Autobiography: historical, political and military Books

Book Synopsis'The best American political biography since Obama's Dreams from My Father' GuardianNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA mayor's inspirational story of a Midwest city that has become nothing less than a blueprint for the future of American renewal.Once described by the Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of," Pete Buttigieg, the thirty-seven-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has now emerged as one of America's most visionary politicians. With soaring prose that celebrates a resurgent American Midwest, Shortest Way Home narrates the heroic transformation of a "dying city" (Newsweek) into nothing less than a shining model of urban reinvention.Elected at twenty-nine as the nation's youngest mayor, Pete Buttigieg immediately recognized that "great cities, and even great nations, are built through attention to the everyday." As Shortest Way Home recalls, the challenges were daunting?whether confronting gun violence, renaming a street in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., or attracting tech companies to a city that had appealed more to junk bond scavengers than serious investors. None of this is underscored more than Buttigieg's audacious campaign to reclaim 1,000 houses, many of them abandoned, in 1,000 days and then, even as a sitting mayor, deploying to serve in Afghanistan as a Navy officer. Yet the most personal challenge still awaited Buttigieg, who came out in a South Bend Tribune editorial, just before being reelected with 78 percent of the vote, and then finding Chasten Glezman, a middle-school teacher, who would become his partner for life.While Washington reels with scandal, Shortest Way Home, with its graceful, often humorous, language, challenges our perception of the typical American politician. In chronicling two once-unthinkable stories?that of an Afghanistan veteran who came out and found love and acceptance, all while in office, and that of a revitalized Rust Belt city no longer regarded as "flyover country" Buttigieg provides a new vision for America's shortest way home.Trade ReviewThe best American political autobiography since Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father.... Buttigieg writes unusually well for a politician.... Is it too much to imagine that America could elect a gay president? I don't think so.... Especially a man like this. -- Charles Kaiser * The Guardian *Personal, beguiling and quite moving as he talks about coming out and getting married... The story is told with brisk engagement ? it is difficult not to like him...When Obama wrote his memoir, the idea that the nation would soon put an African-American in the White House seemed beyond the realm of the possible. After reading this memoir written 25 years later, the notion that Buttigieg might be the nation's first openly gay president doesn't feel quite as far-fetched. -- Adam Nagourney * New York Times *In a sense, Buttigieg's book is a kind of antidote to J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, a story of broken people in a broken place.... This is a comeback story of a place that got hit hard, survived and then began thriving again.... It's entirely true that a leap from mayor to president has been impossible in the past. But these pages make a pretty good case that city halls just might be better training schools for the presidency than attendance at any five years of congressional hearings combined. -- E. J. Dionne Jr. * Washington Post *If you were an early Barack Obama supporter a dozen or more years ago, you recall inching forward in your chair whenever he spoke. The words were so clear, the passion so strong, the message of hope so credible.... I suggest you watch the video of Pete Buttigieg at a CNN town hall. If that piques your interest, as it did mine, read his book, Shortest Way Home. -- Peter Funt * USA Today *Endearing ... might just restore your optimism -- Harriet Alexander * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisA rare and poignant testimony of a survivor of the Armenian genocide. The twentieth century was an era of genocide, which started with the Turkish destruction of more than one million Armenian men, women, and children—a modern process of total, violent erasure that began in 1895 and exploded under the cover of the First World War. John Minassian lived through this as a teenager, witnessing the murder of his own kin, concealing his identity as an orphan and laborer in Syria, and eventually immigrating to the United States to start his life anew. A rare testimony of a survivor of the Armenian genocide, one of just a handful of accounts in English, Minassian’s memoir is breathtaking in its vivid portraits of Armenian life and culture and poignant in its sensitive recollections of the many people who harmed and helped him. As well as a searing testimony, his memoir documents the wartime policies and behavior of Ottoman officials and their collaborators; the roles played by the British, French, and Indian armies, as well as American missionaries; and the ultimate collapse of the empire. The author’s journey, and his powerful story of perseverance, despair, and survival will resonate with readers today.

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Book SynopsisCongressman John Lewis was a paragon of the Civil Rights Movement and political leadership for decades. A hero we won't soon forget, Lewis was a beacon of hope and a model of humility whose invocation to "good trouble" continues to inspire millions across our nation. In his last months on earth, even while battling cancer, he dedicated time to share his memories, beliefs, and advice-exclusively immortalized in these pages-as a message to the generations to come.Organized by topic ranging from justice, courage, faith, and forgiveness to the pandemic, mentorship, immigration, and many more besides, Carry On collects the late Congressman's thoughts for readers to draw on whenever they are in need of guidance. John Lewis had great confidence in our future, even as he died in the midst of one of our country's most challenging years to date. With this book, we can continue to learn from his perseverance, dedication, profound insight, and unwavering ability to see the good in life, and live up to the legacy he has left us.

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Book SynopsisIn EVERY DAY IS A GIFT, Tammy Duckworth takes readers through the amazing -- and amazingly true -- stories from her incomparable life. In November of 2004, an Iraqi RPG blew through the cockpit of Tammy Duckworth's U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. The explosion, which destroyed her legs and mangled her right arm, was a turning point in her life. But as Duckworth shows in EVERY DAY IS A GIFT, that moment was just one in a lifetime of extraordinary turns. The biracial daughter of an American father and a Thai-Chinese mother, Duckworth faced discrimination, poverty, and the horrors of war -- all before the age of 16. As a child, she dodged bullets as her family fled war-torn Phnom Penh. As a teenager, she sold roses by the side of the road to save her family from hunger and homelessness in Hawaii. Through these experiences, she developed a fierce resilience that would prove invaluable in the years to come. Duckworth joined the Army, becoming one of a handful of female helicopter pilots at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She served eight months in Iraq before the attack that took her legs, and nearly her life. She spent thirteen months recovering at Walter Reed, learning to walk again on prosthetic legs and planning her return to the cockpit. But she found a new mission after meeting her state's senators, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin. After winning two terms as a U.S. Representative, she won election to the U.S. Senate in 2016. And she and her husband Bryan fulfilled another dream when Duckworth gave birth to two daughters, becoming the first sitting senator to give birth. From childhood to motherhood and beyond, EVERY DAY IS A GIFT is the remarkable story of one of America's most dedicated public servants.

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Book SynopsisJoshua L. Powell is the NRA--a lifelong gun advocate, in 2016, he began his new role as a senior strategist and chief of staff to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre. What Powell uncovered was horrifying: "the waste and dysfunction at the NRA was staggering."INSIDE THE NRA reveals for the first time the rise and fall of the most powerful political organization in America--how the NRA became feared as the Death Star of Washington lobbies and so militant and extreme as "to create and fuel the toxicity of the gun debate until it became outright explosive."INSIDE THE NRA explains this intentional toxic messaging was wholly the product of LaPierre's leadership and the extremist branding by his longtime PR puppet master Angus McQueen. In damning detail, Powell exposes the NRA's plan to "pour gasoline" on the fire in the fight against gun control, to sow discord to fill its coffers, and to secure the presidency for Donald J. Trump.

