Kevin Jackson

There have been literally hundreds of books about T. E. Lawrence, best known as Lawrence of Arabia, but never a work quite like Legion. Legion tells the astonishing life story of an man who was far more than a war hero; for Lawrence was also an archaeologist, a linguist and translator, a historian and classicist, a marine engineer, an airman and one of the great English writers of the 20th century. He was also an enigma, even at times to himself, tormented by guilt and shame, by his masochism, self-loathing and his fear of his own sexuality. Legion unearths not only a trove of little-known facts and stories about Lawrence's life, but also the fascinating details of what he has meant to many people, both in his lifetime and ever since. He has been hailed as the last romantic hero, despised as an agent of imperialism, blamed for the disasters of Middle Eastern politics and admired as a genius by countless eminent people - from statesmen such as Winston Churchill and Andre Malraux, to writers such as E. M. Forster and George Bernard Shaw. And, of course, he found a new form of immortality in David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia. Legion argues that Lawrence's true genius lies not in any one of his remarkable astonishments, but in their totality. Its novel approach to the hero will delight his many fans and surprise and enlighten those who know nothing of him save the popular myth.

"History as you long to read it, charismatic, concise and unputdownable." Horatio ClareA RIVETING ACCOUNT OF THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER that looks at the reality behind the mythical status and the journey that created the New World. Most of the voyagers of that famed 1620 crossing of the Atlantic were not in fact religious pilgrims but people intent on forging a better life for themselves in the virgin territory of America's east coast. 130 hardy souls were confined in a space no bigger than a tennis court, braving the "Northern Crossing' without any firm idea of what awaited them in the New World. A rollicking rapid read, written so compellingly that the reader will feel the swell of the sea on every page. Kevin Jackson brings the stories of these great adventurers and mariners to life, all packed into just 128 pages. Published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the fabled crossing of the "Pilgrim Fathers" from Plymouth, England. The pilgrims, who held Puritan Calvinist religious beliefs, sighted land at Cape Cod and first anchored in Provincetown Harbour on November 11/12 1620. And from there went on to found the Plymouth Colony.

An informative, practical and authoritative guide that makes the argument for undertaking outdoor and adventurous learning - and offers advice for how to organise trips to enable students and teachers to get the most from them. Inspiring enthusiasm for real learning and growing, it provides opportunities for children, young people and their teachers to seek memorable experiences and develop life-long interests.

Eliotâ??s The Waste Land were published, Alfred Hitchcock directed his first feature, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Louis Armstrong took the train from New Orleans to Chicago and made Jazz the defining music of the age, and Hollywood transformed the nature of fame.

Lawrence of Arabia is widely considered one of the ten greatest films ever made - though more often by film-goers and film-makers than by critics. This monograph argues that popular wisdom is correct, and that Lean's film is a unique blend of visionary image-making, narrative power, mythopoetic charm and psychological acuteness.

This is history as you long to read it, charismatic, concise and unputdownable. - HORATIO CLARELike Sir Francis Drake and Lord Horatio Nelson in Kevin Jackson's acclaimed maritime history series, Captain James Cook was also born of humble means. The son of a Scottish farm labourer and a mother from Yorkshire, Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager on June June 1755, and would go on from his humble beginnings to become an explorer, master navigator, cartographer and one of the most celebrated naval Captains in British history. Cook's Endeavour is Jackson's masterful chronicle of Captain Cook's first Pacific Ocean voyage; a landmark journey which resulted in the mapping of largely uncharted areas of New Zealand and Australia, first encounters with aboriginal tribes and leaps and bounds in botanical discovery. Aboard the Endeavour, Cook mapped a whole new world. But Cook's historic journey was not without tribulation, or without challenge - the famed botanist Joseph Banks, Cook's contemporary and natural science expert on the Endeavour, was everything Cook was not; dapper, aristocratic, awarded with instantaneous fame for his discoveries in the aptly named Botany Bay. Cook's Endeavour is the thrilling and inspiring story of a boy, lured in his youth to the sea, who became a man forever synonymous with discovery, legacy and adventure.

