerged as a new kind of philosophical and meditative author, a great and daring poet, and a lecturer of genius. Holmes traces the development of Coleridge into a legend among the younger generation of Romantic writers--the "hooded eagle amongst blinking owls"--and the influence he had on Hazlitt, De Quincey, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Walter Scott, Carlyle, and J. S. Mill, among others. And he rediscovers Coleridge''s power as a conversationalist and a ceaseless generator of ideas. As Charles Lamb noted, "his face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged." Although Coleridge''s later life was not a happy one, it is continually fascinating. As Holmes brings it vividly to life in these pages, we feel his hopeless heartaches, his moments of elation, his electrifying creativity and boundless energy, his unfailing ability to rescue himself from the darkest abyss. The result is a brilliantly animated, superbly detailed, wondrously provocative portrait of an extraordinary artist and an even more extraordinary human being.

It was along the Western Front, the trench line stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss border, that most of nine million soldiers from the United Kingdom and British Empire who enlisted during World War I served, and where most of the 947,000 who were killed met their deaths. Linked to a BBC2 television series, this book follows the story of the Western Front in a format which is both chronological and thematic, whilst also focusing on particular episodes to highlight more general topics.

Examines the ideas of major figures in the phenomenological movement on the topic of a world independent of any particular awareness of it (the world of objects usually called "real"), focusing on the writings of Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. The author develops an original analysis which strives to make sense not only of our experience of the world but of the theory of quantum mechanics that purports to describe this world. This analysis allows a plurality of theories to defend their interpretations whether they are about literary works, ordinary physical objects, or the behavior of microparticles. Part of the theory involves coming to grips with the possibility of mental telepathy. Paper edition (unseen), $24.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The story of an unusual friendship between Samuel Johnson and the poet, playwright and convicted murderer Richard Savage.

A unique work combining military history and travel, which studies the most fought-over area on earth. De Gaulle called it a "fatal avenue" that broad sweep of low-lying country stretching north east of Paris. Over the centuries, invading armies have swept back and forth over this bloody terrain, and the names of battles fought here read like a dictionary of military history from Agincourt, Calais and Crecy to Verdun, Vimy and Ypres. Fatal Avenue is both a history and a guide a unique study of a region that has witnessed more bitter military conflict than any other area of its size on earth. From the Trade Paperback edition.

As we approach the 21st century our fears are changing shape: no longer will nuclear holocaust hold sway in our minds as God''s destruction by fire and brimstone did for our ancestors at the end of the first millennium. Refugees streaming north from the poverty-stricken south, destruction of the planet''s life-preserving balance and the epidemic of AIDS nurture a more insidious dread that won''t yield to the simple logic of deterrence. What then will have to be faced in future battles? Where will the lines of defence be drawn, and what will be left for the serving soldier to do?

This wide-ranging and exhaustively researched book is an attempt to grasp the very nature of war. It takes us through the soldier''s experience in its entirety - from the humiliation of basic training and the intense comradeship of army life, to the terror, isolation and exhaustion of battle.

Traces the development of warfare tactics and hardware by describing and analyzing twenty-three battles that altered the course of history from the Battle of the Nile in 1798 to the Six Day War of 1967