Search Results: European History from Walkabout Books

LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1974. Hardcover. Fine. xvi, 354 pp, with index, bibliography. An as-new copy with no dust jacket. Clean, tightly bound, unmarked. Andrey Ivanovich Zhelyabov (1851-1881) was a Russian revolutionary and a leading Narodnik. n June 1879 he took part in a congress of political terrorists and became an advocate of such a policy. He helped found the worker, student, and military arms of the extremist organization People's Will and the newspaper of that organization in 1880 and wrote several of the organization's manifestos. One of the organizers of the assassination of Alexander II, he was arrested on February 27 (March 11), demanded to be tried together with his subsequently captured compatriots, and was found guilty and executed (Britannica).

Firenze: Tip. Barbera, Alfani e Venturi, 1922. Softcover. Very good. 6.75 x 9.25 in., 32 pp, in photographically illustrated wrappers, with 11 half-tone illustrations in the text. Light dust soiling, wear to spine ends; very good. Describes the work of an asylum for war orphans opened in 1921 by the Florentine branch of the Associazione Nazionale Mutilati e Combattenti--an organization formed in the aftermath of World War I to assist those disabled or mutilated during the war. Illustrations show some of the facilities and groups of orphans (who received education, work experience, and recreational opportunities), and the final pages list individual and organizational donors to the institution. Not found in OCLC.

Bruxelles: O. De Rycker. Softcover. very good-. Undated, ca. 1924. 8.25" x 5.5", [26] pp, with many half-tone photographs, in illustrated stapled wrappers. Light dust soiling, text block detached from wrappers, otherwise very good. A rare promotional booklet for Huileries du Congo Belge (HCB), a subsidiary of the British soap manufacturing company Lever Brothers. The French-language text describes the history of the company's involvement in the Belgian Congo, beginning in 1911 when it secured a concession from the Belgian government to construct factories and harvest palm trees (for their oil) within a 1.9 million acres of forest land.  One section describes the characteristics of the Elais or oil palm and explains how it is harvested ("It is a climb of 15 to 20 meters that would be frightening and very dangerous for a European. But the blacks are almost as agile as monkeys; their feet grip the bank like hands") by native workers. Another section explains how the company has developed plantations… Read More

Syracuse, NY: C.W. Bardeen, 1889. First American Edition. Hardcover. Good+. 8" x 6", pp xv, 167, indexed, in original rust-colored cloth boards. Corners rubbed through, paper over hinges cracked, old dampstain to endpapers. Binding tight, text clean. Froebel was a pioneering German educational reformer who stressed the importance of play in early childhood education and developed and popularized the concept of Kindergarten. His Autobiography was first published in English by Swan Sonnenschein (London) in 1886.

London: Charles Gilpin, 1848. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. 8vo, 512 pp + publisher's ads, bound in original brown cloth. Old staining to boards. loss of cloth at head of spine, mild spine slant. Internally clean, but with a section of pages (283-317) that were opened roughly and have creasing and or chipping at the top margin. Text unaffected. Penciled ownership signature dated 1859 on front free endpaper, binder's ticket (Remnant & Edmonds, London) on rear pastedown. Somerville was a British radical journalist, soldier, and promoter of free trade. After being hired by the Anti-Corn-Law League in 1842, "travelled over the entire country for much of four years, writing a prodigious number of articles for newspapers. In the spirit of a social anthropologist he described farming communities-work habits, the condition of the soil, crops, prices, rents, wages, the state of the roads, diets, dwellings, crime, discontents, religious beliefs-all laced with arguments for free trade" (ODNB). Much of his… Read More

Boise, ID: Offset Printer, 1972. Softcover. Very Good. 115 pp, with illustrations, footnotes, in original wrappers. Price sticker on inside front cover, very light handling wear; else clean. From the Introduction: "The first part is an expanded version of the publication 'History and Origin of the Basque' first published in 1962 ... Part II points out the highlights of recent Basque history from 1931 to the present and deals primarily with the short-lived Basque Republic and the Spanish Civil War which followed."

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1919. Softcover. Very Good. 21 pp, in original wrappers with stapled binding. Some general handling wear including one short tear to front cover at spine; previous owner's book plate affixed to verso of cover and small name stamp on back cover.Contents clean.

Littleton, MA: Gramatas salikums-Gunara Indara Apgads, 1981. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. 9 x 11 inches, oblong. Slight wear to boards, else fine. No dust jacket. 267 pp, primarily consisting of black and white photographs, with captions in Latvian. Introductory text in Latvian and English. A fascinating pictorial history of the Latvian refugee/immigrant experience. "Photographer Vilis Gravitas has documented on film the years of transition from a refugee, a virtual 'non-person,' to the rank of an immigrant and, ultimately, to a full-fledged member of society again, as a naturalized citizen of the United States." Shipping for priority or international orders may be more than standard.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. xi, 692 pp, with maps, appendix, index. A few slightly dog-eared pages, light offsetting to rear endpapers; otherwise clean and sound. Dust jacket has a small abrasion to the upper spine where a label was removed. "This is the story of a great coalition formed by the United States, Great Britain, and Soviet Russia to combat the Axis in World War II. Mr. Feis traces the ideas and purposes which governed each member of this alliance, their clashes and cooperation, and the gradual separation between the West and Russia as victory over Germany was achieved" (dust jacket).

Madrid: Imprenta de San Francisco de Sales, 1898. Hardcover. Good. 606 pp, bound in quarter leather over marbled boards. Pages tanned, title page lacking, first page partly detached, text otherwise complete and binding sound. All text in Spanish. Wiki: Joaquín Costa (1846-1911) was a Spanish politician, lawyer, economist and historian. The son of an Aragonese farmer and his first wife, Costa was self-educated and campaigned to end what he considered to be Spanish backwardness. He desired to start a movement that would force politicians to embark on a program of educational, social, and economic reform.