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Book SynopsisStephen Colbert calls András Simonyi "the only ambassador I know who can shred a mean guitar!" In fact, Simonyi, the former Hungarian ambassador to the U.S., may be the only diplomat to also front a rock band. And as both, he has witnessed two of the most powerful forces in modern life: democracy and rock and roll. In ROCKING TOWARD A FREE WORLD, Simonyi reflects on the profound effect of those two forces in his life. He details the struggle of growing up behind the Iron Curtain in 1960s Hungary, and how under a communist regime music was powerful but furtive: records were black-market bootlegs; concerts were held in secret; protests were hidden in lyrics. To get caught meant punishment, even prison. But Simonyi was determined and knew how music could feed the culturally impoverished. Inspired by the protest music coming out of the US and the UK, he formed a band, befriended musicians, and became part of the burgeoning rock scene. There were setbacks, the oppression of the regime, and the collapse of his own dreams of stardom. But Simonyi came of age in step with his struggling homeland. By 1989, when a watershed Amnesty International concert in Budapest helped signal lasting change in Hungary, it was Simonyi, now a bureaucrat, who helped make the concert a reality. That same year, the Berlin Wall fell, and communism began its collapse. Inspiring and moving, ROCKING TOWARD A FREE WORLD shows the soft power of rock and roll as a driver of change, and how it inspired one boy to make a difference in his country and the world.

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Book SynopsisThe long buried story of three extraordinary female journalists who permanently shattered the official and cultural barriers to women covering war. Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French dare devil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual, arrived in Vietnam with starkly different life experiences but one shared purpose: to report on the most consequential story of the decade. At a time when women were considered unfit to be foreign reporters, Frankie, Catherine and Kate paid their own way to war, arrived without jobs, challenged the rules imposed on them by the military, ignored the belittlement and resentment of their male peers and found new ways to explain the war through the people who lived through it. In You Don't Belong Here, Elizabeth Becker uses these women's work and lives to illuminate the Vietnam War from the 1965 American buildup, through the Tet Offensive, the expansion into Cambodia, the American defeat and its aftermath. Arriving herself in the last years of the war, Elizabeth writes as an historian and a witness to what these women accomplished.What emerges is an unforgettable story of three journalists forging their place in a land of men, often at great personal sacrifice, and forever altering the craft of war reportage for generations. Deeply reported and filled with personal letters, interviews, and profound insight, You Don't Belong Here fills a void in the history of women and of war.

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Book SynopsisFew people have sat across from the Iranians and the North Koreans at the negotiating table. Wendy Sherman has done both. During her time as the lead US negotiator of the historic Iran nuclear deal and throughout her distinguished career, Wendy Sherman has amassed tremendous expertise in the most pressing foreign policy issues of our time. Throughout her life-from growing up in civil-rights-era Baltimore, to stints as a social worker, campaign manager, and business owner, to advising multiple presidents-she has relied on values that have shaped her approach to work and leadership: authenticity, effective use of power and persistence, acceptance of change, and commitment to the team.Not for the Faint of Heart takes readers inside the world of international diplomacy and into the mind of one of our most effective negotiators-often the only woman in the room. She shows why good work in her field is so hard to do, and how we can learn to apply core skills of diplomacy to the challenges in our own lives.

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Book SynopsisThe extraordinary memoir of a progressive lawyer who was a high-ranking official in the government of Emperor Haile Selassie.

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Book Synopsis“This book will inspire people to work with and for their neighbors in all kinds of ways!” —Bill McKibben, author of Falter Heather Lende was one of the thousands of women inspired to take an active role in politics during the past few years. Though her entire campaign for assembly member in Haines, Alaska, cost less than $1,000, she won! And tiny, breathtakingly beautiful Haines isn’t the sleepy town it appears to be. Yes, the assembly must stop bears from rifling through garbage on Main Street, but there is also a bitter debate about the fishing boat harbor and a vicious recall campaign that targets three assembly members, including Lende. In Of Bears and Ballots we witness the nitty-gritty of passing legislation, the lofty ideals of our republic, and the way our national politics play out in one small town. With her entertaining cast of offbeat but relatable characters, the writer whom the Los Angeles Times calls “part Annie Dillard, part Anne Lamott” brings us an inspirational tale about what living in a community really means, and what we owe one another.Trade Review"Written in her usual sprightly, witty, humble, effervescent style, this one will please [Lende's] fans." —Kirkus Reviews "Lende’s vivid descriptions, good-natured humor, and adoration for her quirky neighbors further energize this engaging tale." —Library Journal “A detailed and amiable chronicle of [Lende's] three-year term as assemblywoman in Haines Borough, Alaska . . . Lende successfully balances the dry facts of assembly reports with humorous character sketches and lyrical odes to the natural beauty of Alaska. The result is an honest and inspirational investigation into why 'it’s easy to say what’s wrong with government; it’s harder to fix it, and progress can be very slow.'” —Publishers Weekly “In this fraught, bewildering American era, Heather Lende’s latest memoir is a blessed balm…What a blessing Lende’s view of democracy, which she calls ‘glorious chaos,’ is in this dark era.. She reminds us about the dreams we share, especially now, as we cry for, and struggle to save, our beloved country.” – The Minneapolis Star Tribune “[Lende’s] hard-won experience serves as both a Trump-era warning and a clarion call for citizens everywhere to honor public service and the representative democracy that depends on it.” – Anchorage Daily News ““As the reader follows [Lende’s] soul-searching perseverance, a heartwarming realization of our common humanity and of our struggles to understand and live with each other shines through. This is, above all, an uplifting story of democracy at work in a far-flung, beautiful part of the U.S.” – Booklist “Heather Lende's fourth book about her hometown delightfully and insightfully explores small-town life and politics, Alaskan style.” – Shelf Awareness “Citizenship—real, active citizenship of the kind we badly need—is hard work, as this book makes clear. But it’s also rewarding in a profound way; hopefully this will inspire people to work with and for their neighbors in all kinds of ways!” —Bill McKibben, author of Falter “All politics is local, so it’s said. If you haven’t served on a local board or commission you haven’t lived. If you have served and lived through it, Heather Lende feels your pain, and will have you laughing at hers. Sometimes a first rate writer also happens to be a first rate human being. I love when that happens.” —Tom Bodett, humorist (and former chair of the Selectboard of Dummerston, Vermont) “Heather Lende has the voice of that friend down the street you love to chat with over coffee—the one who knows everything going on in town, but also knows the difference between gossip and storytelling.” —Tom Kizza, New York Times-bestselling author of Pilgrim’s Wilderness and The Wake of the Unseen Object “Heather Lende’s brave, big-hearted book about her run for local office fairly bursts with affection for her place and its people. By the end you’ll be torn between wanting to move to Haines, Alaska, and wanting Heather to take the helm of your hometown.” —Melody Warnick, author of This Is Where You Belong “An uplifting reminder that democracy works in America. While its setting is an extraordinary landscape of mountains, glaciers and the waters of Lynn Canal, the political scene and the cast of characters Lende captures will find resonance in every corner of America.” —Bruce Botelho, former Mayor of Juneau, Alaska “This book is a fine story—many beautifully-woven stories, in fact, told with compassion, wisdom and wit—about democracy, community and decency in small-town America, and how to save the best of who we are. It’s medicine for the soul. I vote for Heather Lende.” —Kim Heacox, author of John Muir and the Ice that Started a Fire “Heather Lende has captured the essence of small-town governing in a community as politically divided as our nation is today. She reminds us that public service is hard, but also meaningful.” —Fran Ulmer, former Lieutenant Governor of Alaska

