Michael Brown

Poetica: is the 8th poetry collection of poet and award winning author, Michael D. Brown

Award winning author Michael D. Brown presents his 8th Poetry collection, written in China in both English and Mandarin Chinese

In the last decades of the thirteenth century the British Isles appeared to be on the point of unified rule, dominated by the lordship, law and language of the English. However by 1400 Britain and Ireland were divided between the warring kings of England and Scotland, and peoples still starkly defined by race and nation. Why did the apparent trends towards a single royal ruler, a single elite and a common Anglicised world stop so abruptly after 1300? And what did the resulting pattern of distinct nations and extensive borderlands contribute to the longer-term history of the British Isles? In this innovative analysis of a critical period in the history of the British Isles, Michael Brown addresses these fundamental questions and shows how the national identities underlying the British state today are a continuous legacy of these years. Using a chronological structure to guide the reader through the key periods of the era, this book also identifies and analyses the following dominant themes throughout:- the changing nature of kingship and sovereignty and their links to wars of conquest- developing ideas of community and identity- key shifts in the nature of aristocratic societies across the isles- the European context, particularly the roots and course of the Hundred Years WarThis is essential reading for undergraduates studying the history of late Medieval Britain or Europe, but will also be of great interest for anyone who wishes to understand the continuing legacy of the late medieval period in Britain.

John Toland was notorious. A pamphleteer, a polemicist and a prankster of the first order, modern scholarship has struggled to position his writings within the debates of his day. This study is the first to fully recount his remarkable biography, situating his writings within the controversies that sparked and shaped them.

A comprehensive history of the Death Valley Region. Beginning with the native people who inhabited the area and the eventual discovery of the area by Europeans. The book details the history of the area from its initial development of mining and transportation to its eventual development into tourism and becoming a National Park. The book includes many maps and vintage photographs of the region.

Conditioned by a childhood surrounded by the rivalries of the Stewart family, and by eighteen years of enforced exile in England, James I was to prove a king very different from his elderly and conservative forerunners. This major study draws on a wide range of sources, assessing James I’s impact on his kingdom. Michael Brown examines James’s creation of a new, prestigious monarchy based on a series of bloody victories over his rivals and symbolised by lavish spending at court. He concludes that, despite the apparent power and glamour, James I’s ‘golden age’ had shallow roots; after a life of drastically swinging fortunes, James I was to meet his end in a violent coup, a victim of his own methods. But whether as lawgiver, tyrant or martyr, James I has cast a long shadow over the history of Scotland.

When did medicine become modern? This book takes a fresh look at one of the most important questions in the history of medicine. It explores how the cultures, values and meanings of medicine were transformed across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as its practitioners came to submerge their local identities as urbane and learned gentlemen into the ideal of a nationwide and scientifically-based medical profession. Moving beyond traditional accounts of professionalisation, it demonstrates how visions of what medicine was and might be were shaped by wider social and political forces, from the eighteenth-century values of civic gentility to the radical and socially progressive ideologies of the age of reform. Focusing on the provincial English city of York, it draws on a rich and wide-ranging archival record, including letters, diaries, newspapers and portraits, to reveal how these changes took place at the level of everyday practice, experience and representation.

Award winning poet,Professor Michael D. Brown's 7th poetry collection.

In the last decades of the thirteenth century the British Isles appeared to be on the point of unified rule, dominated by the lordship, law and language of the English. However by 1400 Britain and Ireland were divided between the warring kings of England and Scotland, and peoples still starkly defined by race and nation. Why did the apparent trends towards a single royal ruler, a single elite and a common Anglicised world stop so abruptly after 1300? And what did the resulting pattern of distinct nations and extensive borderlands contribute to the longer-term history of the British Isles? In this innovative analysis of a critical period in the history of the British Isles, Michael Brown addresses these fundamental questions and shows how the national identities underlying the British state today are a continuous legacy of these years. Using a chronological structure to guide the reader through the key periods of the era, this book also identifies and analyses the following dominant themes throughout:- the changing nature of kingship and sovereignty and their links to wars of conquest- developing ideas of community and identity- key shifts in the nature of aristocratic societies across the isles- the European context, particularly the roots and course of the Hundred Years WarThis is essential reading for undergraduates studying the history of late Medieval Britain or Europe, but will also be of great interest for anyone who wishes to understand the continuing legacy of the late medieval period in Britain.

Brown's Simplified English Grammar presents English in its simplicity with illustrations students of all ages and ethnic backgrounds are sure to appreciate. The parts of speech are enumerated concisely and the mechanics of writing English sentences are handled superbly.

John Toland was notorious. A pamphleteer, a polemicist and a prankster of the first order, modern scholarship has struggled to position his writings within the debates of his day. This study is the first to fully recount his remarkable biography, situating his writings within the controversies that sparked and shaped them.

A Rapid Load Test (RLT), developed to determine the initial stiffness and bearing capacity, is an economical and practical alternative to a Static Load Test (SLT). The broad application of RLT, however, was hampered by uncertainty about the interpretation of the test results. This book offers clear guidance on the available analysis techniques and their reliability.The guidelines were related to an international standard that is drawn up by CEN and can be used in two ways:Straightforward interpretation of test results, chapters 1-3Interpretation with additional background information about the possibilities and limitations, chapters 4-8The guidelines were drawn up by the Dutch CUR-committee on rapid load testing on piles.Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the practical execution of the test and the presentation of the results. Chapter 3 gives a general overview of existing interpretation methods and refers to step-by-step descriptions of the two advised interpretation methods.The aspects that are important for the interpretation are discussed in chapter 4, also showing that the inertia of the pile should be taken into account. In clay soil the rate effect (the dependency of strength and stiffness on loading rate) is also of importance, whereas in sand and silt the generation of pore water pressures during an RLT plays a role. The velocity of the RLT is such that the reaction of sand and silt might be considered as partially drained. These guidelines indicate how these effects can be compensated to obtain the static resistance in the final results. Chapter 5 presents two interpretation methods (a method for piles in sand, gravel, silt and piles on rock and a method for piles in clay). For practical use, the methods are described in a step-by-step scheme in an appendix.

In spring 1973, Michael Brown, a young freelance travel writer, took a phone call from a friend: 'Why don't you come down to Somerset and see these things called elvers - they migrate up river at night on the high tides and the local's fish for them. It's called elvering.' And so began a lifetime's career, full of ups and downs, as a self- employed eel fisherman: from the enchantment of catching them by moonlight, to driving them in battered vans across Europe, to smoking mature eels, to selling them - Michael and his long-suffering wife Utta have never looked back. A heart-warming tale of running a small business on a shoe-string; and a passion for eels which never faded.