London: John Murray, 1866. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. 8vo, 226 pp, bound in 3/4 green leather and green marbled boards, top edge gilt, green silk ribbon bookmark bound in. Binding signed [William Taylor] Morrell. Small bump to top edge of rear board, light scuffing to leather, foxing to first and last few leaves, otherwise clean and sound. Armorial bookplate of William Ruddell Clarke of Trabolgan (County Cork, Ireland) on front pastedown. "Clarke (1870-1937) inherited Trabolgan, a large Georgian house, and the surrounding estate of 1500 acres from his father in 1911. After his death the estate was purchased by the Irish Land Commission" (National Library of Australia). Dufferin, an Irish peer and landowner, became concerned with the sufferings of Irish tenants in the wake of the great famine, leading him to take initiatives designed to relieve their distress on his own estates. This is one of several works he published on Irish land tenure issues.

London: W.C. Such, Printer and Publisher. Very good. Broadside. Undated, ca. 1922. 25 x 19 cm (ca. 9.75" x 7.5"), on newsprint or similar stock. Old folding creased, closed tear with archival repair on verso; very good. Although this song--a lament for England's poor and unemployed--may have been written as early as the 1890s, this edition, with its plea to "Please buy a copy from an unemployed ex-service man," was printed in the aftermath of World War I. Unemployment in England became a significant problem around 1920, as the country's economy slowed, trade decreased, and debts incurred by the war loomed large. Reincorporating the demobilized troops into the civilian workforce and providing sufficient resources for those disabled during the war proved particularly challenging. We locate copies of this song sheet at the British Library, Bodleian (Ballad-Roud # V20673), and the University of Warwick.

London: Richard Bentley, 1883. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Two volumes, pp xii, 374; xii, 424, illustrated with portraits. Bound for John N. Guss in three-quarter green leather with marbled boards; gilt spines in six compartments, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Rubbing to corners, spine heads, and hinges; internals fine.

Paris: Administration des Ouvrages de MM. Decembre-Allonier, ND. Hardcover. Very good-. Undated, c. 1866. Two folio volumes (8.75 x 14 inches), pp. 796; 762, lvii; illustrated. Contemporary quarter-leather and marbled boards, with original yellow wrappers bound in. Rubbing to edges of boards and spine, some loss of marbled paper on front board of volume 1, minor damage to endpapers, occasional light foxing. Good to very good overall. Comprehensive alphabetical reference to the people and events of the French Revolution.

Uppsala, 1972. Soft cover. Near Fine. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Historia Religionum #5. 593 pp. Bibliography, index. Mild wear to wrappers; one corner lightly bumped. Pages unopened.

Cambridge, [MA]: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1877. Hardcover. Very good. Issued as part of the Collections of the Maine Historical Society, Second Series. Edited by Leonard Woods and Charles Deane. lxi + 253 pp, indexed, with several folding facsimiles of handwritten documents. A very good copy, mostly unopened, with some light foxing, faint staining to lower spine. This is first publication of Richard Hakluyt's 1584 manuscript discussing the lands of the New World and advocating colonization by the English. Originally a confidential state paper, it was presented to Queen Elizabeth I on October 3, 1584. The present text comes from the only surviving copy. Haklyut argues that the English should settle the New World in order to preempt other Europeans -- particularly the Spanish -- from monopolizing trade.

Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, 1998. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/fine. 405 pp, with index and bibliography. Very small stain to fore edge (likely a printer's error), else a fine copy in like jacket. Signed on the front free endpaper by Perissinotto and dated October 30, 1988. A collection of 52 documents (translated into English) from the Santa Barbara Presidio, the last of Alta California's four military garrisons, offering insight into how early settlers survived on the far frontier of Spain's American empire.

Riga: Centre of Baltic-Nordic History and Political Studies, 1995. Hardcover. Near fine. 335 pp, indexed, illustrated. Clean, tightly bound, and unmarked, with just a touch of wear to the corners.

London: London Magazine, 1976. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Fine. 172 pp, with selected bibliography. Minimal wear to corners; else fine. Fine dust jacket. A study of Wilfred Blunt, Graham, Roger Casement, T.E. Lawrence, Gabriele D'Annunzio, and André Malraux who "yielded to the quixotic impulse and propelled themselves into political life with disastrous or tragic results ... All six figures are significant not for what they achieved, but for what they were and what they represented. These six men committed themselves to political activity, but failed to resolve the Byronic conflict between egoism and idealism" (dust jacket).

Istanbul: Cumhuriyet Matbaasi, 1939. Softcover. very good. 11.25' x 7.5", unpaginated, but ca. 200 pp, consisting entirely of reproduced photographs, each with a caption (in Turkish). A good copy with creasing and chipping to wrappers, one crack in binding. An interesting and uncommon assemblage of images documenting the public appearances of Mustafa Kamal Atatürk, the first President of the Republic of Turkey.  The photographs were taken by  photographers from several Turkish newspapers:  Cemal Göral of Son Posta, Faik Senol of Aksam, Hilmi Sahenk  of Tan, and Salahaddin Giz and Namik Görgüç of Cumhuriyet. Most date from the period between the establishment of the Republic in 1923 and Atatürk's death in 1938, but there are some earlier images included. Born in 1881 in Salonika in what was then the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was sent to military school and the military academy in Istanbul, graduating in 1905. "In 1911, he served against the Italians in Libya and then in the… Read More