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History - Modern (1750+) — page 7
395 public-domain history - modern (1750+) books, summarised. Page 7 of 9.

Armenia: A year at Erzeroom, and on the frontiers of Russia, Turkey, and Persia
Robert Curzon
The rugged, snow-swept frontiers of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire reveal a world where ancient tradition, geopolitical tension, and the remnants of lost civilizations collide. This account captures the stark beauty of a volatile landscape and the strange, often precarious lives of those who inhabit it.

The British Interned in Switzerland
Henry Philip Picot
This account chronicles the logistical and human triumph of interning wounded British prisoners of war in neutral Switzerland during the Great War, highlighting a rare moment of international humanitarian cooperation.

With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia: 1916—1917
Anonymous
The mud-soaked, sun-scorched story of a Highland battalion in the Mesopotamian campaign captures the brutal, unglamorous realities of a forgotten theater of the Great War. It serves as a stark, intimate record of endurance.

A Narrative of the Melancholy Wreck of the "Dunbar," Merchant Ship, on the South Head of Port Jackson, August 20th, 1875
Anonymous
In the pitch-black gale of August 1857, an ocean liner misjudged the jagged cliffs of Sydney Harbour and splintered against the rocks. This contemporary document charts the devastating loss, the solitary survivor, and a city’s collective grief.

The Soul of Democracy: The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human Liberty
Edward Howard Griggs
A impassioned wartime philosopher dissects the global collapse of 1914, demanding that democratic nations look beyond military victory and remake their own educational, social, and moral ideals to secure lasting human freedom.

Australia in Palestine
Unknown
In dry sands, mountain mists, and blinding dust, soldiers build a living record of their own campaign. They write of horse-care, mail day, lost sleep, and hard victories across a changing landscape.

Daybreak in Turkey: Second Edition
James L. (James Levi) Barton
An empire built on absolute monarchy, complex racial rivalries, and systemic suppression faces an quiet, irresistible tide of internal reform.

Hernando Cortes
Joachim Heinrich Campe
The story of the conquest of Mexico is a harrowing record of ambition, clashing civilizations, and the catastrophic human cost of imperial expansion. It tracks a small group of Spanish adventurers as they dismantle the Aztec Empire through a combination of tactical daring, strategic exploitation of native…

History of the World War, Volume 4 (of 7)
March, Francis A., Jr.
A comprehensive chronicle of the Great War’s middle years, documenting the global scale of the conflict from Canadian trench warfare to the Russian Revolution and the strategic mobilization of the United States.

Notes and Queries, Number 220, January 14, 1854: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This nineteenth-century periodical serves as a vibrant, collaborative clearinghouse for historical curiosities, literary debates, and scholarly inquiries, bridging the intellectual gaps between the Victorian era’s inquisitive minds.

With Steyn and De Wet
F. F. (Filippus Fourie) Pienaar
This account captures the intimate, grueling reality of the South African War through the eyes of a telegraphist serving with the Boer forces, offering a rare perspective on a nation fighting for its survival.

From the Trenches: Louvain to the Aisne, the First Record of an Eye-Witness
Geoffrey Winthrop Young
The machinery of modern war strips away the pageantry of past conflict, leaving only a cold, mechanical struggle in which the individual is reduced to a shadow.

The Delinquent (Vol. IV, No. 2), February, 1914
Various
This collection of reports and editorials serves as a vital historical snapshot of the American prison reform movement at the dawn of the twentieth century. It documents a period of shifting philosophies where the rigid, punitive carceral systems of the past began to face scrutiny from a burgeoning class of…

The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal"
Sydney George Fisher
This work is a spirited, polemical defense of the Boer resistance in South Africa, framed as an open letter that challenges the historical analogies used to justify British intervention. By dismantling the comparison between the Boer War and the American Civil War, the text demands a re-evaluation of what…

Boy Labour and Apprenticeship
Reginald A. (Reginald Arthur) Bray
Industrial Britain routinely transforms educated schoolboys into discarded adult labor by funneling them into dead-end juvenile jobs that offer immediate pocket money but zero long-term skills.