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Book SynopsisIn the Dark with My Dress on Fire is the remarkable life story of Blanche La Guma, a South African woman who dedicated her life to ending apartheid through her various roles as professional nurse, wife and mother, and underground Communist activist. Born into a poor, working-class coloured family in Cape Town, Blanche met her future husband, the novelist Alex La Guma, while training as a nurse-midwife in the early 1950s. Together they fought apartheid at great personal risk before continuing the struggle in exile in London and Havana, Cuba. Harassed, banned, and imprisoned in solitary confinement for her political convictions, Blanche worked as a nurse-midwife in poor black communities on the Cape Flats. With Alex constantly detained or under house arrest, she was the family's only breadwinner, a role she would continue throughout their life together. When Blanche was not working, visiting her husband in prison, or protecting their two young sons Eugene and Barto from harassment by the security police, she met secretly at night with fellow anti-apartheid Communists. As a young nurse she led the fight against "nursing apartheid" in Cape Town and she provided safe houses for anti-apartheid leaders such as Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki. Forced into exile with her family in 1966, Blanche continued her struggle for justice in London, advocating for better maternal care in a large urban hospital and managing a Soviet Union publications office. When Alex was called to Havana, Cuba, in 1978 as chief representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Caribbean, she joined him as a full partner, which included their mentoring of ANC students sent to Cuba after the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Her story provides a rare first-hand account of life as a South African in Fidel Castro's Cuba until Alex's death by heart attack in 1985. Told vividly, passionately, and at times humorously, In the Dark with My Dress on Fire is a compelling account of Blanche La Guma's struggle against apartheid on three continents. It's the story of a courageous woman who paid dearly for her commitments yet returned with dignity to a free and democratic South Africa.

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Book SynopsisA philosopher and activist, eager to live according to ideals forged in study and discussion, Daniel Bensaïd was a man deeply entrenched in both the French and the international left. Raised in a staunchly red neighbourhood of Toulouse, where his family owned a bistro, he grew to be France's leading Marxist public intellectual, much in demand on talk shows and in the press. A lyrical essayist and powerful public speaker, at his best expounding large ideas to crowds of students and workers, he was a founder member of the Ligue Communiste and thrived at the heart of a resurgent far left in the 1960s, which nurtured many of the leading figures of today's French establishment.The path from the joyous explosion of May 1968, through the painful experience of defeat in Latin America and the world-shaking collapse of the USSR, to the neoliberal world of today, dominated as it is by global finance, is narrated in An Impatient Life with Bensaïd's characteristic elegance of phrase and clarity of vision. His memoir relates a life of ideological and practical struggle, a never-resting endeavour to comprehend the workings of capitalism in the pursuit of revolution.Trade Review"France's leading Marxist public intellectual" -- Tariq Ali"Daniel's death is like a wound, not a sadness--a loss which leaves us heavier. His is a message composed, not with words, but with decisions and acts and injuries." -- John Berger"Daniel Bensaïd was my 'distant companion.' With his disappearance, the intellectual, activist, political, and the 'revolutionary' worlds have all changed." -- Alain BadiouPart autobiography, part activist's logbook, and part political treatise, it's the story of how a working-class boy went on to co-found a party that twice participated in French presidential elections, and became a leader of the Fourth International, the global organisation of Trotskyist followers. * Independent *This absorbing, affecting memoir is a beautiful testament to a richly productive and dignified life . this is an energising book, a book that reminds us of the rightness of refusing the inevitability of capitalism and war, of the promise of international solidarity and socialism, of our responsibility to all those who have made sacrifices in this struggle. -- Dougal McNeill * ISO *Bensaïd crafts each chapter with a painter's hand, stroke by stroke, offering us musings, vignettes, and reflections that are intricately argued, sometimes speculative, and always subtly insightful. -- Alan Wald * International Socialist Review *From love to Leninism, journalism to Jewishness, Bensaïd always has something interesting and original to say. * Ken MacLeod *An honest, and often moving, chronicle of a revolutionary life in unrevolutionary times. -- Marc Mulholland * English Historical Review *

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Book SynopsisOn 2nd May 1997, Tony Blair swept into Downing Street, ending almost twenty years of Conservative government and beginning a decade as Prime Minister. Bernard Donoughue, a Labour peer in the House of Lords, chronicled the path to this momentous election victory in his diaries and this volume sheds new light on the process of forming government and on life working as a minister in the House of Lords. Infused with Donoughue's trademark wit and insight, the diaries covers daily life for a working peer - from the committees, bill discussion and public appearances to political spats - both policy-related and personal. Donoughue also casts a wry glance at a peer's extra-curricular events - from dinners and other high-profile social events to his own favourite hobby, horse-racing. Featuring a cast of high-profile political characters, this book is a must-read for fans of political diaries and anyone with an interest in the inside workings of Westminster.Trade Review'A Labour veteran's distinctive take on the Blair years, this is an indispensable volume of diaries. Bernard Donoughue is the insider's insider, a wizard amidst floundering elves. Not to be missed.' - Matthew d'Ancona, Guardian and Evening Standard columnist

