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History - Modern (1750+) — page 8
374 public-domain history - modern (1750+) books, summarised. Page 8 of 8.

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.

The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 50) November 1911
Pennsylvania Prison Society
HOOK This document serves as a window into the early twentieth-century crusade for prison reform, capturing the voices and convictions of those who sought to treat inmates as humans capable of redemption.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 45, Vol. I, November 8, 1884
Various
This collection of nineteenth-century miscellany offers a panoramic window into the Victorian imagination, blending sober scientific inquiry with the serialized dramas and light verse that defined the era's domestic reading habits.

The Royal Exchange and the Palace of Industry
Thomas Binney
The Great Exhibition of 1851 serves as a grand spiritual stage, where the marvels of human industry are reframed as humble offerings to a divine creator.

Notes and Queries, Number 44, August 31, 1850
Various
This weekly periodical serves as a Victorian-era clearinghouse for curious minds, bridging the gap between historical scholarship and the shared interests of a literate public. It represents a vibrant, collaborative effort to document the forgotten corners of human knowledge.

Rada: A Belgian Christmas Eve
Alfred Noyes
A mother’s desperate choice during a brutal military occupation forces the realization that war’s true cost is the destruction of innocence.

The Loss of His Majesty's Frigate Anson: Which was Wrecked within Three Miles of Helston, December 28, 1807 ... Also, an Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Sidney, Which Ran upon a Dangerous Rock or Shoal, May 20, 1808
Unknown
A sudden gale, navigational errors, and fierce breakers drive a British frigate onto the Cornish shore, while elsewhere, desperate crews face uncharted reefs, hostile shores, and agonizing starvation at sea.

The Survey, Volume 30, Number 2, Apr 12, 1913
Various
This archival document captures the raw, urgent pulse of American social reform at the height of the Progressive Era, documenting the efforts of a nation struggling to modernize its response to systemic inequality, disaster, and urban decay.

The Red Flower: Poems Written in War Time
Henry Van Dyke
A storm of verse rises from the shadow of the First World War, capturing the urgency, moral clarity, and mounting dread of a world descending into darkness. These poems serve as a direct, impassioned record of a crisis.

The Survey, volume 30, number 7, May 17, 1913
Various
This collection of reports from 1913 captures a pivotal moment when American social reformers began applying scientific inquiry, rigorous data collection, and legislative oversight to the nation's most pressing institutional failings.

For the Sake of the Soldier: Voluntary Work of Brisbane Women
Rita Macleod
These pages document the profound shift in the daily lives of Brisbane women who, upon the outbreak of the Great War, redirected their collective energy toward the material and moral support of the Australian Imperial Force.

History of the 11th Field Company Australian Engineers, Australian Imperial Force
Anonymous
This is a sober, meticulously detailed chronicle of a specialized military unit’s journey from the training grounds of Australia to the final, mud-choked front lines of the First World War.

The proceedings of the Canadian Eclipse Party, 1869
E. D. (Edward David) Ashe
A small team of Canadian observers races to the Iowa prairie on short notice, battling broken gear and swarming insects to capture the sky.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440: Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852
Various
From the scars of a northern flood to the vanished dodo and the rigorous waters of the Cam, this Victorian periodical maps a changing world.

Myers' Grand Hippodrome
Anonymous
Step inside a colossal travelling world of trained elephants, soaring acrobats, and fearless lion-tamers that once captivated the capitals of Europe.

New Paths through Old Palestine
Margaret Slattery
Modernity meets antiquity in a poignant journey through a land transformed by the echoes of biblical history and the scars of the Great War. This work serves as both a travelogue and a spiritual meditation on the enduring significance of the Holy Land.

Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 119, vol. III, April 4, 1886
Various
This volume offers a sprawling, eclectic glimpse into the Victorian mind, blending industrial reportage, colonial social drama, and melancholic poetry. It serves as a time capsule of an era’s curiosity, industry, and quiet anxieties.

The horrors of the Negro slavery existing in our West Indian islands
Anonymous
This document serves as an unflinching examination of the legal and moral void governing the treatment of enslaved people in British West Indian colonies at the dawn of the nineteenth century. It confronts the reality of systemic violence by grounding its argument in the cold, administrative language of official…

On the King's Service: Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms
Innes Logan
A Scottish army chaplain bears witness to the quiet fortitude, shattered bodies, and enduring faith of soldiers enduring the grim reality of Western Front trench warfare.