War Rhymes by Wayfarer
Abner Cosens
Poignant verses chronicle the Great War’s disruption of everyday life, blending home-front anxieties and battlefield grimness with the colloquial laments of a fictional German soldier named Fritz.

The Method by Which the Causes of the Present and Past Conditions of Organic Nature Are to Be Discovered
Thomas Henry Huxley
All scientific reasoning, from unraveling the deepest mysteries of organic evolution to identifying the thief who stole the household silverware, relies on the exact same everyday operations of induction, deduction, and relentless experimental verification.

The modes of origin of lowest organisms: including a discussion of the experiments of M. Pasteur
H. Charlton Bastian
A nineteenth-century British physician mounts a rigorous empirical challenge against atmospheric germ theory, arguing through careful laboratory experiments that microscopic life can emerge directly from non-living chemical solutions under the right physical conditions.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461: Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852
Various
An anti-slavery steamer on the African coast intercepts a suspected vessel; inside a locked suburban house, a young man with pockets full of silver spoon tries to convince a lady he is not a burglar.
![Cover of Proceedings of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa [1790]](https://cdn.myebooksbuy.com/c/proceedings-of-the-association-for-promoting-the-discovery-of-the.webp)
Proceedings of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa [1790]
Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa
The Enlightenment’s reach for the unknown manifests in these foundational reports from a society determined to map the interior of Africa through the accounts of travelers and traders.

The Irish Nuns at Ypres: An Episode of the War
Columban, M., Dame
This account captures the quiet dignity of a religious community forced to abandon their historic home as the Great War tears through the ancient streets of Ypres. It is a testament to faith, resilience, and the fragile human connections forged in the shadow of bombardment.

Over the top with the 25th: Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette
R. Lewis
The 25th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force earns its reputation through grueling trench warfare, culminating in the decisive assault on Courcelette and the monumental struggle at Vimy Ridge. This account tracks the evolution of a volunteer unit from raw, enthusiastic recruits into a hardened, highly…

Over the Top With the Third Australian Division
G. P. (George Percival) Cuttriss
Bound by an unshakeable belief in their cause, soldiers transform the terror and dirt of Western Front trenches into a testament of resilience, camaraderie, and sudden, unexpected warmth.

The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 251 new series, May 1917)
Various
Amid the profound sacrifices of the First World War, an extraordinary collection of frontline accounts, literary history, and quiet pastoral life reveals the resilient pulse of a nation at a crossroads.

Darkest India: A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out"
Frederick St. George De Lautour Booth-Tucker
This treatise outlines an urgent, systematic blueprint for social reform, arguing that the principles of humanitarian aid successfully proposed for England must be adapted to alleviate the crushing poverty of India.

The Palace of Glass and the Gathering of the People: A Book for the Exhibition
John Stoughton
As the great glass palace rises in Hyde Park, a nation stands at the crossroads of industrial triumph and spiritual awakening, invited to view its own worldly glory through the lens of eternity.

History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China
John Van Nest Talmage
A dedicated missionary risks alienating his home church to defend the organic, self-governing unity of native Chinese Christians against imported Western denominational divisions.

The Economic Functions of Vice
John McElroy
Excess human life is culled not by nature's predators, but by the very vices of the unfit, which act as a merciful, self-administered filter for the species.

"Over There" with the Australians
R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh) Knyvett
This narrative captures the visceral reality of a soldier’s life in the Great War, blending the camaraderie of the trenches with the profound ache of longing for home. It is a candid, firsthand account of human endurance.

A Dark Chapter from New Zealand History
James Hawthorne
This account chronicles the 1868 Poverty Bay massacre, a pivotal and violent eruption during the New Zealand Wars. It serves as a stark, firsthand indictment of the colonial government’s negligence, administrative failures, and military incompetence.

This Troubled World
Eleanor Roosevelt
The world stands at a crossroads where the desire for peace is shadowed by the persistent reality of human conflict, yet the possibility for change remains within our grasp if we are willing to act.