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Book SynopsisAnthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was among the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. In this rigorous study, Maurice Godelier traces the evolution of his thought. Focusing primarily on Lévi-Strauss's analysis of kinship and myth, Godelier provides an assessment of his intellectual achievements and legacy. Meticulously researched, Lévi-Strauss is written in a clear and accessible style. The culmination of decades of engagement with Lévi-Strauss's work, this book will prove indispensible to students of his thought and structural anthropology more generally.Trade ReviewPraise for The Metamorphoses of KinshipThis is a blockbuster of a book. Nothing like it has been written since Lévi-Strauss's Structures élémentaires de la parenté (1949) or Meyer Fortes's Kinship and the Social Order (1969). Yet in the sweep of its evidence and argument, Godelier's summa is more ambitious and far-reaching than either of these. It is at once a major intervention in the discipline of anthropology, and a work of the widest human interest. Kinship has the reputation of being the most technical department of anthropology, the least accessible to a general public. But while Métamorphoses synthesizes a huge range of complex materials, it is written in an unfailingly lucid style that makes no assumptions of professional familiarity with terms and debates about kinship, but always takes care to explain them in language anyone can understand. The book is both a monument of scholarship and agripping set of reflections on universal experience. It is certain to be read and discussed for years to come. -- Jack Goody * New Left Review *Praise for The Metamorphoses of KinshipGodelier has reasserted the value of our rich tradition of discussions of kinship matters. He has also shown how the category has metamorphosed as it has drawn in new issues of pressing current importance in modern life and made his case that, far from being genuinely in decline, the study of kinship is central to our understanding of what it means to be human. -- Robert H. Barnes * Comparative Studies in Society and History *Praise for The Metamorphoses of KinshipIt is this constellation of world views and ways of being that we meet in Maurice Godelier's powerful and often provocative new book, The Metamorphoses of Kinship. In this timely and challenging study, Godelier heralds the revival of kinship studies within the discipline of anthropology. In striking and elucidating prose, Godelier writes both for the trained anthropologist and for the general public. This is a book that aims to introduce the merits of anthropology to a broader readership.With singular conviction and remarkable depth, Godelier traces anthropology's long courtship with kinship studies.a hopeful and compelling read. -- Fiona Murphy * Irish Times *Praise for The Metamorphoses of KinshipA truly monumental work * Times Higher Education Supplement *Praise forThe Mental and the MaterialEngaging and intriguing - Anthropology, it would seem, may yet return from the graveyard of structuralism to stir up some debate in the social sciences. * New Statesman *Praise for The Enigma of the GiftThis book restores one's faith in the anthropological project and will, I hope, mark the beginning of a new era of anthropological argumentation. one marvels at the clarity of Godelier's thought. He does not mask his central propositions in obscurantist post-modern prose. His use of abstruse concepts such as the 'real', the 'imaginary', and the 'symbolic' is not obtuse. He knows what he wants to say and his persuasive rhetoric is captivating... his use of the criticalmethod sets new standards for scholarly disputation. Godelier does not dismiss. He carefully criticises, modifies and transcends. The argument is forceful but always intellectually generous. But what really sets him apart is that the 'native point of view' is just as much the raw material for critique as is the point of view of fellow academics. As such, there is enough in this book to upset just about everybody.This provocative book is of interest not only to anthropologists and Pacific specialists, but also to historians, political scientists, religious studies specialists. Indeed, it should be read and debated by all scholars concerned with developing a critical stance on the human condition. -- Chris Gregory * Journal of Pacific History *Today, in his authoritative and unrivalled study, Maurice Godelier returns to Lévi-Strauss, the theoretician. Laying out his production in chronological order and examining it, Lévi-Strauss' former assistant at the Collège de France, and acclaimed anthropologist in his own right, Maurice Godelier has less appreciation for his style than his contemporaries: "The formulas are superb, but they are literally meaningless." At least the reader is forewarned. We are not here to chat. The book is divided in two parts: "Kinship" and "The myths". It is the first time the entire corpus of Lévi-Strauss' work has been presented in chronological order, by topic, and compared with recent research. Step by step, Godelier retraces sixty years of scholarship: we watch his thinking emerge and change, a laborer not content with a disorderly series of phenomena but who seeks the underlying rule, anonymous and silent - the rule of exchange, of marriage, of mind processes. In passing, Godelier clarifies the famous but misunderstood universality of the incest taboo and gives us access to little-known studies such as those concerning the notion of "house". But more than producing an inventory, Godelier takes stock. Against a background of unfailing admiration, Godelier points out Lévi-Strauss' deliberate omissions, his denial of the role of descent in the analysis of kinship systems, the absence of the political and religious domains in his understanding of the myths. But instead of eroding the monument, the criticism picks out its bone structure, reveals its formidable coherence and provides a better understanding of its singularity, of what makes this body of work seem such a stubborn undertaking, sometimes so sure of itself: the desire to make anthropology into a hard science that carries its reasoning through to its logical conclusions. -- Philippe Chevallier * L’Express *One would dream of seeing a study devoted to Godelier's production the likes of the one he himself has just published on Lévi-Strauss, whose assistant he was at the Collège de France after having first worked under Fernand Braudel. Godelier's Lévi-Strauss is like a Bourdieu that might have been written by Michel Foucault, a Jankelevitch by Emmanuel Lévinas or a Dumézil by Jean-Pierre Vernant: two minds viewing each other in a "mirror", the one illuminating the other. Godelier devotes himself to the most modest, attentive and insightful of critical readings (and clearly the best equipped from a scholarly standpoint). He runs Lévi-Strauss work through a veritable IRM, terming it "immense, multiple, uncommonly creative",a work that has "fecundated" the entire field of the human and social sciences. He shows its unity, its delicate architecture, the possible rebounds and developments - and also the dead-ends, the "omissions" and sometimes the errors. Maurice Godelier's book is not a homage to Lévi-Strauss; it is a homage to the scholarship, to the knowledge for which Lévi-Strauss laid the cornerstone. -- Robert Maggiori * Libération *

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Book SynopsisIn 1939, a ten-year-old Igor Golomstock accompanied his mother, a medical doctor, to the vast network of labour camps in the Russian Far East. While she tended patients, he was minded by assorted 'trusty' prisoners – hardened criminals – and returned to Moscow an almost feral adolescent, fluent in obscene prison jargon but intellectually ignorant. Despite this dubious start he became a leading art historian and co-author (with his close friend Andrey Sinyavsky) of the first, deeply controversial, monograph on Picasso published in the Soviet Union. His writings on his 43 years in the Soviet Union offer a rare insight into life as a quietly subversive art historian and the post-Stalin dissident community. In vivid prose Golomstock shows the difficulties of publishing, curating and talking about Western art in Soviet Russia and, with self-deprecating humour, the absurd tragicomedy of life for the Moscow intelligentsia during Khruschev's thaw and Brezhnev's stagnation. He also offers a unique personal perspective on the 1966 trial of Sinyavsky and Yuri Daniel, widely considered the end of Khruschev's liberalism and the spark that ignited the Soviet dissident movement. In 1972 he was given ‘permission’ to leave the Soviet Union, but only after paying a ‘ransom’ of more than 25 years’ salary, nominally intended to reimburse the state for his education. A remarkable collection of artists, scholars and intellectuals in Russia and the West, including Roland Penrose, came together to help him pay this astronomical sum. His memoirs of life once in the UK offer an insider's view of the BBC Russian Service and a penetrating analysis of the notorious feud between Sinyavsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Nominated for the Russian Booker Prize on its publication in Russian in 2014, The Ransomed Dissident opens a window onto the life of a remarkable man: a dissident of uncompromising moral integrity and with an outstanding gift for friendship.Trade ReviewWritten in brisk, engaging prose, with a salutary dash of gallows humour … So rich is it in detail of key institutions and figures that it stands in its own right as a singularly valuable record of the era and milieu … An apt companion to Golomstock’s own critical work. * Times Literary Supplement *‘Igor Golomstock was a talented critic of Russian and Western art and he had an extraordinary biography, from childhood in Kolyma to dissident years in Moscow, followed by emigration to Britain. He writes about all this like a Solzhenitsyn character come to life, and the result is gripping, sad and often very funny. A must for anyone who wants to understand Russia and Russian culture.’ -- Catriona Kelly, Professor of Russian, University of Oxford and author of St Petersburg: Shadows of the Past‘Golomstock recounts in lively style his life in three separate communities: the Moscow art world of the 1960s, the human rights movement and the post-1970s émigré milieu of London, Paris and Munich. He is an observer with strong but discriminating opinions; seldom have the personalities who inhabited these worlds – and who in many cases hated each other – been so vividly portrayed. This is an essential study for those who wish to understand the cultural and political conflicts of the late Soviet Union and the Russian emigration.’ -- Geoffrey Hosking, Emeritus Professor of Russian History, University College London and author of Russia and the Russians: From Earliest Times to the Present‘A Ransomed Dissident is Igor Golomstock’s most personal book and a perfect companion to his encyclopedic study Totalitarian Art (2012). In the past, some critics have argued that the term ‘Totalitarian Art’ was too vague and that its very vagueness made it too easy to apply the term to such different countries as Russia, Germany, Italy and China. Following Golomstock’s dramatic journey through the circles of the Soviet totalitarian art and culture, however, readers of A Ransomed Dissident will see how the supposedly vague term acquired a very real existential meaning. This is important reading for anyone with an interest in the history and politics of Russian art.’ -- Vladimir Paperny, Adjunct Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, UCLATable of ContentsList of Illustrations Translator’s Note Acknowledgements Turning Point Part I. Russia 1. My Father’s Arrest 2. Kolyma 3. Moscow 4. Finances and Romances 5. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Comrade Novikov Abram Efros and Andre´ Gide The Museum of New Western Art 6. The International Festival and Artists 7. The Sinyavskys, Khlebny Lane, the Far North 8. Dancing Around Picasso 9. The Museum Again 10. VNIITE 11. Great Expectations 12. The Sinyavsky-Daniel Trial 13. Dissidents 14. Pen Portraits of My Friends 15. Questions of Faith 16. A Waiting Game 17. Departure: An Obstacle Race Part II. Emigration Translator’s Note to Part II 18. The Journal Kontinent 19. The Anthony Blunt Affair 20. Radio Liberty, Galich 21. At the BBC 22. The Second Trial of Andrey Sinyavsky 23. Politics versus Aesthetics 24. Sinyavsky’s Last Years 25. Perestroika 26. Family Matters Instead of a Conclusion The Benefits of Pessimism Afterword Notes Dramatis Personae Appendix I Appendix II Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLuise Urban was born in 1933 into a world about to be turned upside down. Her family lived east of the river Oder. Fatefully, her family were not Nazi Party members and suffered as a result. As the Third Reich crumbled and the Red Army advanced, she was one of 15 million Germans trapped in a war zone during the terrible winter of 1945. Weakened by starvation and forced to flee their home, it was only the bravery of Luise’s mother that saved the family from total destruction.The Oder–Neisse line (Oder-Neiße-Grenze) is the German–Polish border drawn in the aftermath of the war. The line primarily follows the Oder and Neisse rivers to the Baltic Sea west of the city of Stettin. All pre-war German territory east of the line and within the 1937 German boundaries was discussed at the Potsdam Conference in 1945. Germany was to lose 25 per cent of her territory under the agreement. Crucially, Stalin, Churchill and Truman also agreed to the expulsion of the German population beyond the new eastern borders. This meant that almost all of the native German population was killed, fled or was driven out by force.In A Dangerous Game, Luise relives that harrowing time, written in memory of her mother, to whom she owes her life. It is the story of a child, but it is not a story for children.