The Review, Vol. 1, No. 6, June 1911
Various
The American penal system stands at a crossroads, where outdated, punitive jails clash with emerging scientific and humanitarian reforms. This collection of reports captures a pivotal moment of transition for early twentieth-century social justice.

The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti
Louis Bernheimer
This is a sober, clinical dissection of the 1921 murder trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, written as a final appeal for justice while the men awaited execution. It strips away the political hysteria of the era to examine the specific evidentiary failures that led to their conviction.

The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy, January, 1863
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
Compassion and rigorous oversight shape this nineteenth-century institutional record, arguing that society must defend itself against crime while preserving the humanity of the incarcerated.

The 151st Field Artillery Brigade
Richard M. Russell
Drafted from civilian life into the newly formed National Army, ordinary citizens train rigorously, cross a dangerous ocean, and endure the brutal realities of the Western Front before the Armistice halts the thunder of their guns.

The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 40, January 1901)
Pennsylvania Prison Society
An uncompromising look at the turn-of-the-century penal system, this volume records a society's meticulous efforts to balance institutional discipline with humane reform.

Exempting the Churches: An Argument for the Abolition of This Unjust and Unconstitutional Practice
James F. (James Ferdinand) Morton
A sharp critique of the state-sanctioned financial privilege afforded to religious institutions, this work argues that tax exemption for churches is an unjust, unconstitutional subsidy that violates the foundational principles of democracy.

Notes and Queries, Number 41, August 10, 1850
Various
This Victorian periodical serves as a communal clearinghouse for historical curiosities, literary detective work, and the preservation of fading folk traditions. It provides a fascinating, unfiltered window into the mid-nineteenth-century intellectual appetite for antiquarian discovery.

Socialism Exposed
Joseph Mather
A stern, polemical critique, this work dissects the rise of early nineteenth-century utopian thought, challenging the validity of a secular paradise built upon the shifting sands of human philosophy.

Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 111, December 13, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
Various
This collection serves as a Victorian forum for the curious, where literary, historical, and linguistic mysteries are debated by scholars and enthusiasts through short, spirited exchanges of information.

On the uncertainty of the signs of murder in the case of bastard children
William Hunter
A physician challenges the lethal misconceptions surrounding infant deaths, arguing that the desperate circumstances of childbirth often look like murder to the untrained eye.

Notes and Queries, Number 37, July 13, 1850
Various
This mid-nineteenth-century periodical serves as a communal clearinghouse for historical, linguistic, and antiquarian minutiae, bridging the gap between professional scholarship and the curious amateur. It captures a vibrant, collaborative era of intellectual inquiry where no detail—from the etymology of a river to…

The improved antidote, supposed to be more active in expelling poison, than a late invention, by the Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, Bart. in which the Catholics are vindicated from his abuse, and their claims for unrestricted emancipation, considered
Philodemus
This polemic serves as a sharp, reasoned rebuttal to the inflammatory rhetoric of 1820s Irish political discourse, offering a spirited defense of civil liberties and religious tolerance during a period of intense sectarian division.

Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850
Various
This mid-century repository serves as a communal clearinghouse for the curious, where Victorian scholars and laymen trade obscure facts, solve linguistic mysteries, and preserve the disappearing fragments of local history.

The Aviator and the Weather Bureau
Ford A. (Ford Ashman) Carpenter
An early exploration of the vital partnership between pioneer aviation and meteorology, detailing flight training and upper-air studies in southern California.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435: Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852
Various
In May 1852, a popular Scottish weekly gathers public controversies, social observations, personal memoirs, and literary portraits into an engaging snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century intellectual life.

Your Boys
Gipsy Smith
Beneath the roar of artillery and the freezing cold of French cellars, ordinary soldiers find an enduring spiritual lifeline through shared hymns, quiet comfort, and simple human kindness.

Present status and prospects of the Peace Movement
Bertha von Suttner
A passionate defense of the peace movement, arguing that war is an outdated institution and that humanity's survival depends on embracing international cooperation and disarmament.