The most influential voyages of all time were launched on a misunderstanding. When Columbus set sail from Spain in 1492, he had no intention of seeking out new lands. He was trying to reach China and India by a western sea route. And even after he landed on islands off the coast of America, he continued to believe that he was close to the realms of the Great Khan. COLUMBUS: THE ACCIDENTAL HERO tells the thrilling and little-known story of the reality behind the myth, and replaces the story-book Columbus by the much more fascinating and complex man who found the New World and changed our planet forever.

Withnail and I sank almost without a trace when it was first released in 1987. Financed by HandMade Films, the late George Harrison’s production company, and drawing heavily on first-time writer-director Bruce Robinson's experiences, this virtually plot-free story follows two out-of-work actors (Withnail, played by Richard E. Grant, and 'I', played by Paul McGann), eking out a living in a run-down London of the late 1960s, and embarking on a booze-fuelled weekend in the country which takes various unexpected turns. Although it initially failed to find an audience, it did not take long for the film to attract a dedicated cult following which still persists today. Lines from the film such as 'we've gone on holiday by mistake!' and 'Bring me the finest wines known to humanity!' have become popular favourites and the subject of countless internet memes. Kevin Jackson's in-depth study gives a full account of the film's origins and production history. But his main focus is the mood and magic of the film, its aesthetics and sensibility, seeking to show, without ever detracting from the film's comic brilliance, just how much more there is to Withnail and I than drunkenness and swearing. 'It is an outstandingly touching yet witheringly unsentimental drama of male friendship,' Jackson writes, 'a bleak up-ending of the English pastoral dream, a piece of ferocious verbal inventiveness' - and, without question, one of the greatest of all British films. In his new foreword to this edition, writer Bharat Tandon pays tribute to to both Withnail's peculiar genius and enduring appeal, and to his close friend Kevin Jackson.

For more than four centuries, Sir Francis Drake has been world-famous for his feats as a master mariner - the captain who "singed the King of Spain's beard" with his daredevil attack on the fleet at Cadiz, and who led the British Navy to victory against the Spanish Armada in 1588. But Drake's exploits in his earlier years, though less well known, are even more remarkable. Born into a poor, obscure family, he worked his way rapidly up in the maritime world to his first captaincy. Before long, he was the most successful of all English pirates, admired by his countrymen, hated and feared by the Spanish. Queen Elizabeth and her ministers saw the potential in this rough-mannered but enterprising young man, and gave him their blessing for the first British venture into the Pacific Ocean. This success of this voyage, which lasted for three years, exceeded their wildest hopes. Not only did Drake come home with a vast treasure of captured gold, silver and jewels; he became the first man ever to circumnavigate the globe in a single mission, and bring most of his crew home alive and well. Soon after his triumphant return, Elizabeth knighted this newly rich adventurer, and gave her blessing to his acts of pillage. It was a gesture that made war with Spain inevitable. And Drake's part in the coming war changed the course of world history. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE: THE QUEEN'S PIRATE tells the extraordinary story of Drake's early years and his journey around the world on his famous ship, the Golden Hind.

The young Charles Darwin was like a young Indiana Jones. For five years in his mid-twenties, he sailed on the BEAGLE around the world, exploring jungles, climbing mountains, trekking across deserts. With every new landfall, he had new adventures: he rode through bandit country, was thrown into jail by revolutionaries, took part in an armed raid with marines, survived two earthquakes, hunted and fished. He suffered the terrible cold and rain of Tierra del Fuego, the merciless heat of the Australian outback and the inner pangs of heartbreak. He also made the discoveries that finally led him to formulate his theory of Natural Selection as the driving force of evolution. The five-year voyage of the BEAGLE was the basis for all Darwin's later work; but it also turned him from a friendly idler into the greatest scientist of his century.