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Book SynopsisMajor General Rea Leakey was one of the Royal Tank Regiment’s greatest heroes of the Second World War. As a young tank commander, he fought Rommel’s Afrika Korps in the Western Desert of Egypt, before becoming trapped for six months in the siege of Tobruk and temporarily joining the Australian infantry as an honorary Lance Corporal. He later returned to the European theatre in 1944 and served as a Churchill tank commander in Normandy, the Rhine and Germany. Despite it being strictly forbidden, Leakey kept a diary throughout his soldiering career. Based on this valuable account, Leakey’s Luck documents Leakey’s wartime service in its entirety, and offers a view of the war through the eyes of a man who was there at the ‘sharp end’. Many of his exploits were hair-raising, some even too fantastic to believe. Incredibly, Leakey’s luck held out throughout the war, and he remained in the British Army until retirement in 1968.

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Book Synopsis‘It was a farewell to all my pleasant life, a farewell to the enjoyment of summer. My theme was that we were all about to undergo a change. The hills and the streams would remain, the sun would set as redly on the western sea, but they would not ever be quite the same for us again.’In the 1930s, Norris Davidson was based in London, where he was involved in pioneering work on film, radio and documentaries. By the start of the 1940s, he was working in the wartime Marine Service. Davidson’s informative account of his experience in the Irish Marine Service during the Second World War gives a refreshing insight into many aspects of the defence forces preparing to defend the state to the best of its ability. Often humorous and sometimes moving, it is an engaging account that will appeal to all who are interested in Irish maritime and military history, as well as day-to-day life in 1940s Ireland.Before his death, Norris entrusted the manuscript to ex-naval officer Daire Brunicardi, who has added to the manuscript with a foreword to set the scene, as well as providing some fascinating photos and wartime ephemera.Trade ReviewFeature and author interview in Maritime Ireland Journal * Maritime Ireland Journal *A fascinating read with photographs not seen before of that period on the Naval base at Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour. * The Echo (Cork) *

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Book SynopsisBetween 1945 and 1963 over 2 1⁄2 million 18-year-olds were called up for national service. Alf Townsend was one of them, and here he tells his story – the highs and lows of life as a lowly Aircraftman Second Class in the early 1950s. Before national service intervened Alf was ‘heading down the criminal road at top speed’, having grown up in a North London slum where money was short and local villains were revered.Bad Lads is a warts and all account of Alf Townsend’s time in the RAF, when he was transplanted into a completely new world of misfits and officer types, rogues and entertainers, all amusingly described in the author’s inimitable style.

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Book Synopsis'A multiple biography with overlapping chronology is a tricky feat and Buruma pulls it off magnificently.' Ben Macintyre, The TimesOn the face of it, the three characters here seem to have little in common - aside from the fact that each committed wartime acts that led some to see them as national heroes, and others as villains. All three were mythmakers, larger-than-life storytellers, for whom the truth was beside the point. Felix Kersten was a plump Finnish pleasure-seeker who became Heinrich Himmler's indispensable personal masseur - Himmler calling him his 'magic Buddha'. Kersten presented himself after the war as a resistance hero who convinced Himmler to save countless people from mass murder. Kawashima Yoshiko, a gender fluid Manchu princess, spied for the Japanese secret police in China, and was mythologized by the Japanese as a heroic combination of Mata Hari and Joan of Arc. Friedrich Weinreb was a Hasidic Jew in Holland who took large amounts of money from fellow Jews in an imaginary scheme to save them from deportation, while in fact betraying some of them to the German secret police. Sentenced after the war as a traitor and a con artist, he is still regarded by supporters as the 'Dutch Dreyfus'. All three figures have been vilified and mythologized, out of a never-ending need, Ian Buruma argues, to see history, and particularly war, and above all World War II, as a neat tale of angels and devils. In telling their often-self-invented stories, The Collaborators offers a fascinating reconstruction of what in fact we can know about these fantasists and what will always remain out of reach. It is also an examination of the power and credibility of history: truth is always a relative concept but perhaps especially so in times of political turmoil, not unlike our own.Trade ReviewA fascinating book, sometimes disturbing, sometimes entertaining, never dull. -- Noel Malcolm * Daily Telegraph *A multiple biography with overlapping chronology is a tricky feat and Buruma pulls it off magnificently, maintaining the distinct dramas, filleting fact from fiction with sympathy and balance, but maintaining the overarching psychological narrative. He never misses a mordant aside or a telling detail... Superb. -- Ben Macintyre * The Times *Fascinating... Buruma's powerful book is also a warning for our own times. -- Rana Mitter * Financial Times *Richly enjoyable, vital and astute -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Literary Review *Fascinating * Observer *Buruma's intriguing narrative reads like a spy thriller. * Sunday Independent *In his subtle, carefully constructed book, Ian Buruma weaves their stories into an unsettling tapestry. * Times Literary Supplement *The Collaborators is at once fascinating and frightening, an apposite tract for our increasingly mendacious, treacherous times. The accounts Ian Buruma gives of the lives and dark doings of three egregious collaborators starkly illustrate our depthless capacity for betrayal and subsequent self-justification; they are also fascinating life studies. It would be shocking to be entertained by such a book, but I was. -- John BanvilleWith impressive skill and meticulous research, Buruma has woven three very different wartime characters into a fascinating tale of alternative realities, riven by mythomania, perfidy and collusion. -- Caroline MooreheadCompulsively readable as always, Buruma has taken a riveting subject - collaboration - and delved deep into it, probing concepts of national identity, self-reinvention, loyalty and treason. -- Simon CallowThese unforgettable true stories from terrible days show ruthless survivors using all the tricks of stage farce - storytelling, double-crossing, cross-dressing - to avoid the firing squads or the gas chambers. The human comedy has never been so bleak - or so human. -- James HawesMythmakers, duplicitous self-aggrandizers and deluders star in these three wartime narratives of both East and West. Ian Buruma weaves their stories together with great skill and panache, all the while challenging "history" and our own time's elision of wish and truth. -- Lisa AppignanesiWe are slowly coming to an understanding that the Second World War is a more twisted tale than our black-and-white stories about heroes made us believe. The evil guys remain evil, but what about the good ones? Time allows us a more nuanced look, and The Collaborators does a formidable job at navigating the muddy waters of an epic battle that was a challenge to each person going through it - a challenge that truly makes for an interesting history. -- Norman OhlerAt a time when manifold forms of authoritarianism are on the rise, this book could not be more welcome and necessary. By masterfully exploring the complicity, guilt and ambivalence pervading three parallel lives in imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and occupied Holland, Buruma conjures up and richly evokes a thick web of history, allowing contemporary readers to understand how easy it is to condone systematic violence and untold suffering in the name of misguided ideals. -- Ariel DorfmanBuruma sifts through his subjects' complex, multinational backgrounds in fluid prose and brings a welcome measure of sympathy to their lives without minimizing the repercussions of their actions. It's a captivating portrait of what happens when survival turns into self-deception. * Publishers Weekly *Meticulously, relentlessly, Buruma dissects these collaborators' contradictory and self-serving accounts and cross-references with other sources to get closer to the truth. A powerful exploration of complicity, ambivalence, and the human capacity for deception and self-rationalization. * Library Journal *Table of Contents1: PARADISE LOST 2: IN ANOTHER COUNTRY 3: MIRACLES 4: A LOW, DISHONEST DECADE 5: CROSSING THE LINE 6: BEAUTIFUL STORIES 7: THE SHOOTING PARTY 8: THE ENDGAME 9: FINALE 10: AFTERMATH