The Florist and Horticultural Journal, Vol. II. No. 7, July, 1853: A Monthly Magazine of Horticulture, Agriculture, Botany, Agricultural Chemistry, Entomology, &c
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century horticultural gazette offers a window into the technical passions, scientific debates, and aesthetic standards of a Victorian-era gardening community. It serves as both a practical manual and a record of the era’s botanical curiosity.

The South African Question
Olive Schreiner
The South African Question is a passionate, urgent plea for political sanity and moral integrity on the precipice of the Boer War. It serves as both a historical record and a deeply personal manifesto against imperial aggression.

Excursions to Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Balbec From the United States Ship Delaware, During Her Recent Cruise: With an Attempt to Discriminate Between Truth and Error in Regard to the Sacred Places of the Holy City
George Jones
A traveler’s account of a mid-nineteenth-century naval excursion through the Levant, this narrative blends observational travelogue with a scholarly attempt to authenticate the geography of the Holy Land.

The Delinquent (Vol. IV, No. 1), January, 1914
Various
This January 1914 issue of The Delinquent serves as a vital historical record, capturing the urgent, often contradictory debates surrounding American prison reform during the early twentieth century.

The Belgian Mother, and Ballads of Battle Time
Thaddeus A. (Thaddeus Augustine) Browne
The echoes of a vanishing world meet the brutal, mud-caked reality of the Great War in these verses, bridging the gap between Victorian idealism and the tragic onset of modern industrial conflict.

Life and Travel in Lower Burmah: A Retrospect
C. T. (Charles Thomas) Paske
This memoir captures the fading echoes of a colonial officer’s life in Lower Burma, offering a contemplative look at a world transformed by the arrival of steam, telegraphy, and imperial expansion.

From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade
Frederic C. (Crawford) Curry
HOOK This account captures the transformation of a volunteer from a Canadian town into a seasoned trench soldier, documenting the brutal collision between Victorian idealism and the industrial reality of the Great War.

The exploration of Tibesti, Erdi, Borkou, and Ennedi in 1912-1917
Jean Tilho
This account documents a rigorous five-year military and scientific survey of the central Sahara, capturing a transformative era of European colonial expansion amidst the shifting sands and rising tensions of the First World War.

The neutral merchant: in relation to the law of contraband of war and blockade under the order in Council of 11th March, 1915
Francis Taylor Piggott
This legal analysis examines the collision between British naval policy and neutral trade rights during the First World War, arguing that the necessities of modern conflict fundamentally reshape traditional maritime law.

The story of the 6th Battalion, the Durham Light Infantry
Unknown
A relentless, unvarnished history of Western Front infantry combat, this chronicle follows a single British battalion through fire, mud, and total structural collapse.

Boer Politics
Yves Guyot
The bitter confrontation in South Africa exposes deep fractures between imperial ambition and entrenched pastoral autonomy.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914
Various
The humor of a nation at war finds a biting, weary, and resolute voice in these final pages of 1914. It is a chronicle of a world turning upside down, captured in the sharp wit of a weekly tradition.

Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society
Unknown
A harvest of faith is planted across the globe, as early struggles in uncharted lands transform into a sprawling, organized network of missions and native churches.

Pan-Germany
André Chéradame
The survival of global democracy depends on recognizing that a single, calculated German plan for domination—not merely the war itself—must be dismantled to ensure future peace.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 106, Vol. III, January 9, 1886
Various
A late-nineteenth-century periodical offers a varied glimpse into contemporary society, blending political reportage, serial fiction, natural history, and descriptive sketches.

Callinicus
J. B. S. (John Burdon Sanderson) Haldane
HOOK Modern civilization clings to a sentimental horror of chemical weapons, yet science proves them far more humane than the high explosives we readily accept as the tools of honorable war.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 107, Vol. III, January 16, 1886
Various
This nineteenth-century miscellany offers a panoramic window into the Victorian era, blending technical reports on maritime safety and Alaskan geography with serialized fiction and heartfelt lyrical poetry.