4th book in the Seven Ships series

Since the dawn of humanity, there have been individuals who want to mess around with Hidden Powers - with the Occult. Some were Mystics, some were Scientists, some were Charlatans. Some were Powerful, some were Wretched. All were pretty bonkers. From Dr. Dee to Kenneth Anger, from Mother Shipton to Madam Blavatsky, from Isaac Newton to David Bowie - centuries of eccentric, bizarre lives. Kevin Jackson and Hunt Emerson have made over 100 pages of comics dealing with the Lives of the Great Occultists. Over 40 Occultists in all, including Faust, Giordano Bruno, Strindberg, Isobel Gowdie, Kircher, William Blake, PL Travers, WB Yeats, Jack Parsons, and - repeatedly - Aleister Crowley. The comics are factual, and very funny.

Greta Garbo, the immortal goddess of the silver screen, said that she wanted to be alone. What if she had been granted that wish? What if she had travelled further and further until she arrived at the North Pole? And what if she met a faithful dog along the way...

Ruskin is one of the most influential and exhilarating writers in English. Art critic, architectural visionary, social reformer, climate warner and incomparable teacher; Ruskin's words not only transformed Victorian England but speak to us with increasing urgency today. This, the first general introduction to Ruskin for many years, places him in the social, economic and aesthetic world of Victorian Britain that he transformed - and shows how this transformation has much to teach us today. The extensive illustrations range from private notes and lecture diagrams to presentation drawings, including some of the most beautiful images of the 19th century and many never before published. Published in association with the Ruskin Foundation.

The Fourth Edition of the industry-acclaimed OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook, from four recognized experts, updated to the latest OpenStack build including Cinder, Nova, and Neutron. About This Book • Over 100 recipes created by a team of OpenStack experts • Updated to work with the latest OpenStack builds, with recipes covering the installation and use of OpenStack with Ansible • It covers topics such as Keystone, Glance, Neutron, Nova, Cinder, and more, plus recipes for OpenStack storage, networking, and orchestrating workloads • Test drive OpenStack using the accompanying Vagrant environment Who This Book Is For This book is written for cloud system engineers, system administrators, and technical architects who are moving from a virtualized environment to cloud environments. This book assumes that you are familiar with cloud computing platforms, and have knowledge of virtualization, networking, and managing Linux environments. What You Will Learn • Understand, install, configure, and manage a complete OpenStack Cloud platform using OpenStack-Ansible • Configure networks, routers, load balancers, and more with Neutron • Use Keystone to setup domains, roles, groups and user access • Learn how to use Swift and setup container access control lists • Gain hands-on experience and familiarity with Horizon, the OpenStack Dashboard user interface • Automate complete solutions with our recipes on Heat, the OpenStack Orchestration service as well as using Ansible to orchestrate application workloads • Follow practical advice and examples to run OpenStack in production In Detail This is the fourth edition of the industry-acclaimed OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook, created by four recognized OpenStack experts. It has now been updated to work with the latest OpenStack builds, using tools and processes based on their collective and vast OpenStack experience. OpenStack Open Source Cloud software is one of the most used cloud infrastructures to support a wide variety of use cases, from software development to big data analysis. It is developed by a thriving community of individual developers from around the globe and backed by most of the leading players in the cloud space today. We make it simple to implement, massively scalable, and able to store a large pool of data and networking resources. OpenStack has a strong ecosystem that helps you provision your cloud storage needs. Add OpenStack's enterprise features to reduce the cost of your business. This book will begin by showing you the steps to build up an OpenStack private cloud environment using Ansible. You'll then discover the uses of cloud services such as the identity service, image service, and compute service. You'll dive into Neutron, the OpenStack Networking service, and get your hands dirty with configuring networks, routers, load balancers, and more. You'll then gather more expert knowledge on OpenStack cloud computing by managing your cloud's security and migration. After that, we delve into OpenStack Object storage and you'll see how to manage servers and work with objects, cluster, and storage functionalities. Finally, you will learn about OpenStack dashboard, Ansible, Keystone, and other interesting topics. Style and approach Clear, step-by-step instructions coupled with practical and applicable recipes that will enable you to use and implement the latest features of OpenStack. The authors provide all the context you need around each recipe so that you can make it part of your own OpenStack solutions.