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Book SynopsisErnie O’Malley was a revolutionary republican and writer. One of the leading figures in the Irish independence and civil wars, he survived wounds, imprisonment and hunger strike, before going to the USA in 1928 to fundraise on de Valera’s behalf. Broken Landscapes tells of his subsequent journeys, through Europe and the Americas, where O’Malley moved in wide social circles that included Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Hart Crane and Jack B. Yeats. Back in Mayo he took up farming. In 1935 he married Helen Hooker, an American heiress, with whom he had three children, Cathal, Etain and Cormac, before a bitter separation. His literary reputation was established with a magnificent memoir, On Another Man’s Wound (1936). In later years he was close to John Ford, and worked on The Quiet Man (1952). This vibrant new collection of letters, diaries and fragments opens up the broad panorama of his life to readers. It enriches the history of Ireland’s troubled independence with reflections on loss and reconciliation. It links the old world to the new – O’Malley perched on the edge of the Atlantic, a folklore collector, art critic and radio broadcaster; autodidact, modernist and intellectual. It conducts a unique conversation with the past. In Broken Landscapes, we travel with O’Malley through Italy, the American Southwest, Mexico and points inbetween. In Taos, he mingled wiht the artistic set around D. H. Lawrence. In Ireland, he drank with Patrick Kavanagh, Liam O’Flaherty and Louis MacNiece. The young painter Louis le Brocquy was his guest on his farm in Burrishoole, Co. Mayo. These places and people remained with O’Malley in his private writing, assembled for the first time from family and institutional archives. Reading these letters, dairies and fragments is to see Ireland in the tumultuous world of the twentieth century, as if for the first time, allowing us to view the intellectual foundations of the State through the eyes of its leading chronicler.

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Book SynopsisThe role of women in our society has changed out of all recognition. But it has changed least in the House of Commons. I want to describe those changes and the resistances to them through the magnifying glass of my own life, a life that coincides with our turbulent post-war history.'Shirley Williams was born to politics. As well as being influenced by her mother, Vera Brittian, her father George Caitlin, a leading political scientist, encouraged his daughter to have high ambitions for herself - including daring to climb the bookshelves in his library. Elected as MP for Hitchin in 1964, she was a member of the Wilson and Callaghan governments and was also the Secretary of State for Education. As one of the 'Gang of Four' Shirley Williams famously broke away from the Labour Party to found the SDP in 1981 and later supported its merger with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats. CLIMBING THE BOOKSHELVES is the voice of strong and passionate woman of luminous intelligence.

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Book SynopsisExamining Antoine Gimenez's memoirs.

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Book SynopsisChris Mullin’s witty and irreverent take on contemporary politics adapted for the stage, reflecting three worlds during a time of crisis and change – the febrile political village of Westminster, the flash points of Africa which he toured as a minister, and the fragile community he served as an MP.Trade ReviewFast paced and very funny... Blending gossip, insight and details of the frustrations of ministerial and backbench life alike... [an] exhilarating adaptation...I cannot recommend it too highly. * Four Stars - Michael Billington, The Guardian *[An] absorbing evening...a bit of a must. * 4* The Telegraph *Anyone with even a passing interest in how this country has been governed over the past 15 years is advised to walk on in. Mullin's decency and ideological conviction - not to mention a wonderful sense of humour, directed at himself as well as his colleagues - guides our journey safely. It's impossible not to feel politics is the poorer without Mullin. * 4* Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisCocktails, Crises and Cockroaches is a spirited account of an unconventional career in the Foreign Office from the closing months of World War II until towards the end of the Cold War. The realities and flavours of diplomatic life – with all its frustrations, risks and comedy – are interwoven with the local colour of different overseas assignments and of the Foreign Office itself. James Reeve’s diplomatic trail is set during a turbulent period. He served in a number of postings, while the international politics of the post-war world were being formed: in Iran during the Musaddiq era, when Britain severed diplomatic relations; in New York at the time of the first meeting of the UN General Assembly; in Washington during the Suez crisis; in Southeast Asia while it appeared threatened by an apparently expansionist China; in West Germany during its ‘economic miracle’; and in Libya as Gadaffi launched his revolution. Against this varied background and the overarching security and intelligence problems of the Cold War, Reeve describes a series of more personal episodes and experiences. Travelling with a tribal leader in Iran, a midnight SOS from a blackmailed Latin American female diplomat, hill tribes and opium smuggling in the Golden Triangle - these and many other episodes drawn from a dozen foreign assignments add spice to Reeve’s memoirs.Table of ContentsItalian prelude, 1945-46; postwar Germany, 1947-49; Iran - storm clouds gather, 1949-51; London (1) - a Private Secretary, 1951-53; in the USA, 1953-57; Bangkok - the exotic east, 1957-59; London (2) - the communist satellites, 1959-61; Germany - the revival, 1961-65; Libya - the pendulum swings, 1965-69; Hungary - behind the Iron Curtain, 1970-72; London (3) - Defence Department - a short interlude, 1972-73; East Berlin - creating an embassy, 1973-75; Switzerland - Alps and gnomes, 1975-80; Italy - a completed circle, 1980-83.

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Book SynopsisThe dramatic story of Valerie and David Denison, two English schoolchildren evacuated to South Africa during the Second World War.

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Book SynopsisFrom April 1942 to March 1944, Hélène Berr, a recent graduate of the Sorbonne, kept a journal that is both an intensely moving, intimate, harrowing, appalling document and a text of astonishing literary maturity. With her colleagues, she plays the violin and she seeks refuge from the everyday in what she calls the "selfish magic" of English literature and poetry. But this is Paris under the occupation and her family is Jewish. Eventually, there comes the time when all Jews are required to wear a yellow star. She tries to remain calm and rational, keeping to what routine she can: studying, reading, enjoying the beauty of Paris. Yet always there is fear for the future, and eventually, in March 1944, Hélène and her family are arrested, taken to Drancy Transit Camp and soon sent to Auschwitz. She went - as is later discovered - on the death march to Bergen-Belsen and there she died in 1945, only five days before the liberation of the camp. The last words in the journal she had left behind in Paris were "Horror! Horror! Horror!", a hideous and poignant echo of her English studies.Hélène Berr's story is almost too painful to read, foreshadowing horror as it does amidst an enviable appetite for life, for beauty, for literature, for all that lasts.Trade ReviewAt once the diary of a young Jewish girl under the German Occupation of Paris, a work of exceptional literary quality, and a powerful historical document -- Simone Weil * L'Express *Searingly beautiful Holocaust diary... with a fluid and compelling combination of raw sensitivity, moral questioning and courageous pragmatism ... a vital, spellbinding read -- Laura Silverman * Daily Mail *There are some books that are great, not because their writers were born for literary success, but because circumstances force upon them the writing of a truly great book. Such a one is Hélène Berr's Journal * Guardian *Table of ContentsIntroduction, by David Bellos. Maps: Helene Berr's Paris; The Latin Quarter in 1942. Journal: 1942; 1943; 1944. A Letter from Helene Berr to her Sister Denise. A Stolen Life, by Mariette Job. France and the Jews, by David Bellos. Glossaries: Acronyms and Special Terms; Books Quoted by Helene Berr; Streets and Places. Index of Personal Names.

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Book SynopsisA Labour Whip once revealed that in their office they sang songs about certain backbenchers. In the case of the Member for Maryhill, their choice was ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?’A frank account of fourteen years in Westminister from the rebellious Maria Fyfe – the only female Labour MP in Scotland when she was first elected. Fyfe recounts some of the most significant moments of her political career, from the frustrating and infuriating, to the rewarding and worthwhile.A significant aim of writing this book was to set the record straight on that period in our UK Parliament. Another aim was to encourage interest in a political life when widespread cynicism discourages good people from thinking about it. MARIA FYFECovering some of the most turbulent years of British and Scottish political history, A Problem Like Maria takes the female’s perspective of life as an MP in the male-dominated Westminister. This book reaches the parts of politics some people hope you never reach. The intimidating Maria Fyfe sounds like strong Scottish domestic drama. Edward Pearce, LONDON EVENING STANDARDThe terrifying Maria Fyfe stamped in … her of the sharpened claws. Matthew Parris, THE TIMESAn incorrigible Bevanite. THE OBSERVERTrade ReviewThe intimidating Maria Fyfe sounds like strong Scottish domestic drama. Edward Pearce, LONDON EVENING STANDARDThe terrifying Maria Fyfe stamped in … her of the sharpened claws. Matthew Parris, THE TIMESAn incorrigible Bevanite. THE OBSERVER

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Book SynopsisAn engaging and insightful look at growing up in Barbados in the 1940s and 1950s through the keyhole of one man's experiences.

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Book SynopsisFirst published in Irish in 1937, this collection of journal and diary entries is a compelling first-hand account of Douglas Hyde's eight-month fundraising odyssey through the United States from 1905 to 1906. Published for the first time in a bilingual edition, complete with newly discovered archival material and extensive illustrations, this book navigates Hyde's thoughts on his journey in their original Irish, accompanied by a faithful English translation Hyde's work on this tour, undertaken on behalf of the Gaelic League, was both culturally and politically vital. The finance he raised contributed to the hiring and training of Irish-language teachers and organisers who travelled across Ireland spreading the Gaelic League message. These funds sustained the cultural revolution, which, in turn, gave rise to the political uprising from which Irish sovereignty would ultimately flow. This collection is beautifully designed and colour illustrated with a wide selection of original images and hand-written postcards. With an introduction by President Michael D. Higgins, and punctuated with entertaining pen pictures of prominent figures in US history (including President Theodore Roosevelt), this study recounts an important part in the life of one of Ireland's most under-appreciated leaders and captures an Ireland on the very brink of seismic change.Trade Review'This book seeks to address this paucity, and does so in an outstanding fashion. It recounts an important period in Douglas Hyde's life when he was at the pinnacle of his powers and captures an Ireland on the cusp of change, while bring Hyde's contributions to the revival and to the making of modern Ireland to a new audience.' Review by Bobbie Nolan, Studia Hibernica No. 48, 2022; 'Douglas Hyde's My American Journey is both a beautiful book and a profoundly important one ... My American Journey should take an honored place on the shelves of those interested in the connections between Ireland and Irish-America, and especially those with an interest in the Gaelic Revival and its distinct manifestation in the US as contrasted with (and in relationship to) its home base in Ireland. Most important, it will become a landmark in the burgeoning research lifting Douglas Hyde to the place he deserves in the historical consciousness'. Irish Literary Supplement, Spring 2021 ||| 'By the turn of the century, there were some 600 Gaelic League branches all over Ireland and up to 250,000 people taking language lessons. Hyde's league was reviving not just their heritage but their self-determination. This invaluable book gives you an insight into what drove him and how his efforts resonated across continents.' Cahir O'Doherty, Irish Central, December 2019. ||| 'Now UCD Press has produced this sumptuous edition of Hyde's My American Journey ... The present volume comprises the full Irish text and an English translation of it, and there is a fine introduction by Liam Mac Mathuna, professor emeritus of Irish at UCD.' Felix Larkin, Irish Catholic, January 2020Table of ContentsAcknowledgements IX List of Illustrations XI Maps XVI Foreword XXI Introduction XXIII MY AMERICAN JOURNEY 3 MO THURAS GO MEIRICEA 163 Notes 317 Index 346 Inneacs 354

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Book SynopsisAir Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns was commissioned at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in 1959 after completing flying training on Piston Provost and Meteor aircraft. For the next nine years, apart from a short intermission as an ADC, he served as an operational fast-jet pilot which included tours on Javelin night fighters and then fighter recce Hunters operating from Aden and Oman. Thereafter he qualified as a flying instructor, initially on the Gnat, and then the Jet Provost as a squadron commander at Cranwell. In his last year as a flying instructor he taught The Prince of Wales to wings standard. During the 1990s, Sir Richard held a succession of senior national and NATO appointments. During the first Gulf War, he was the Director of Operations in the National Joint Headquarters for all British Forces deployed to the Middle East. At the end of the conflict he led the British Recce Team to Turkey and north Iraq which resulted in the deployment of British land and air forces to the coalition that guaranteed the security of the Kurdish population in Iraq. Later, as a NATO C-in-C he was responsible for training and bringing to full operational capability the new Regional Command of Allied Forces, North West Europe. During this three-year tour, he acted as a supporting commander for joint operations in the Balkans while developing partnership for peace exercises with former Warsaw Pact countries. He returned to national duty in 1997 on his appointment as Chief of the Air Staff, responsible for the operational efficiency and morale of the Royal Air Force. During his last three years of service, the Air Chief Marshal was fully involved in the decision-making process of the Strategic Defence Review, the commitment of RAF aircraft to operations over and within Kosovo and continuing air operations over north and south Iraq. His illustrious career gave him the privilege of a rare, if not singular, perspective of the RAF, our sister services and national defence matters, witnessing a steady decline in the combat power of the UK’s armed forces as financial management took precedence over identifying strategic priorities and maintaining the vital skill-set of service personnel. His views are forensic and forthright, balanced and thought-provoking and this autobiography should be essential reading for anyone interested in the development of Allied air power over the last fifty years.

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Book SynopsisAir Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns was commissioned at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in 1959 after completing flying training on Piston Provost and Meteor aircraft. For the next nine years, apart from a short intermission as an ADC, he served as an operational fast-jet pilot which included tours on Javelin night fighters and then fighter recce Hunters operating from Aden and Oman. Thereafter he qualified as a flying instructor, initially on the Gnat, and then the Jet Provost as a squadron commander at Cranwell. In his last year as a flying instructor he taught The Prince of Wales to wings standard. During the 1990s, Sir Richard held a succession of senior national and NATO appointments. During the first Gulf War, he was the Director of Operations in the National Joint Headquarters for all British Forces deployed to the Middle East. At the end of the conflict he led the British Recce Team to Turkey and north Iraq which resulted in the deployment of British land and air forces to the coalition that guaranteed the security of the Kurdish population in Iraq. Later, as a NATO C-in-C he was responsible for training and bringing to full operational capability the new Regional Command of Allied Forces, North West Europe. During this three-year tour, he acted as a supporting commander for joint operations in the Balkans while developing partnership for peace exercises with former Warsaw Pact countries. He returned to national duty in 1997 on his appointment as Chief of the Air Staff, responsible for the operational efficiency and morale of the Royal Air Force. During his last three years of service, the Air Chief Marshal was fully involved in the decision-making process of the Strategic Defence Review, the commitment of RAF aircraft to operations over and within Kosovo and continuing air operations over north and south Iraq. His illustrious career gave him the privilege of a rare, if not singular, perspective of the RAF, our sister services and national defence matters, witnessing a steady decline in the combat power of the UK's armed forces as financial management took precedence over identifying strategic priorities and maintaining the vital skill-set of service personnel. His views are forensic and forthright, balanced and thought-provoking and this autobiography should be essential reading for anyone interested in the development of Allied air power over the last fifty years.Trade Review'An outstanding story of a distinguished airman's career ... well-illustrated ... written clearly, precisely with humour and a fantastic recall. I cannot recommend it highly enough.' The Honourable Company of Air Pilots; 'Pulls few punches... such a good read and a valuable contribution to the literature on the post-war RAF.' Aeroplane's Book of the Month (December 2018); 'A masterly autobiography, the most significant contribution to the RAF's historiography ... for many years. Entertaining and persuasive.' Air Power Review; 'Quite the best autobiography I have read on military matters for years. Should become compulsory reading for young officers.' ACM Sir Michael Graydon (CAS 1992-1997); 'A masterpiece contribution to RAF contemporary history.' ACM Sir Patrick Hine (AOC-in-C Strike Command 1988-91); 'A nicely balanced combination of history, personal reflection, honesty and insight.' ACM Sir Stephen Hillier (CAS 2016-19)

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Book SynopsisAfter being called up for National Service in July 1960, twenty-year-old Chas Hall joined the RAF and signed on to extend his time for an extra three years becoming a regular serviceman. Following initial training, he became a wireless operator and served at RAF Mildenhall. It was shortly after this that he got his first foreign posting in late 1961 to Christmas Island. It was on this island, that Chas encountered the horrors of nuclear testing. In an operation codenamed ‘Brigadoon’ by the British government and ‘Dominic’ by the Americans, Chas experienced 25 atmospheric nuclear tests. This he describes as his ‘12-month sentence’ alongside over 300 British and 10,000 American servicemen who were posted to one corner of a remote coral island. Facing Armageddon reveals the true extent of the controversial nuclear testing and how it affected servicemen; with 25 men dying during Chas’s time on Christmas Island and many more suffering mentally as they continued serving on the island. With the British government announcing medals for nuclear test veterans in November 2022 to recognise their contribution in the tests after a four-year campaign by participants and The Mirror newspaper, Chas’s story gives insight to why these servicemen deserve the recognition for their part in these tests. This book will contain a number of unpublished photos from the author’s personal collection and is an essential piece of work in understanding the tough conditions servicemen faced during their time on Christmas Island.

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Book SynopsisMacLellan’s reminiscences were first recorded in Gaelic in the early 1960s, and later transcribed and translated by John Lorne Campbell into this outstanding English language autobiography. Written in an unusual yet captivating prose style, this is a life story in the oral tradition. Born in 1869 into a poverty-stricken crofting community on South Uist, Angus MacLellan spent his childhood and youth with his family before travelling to the island to find work first in the militia and then on the farms of the mainland. His travels came to an end when he returned to assist, and eventually to succeed his parents on their croft on South Uist in 1900.

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Book SynopsisA wonderfully vivid picture of the life of a distinguished and much respected Royal Engineer. Ian McGill’s plain speaking insights, told with a human touch, provide an absorbing account of his childhood and subsequent military career, enriched with tales of family life. From the antics of maize-stealing baboons, the horrors of the conflict in Northern Ireland to the complexities of more recent military deployments, the book’s title says it all.

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Book SynopsisThis authentic account is a tribute to the courage and resolve with which soldiers and their loved ones confront uncertainty, fear, hardship and the loss of their comrades. Subjected to continual changes of affiliation as the Falklands campaign unfolds, 2 Troop has to create its own identity and sense of belonging drawing on its professional belief, strength of leadership, and intrinsic camaraderie. This is the story of how they did it, and the contribution they made, in one of the toughest campaigns since World War 2. A ‘must read’ for aspiring junior commanders and students of the realities of war.

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Book SynopsisMany a loft is full of family memorabilia, but Bryony Hill’s collection is extraordinary. Packed to the rafters with photographs and historical documents, Bryony Hill has finally achieved her dream of studying those precious albums to reveal a record of her British family who left the Highlands for India during the reign of George III, continuing through to the reign of Queen Victoria, the high noon of the Raj. In Scotland to Shalimar – a Family’s Life in India you’ll find family portraits dating back to the 18th century, her ancestor’s watercolour images and precious sketches that mingle amongst favourite family recipes, stories of courage, riddles and rhymes – all collected through the generations. This well-researched, fascinating book creates a vivid and unique portrait of life at different stages in the ever-fascinating history of the British and their on-going relationship with India.Trade Review‘This is a charming book, which captures a side of our history seldom remembered; stoicism and invention in India before the dawn of the Raj, delight in the flowers and landscape, filling time during long days in a foreign land newly under British rule, and a sense of cheerful duty when confronted with the unexpected…Completely enchanting’; Joanna Lumley OBE FRGS

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Book SynopsisAs we move towards an inevitably, increasingly, uncertain future how do we fit into the swirling patterns? Taking its bearings from Tennyson's sunset classic about a king at the end of his odyssey, Hungry Heart Roamingis a poignant, intelligent memoir of a life lived loving words, places and people a life as an odyssey sans pareil. Essayistic, aphoristic, and affirming, the bookmeanders between two ''in-between'' places. On one beach, a young boy with his grandmother, at the turn of the tide, and on another beach, a grandfather with another young boy, when the tide begins to wane. In between it wanders through a lost and perhaps more hopeful Europe. Remembering with affection the ignorant and thoughtless visions of youth, the journey maps the loss of innocence and its replacement, by something that feels like understanding, and acceptance.

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