Autobiography: historical, political and military Books
Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Inc Lincolns Notebooks
Book SynopsisA unique collection of the public and private words and thoughts of one of American''s greatest presidents. In addition to being one of the most admired and successful politicians in history, Abraham Lincoln was also a gifted writer whose speeches, eulogies, and addresses are both quoted often and easily recognizable all around the world. Arranged chronologically into topics such as family and friends, the law, politics and the presidency, story-telling, religion, and morality, Lincoln''s Notebooks includes his famous letters to Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, and Henry Pierce, as well as personal letters to Mary Todd Lincoln and his note to Mrs. Bixby, the mother who lost five sons during the Civil War. Also included are full texts of the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, both of Lincoln''s inaugural addresses, and his famous A House Divided speech. Additionally, rarely seen writings like poetry he composed as teenager give insig
£15.19
Little, Brown & Company Attacked
Book SynopsisThe true story of Pearl Harbor as you’ve never read it before—action-packed, informative, and told through the eyes of those on all sides of the violence who experienced the terror of the unprecedented attack firsthand. A single day changed the course of history: December 7, 1941. Nobody in America knew Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was coming. Nobody was prepared for the aftermath. Filled with firsthand accounts and photographs, this unflinching, action-packed narrative puts readers on the ground in Pearl Harbor through the stories of real stories of a diverse cast of characters. From the attackers to the attacked, daring rescues to tragic losses, unlikely survival to quick-thinking responses, learn the stories of the men, women, and children who experienced that fateful day and its aftereffects. Perfect for fans of Steven Sheinkin and Deobrah Heiligman, award-winning author Marc Favreau sheds new, compelling light onto a history we think we know, what it means to be American, and the enduring lessons from an event we never saw coming.* “A jaw-dropping account of Pearl Harbor … artfully conceived and grippingly told.”―Publishers Weekly, starred review
£14.24
The History Press Ltd The Weinsteins War
Book SynopsisA moving and unique exchange of letters between a Jewish soldier and his wife at home
£12.34
The History Press Ltd TwentyThousand Miles in a Flying Boat
Book SynopsisAir-route development in Africa was a result of Sir Alan Cobham''s 1929 flight through and round Africa in a flying-boat. Lady Cobham accompanied her husband throughout the journey. This work features Sir Alan Cobham''s account of his journey. First published in 1930, it is illustrated with over 50 photographs from the trip, from the family archive.
£13.49
The History Press Ltd Life at a Secret Location
Book SynopsisDuring the 1930s the popular press were carrying stories of a death ray that could disable aircraft, and it became such a popular notion that an investigation was carried out by a government scientist, Robert Watson-Watt. His discovery was that it was not that electro-magnetic waves could interfere with aircraft, but that aircraft could interfere with radio transmissions. The strategic importance of this was appreciated and a secret establishment was set up to develop a means of using radio transmissions to detect the approach of enemy aircraft the birth of radar. As World War II broke out Ian Goult joined this elite group of scientists aged only sixteen as a lab assistant, working on GEE, a navigational aid allowing accurate location of targets. Its success allowed Bomber command to effectively navigate as far as the Ruhr.In Secret Location, Goult describes taking part in work on radar and microwave techniques that gave Britain supremacy in the air, and greatly improved submarine detection during the Battle of the Atlantic, saving thousands of tons of materiel and many lives. Told in an engaging style, this book offers a unique insight in those men whose achievements during the war have been underappreciated, but whose efforts were a key factor in the Allied victory. Postwar, Ian Goult was closely involved in the development of ground proximity warning systems and and the very first ATOL.
£11.78
The History Press Ltd Letters from the Empire
Book SynopsisFrom 17 trunks in a Lakeland attic comes this eyewitness account of a soldier's life at a pivotal moment in the history of the British Empire. Allan Marriot Hutchins, handsome, quick-witted and adventurous, was one of thousands of young men from the shires who, in 1900, volunteered to fight determined, well-armed Boers in a war that foreshadowed the later carnage of the twentieth century, fought with maxim guns, heavy artillery and bitter reprisals against guerrillas and civilians. Allan served as a yeomanry trooper in South Africa and later as a commissioned officer in India where he distinguished himself in the Abor campaign to secure the little-explored frontier between Assam and China. His letters home and the letters he received from home and which still survive, his diaries and thoughts paint a picture of both the man and the wheels of history turning. He cannot write' said his schoolmaster but Allan can write and his writing brings to life the hardships and adventures of campaig
£13.49
Orion Publishing Co A Soldiers Song True Stories from the Falklands
Book SynopsisAn utterly compelling and much needed reminder of what war is really all about.
£7.49
Headline Publishing Group A Swimon Part in the Goldfish Bowl
Book SynopsisCarol Thatcher has one of the most famous surnames in the world.The daughter of former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher, Carol is a national treasure with a unique story to tell. Her remarkable mixture of bravery, honesty and humour won her a place in the nation''s hearts on ITV''s I''m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here...! when millions of viewers voted her the second ''Queen of the Jungle''.In this candid memoir, she tells us about what it was like to grow up as the ''Milk Snatcher''s'' daughter, sister of the infamous Mark, living a life she describes as a ''swim-on part in the goldfish bowl''.Her tales of behind-the-scenes at Number 10, her extraordinary travels, and dinners with world leaders, are both rivetingly funny and refreshingly revealing.
£10.99
New Africa Books (Pty) Ltd The House Next Door to Africa
Book Synopsis
£8.47
Acacia Tree Publishing Limited A A Savage Culture Revisited
Book Synopsis
£9.99
John Murray Press I Seek a Kind Person
Book Synopsis''I SEEK A KIND PERSON WHO WILL EDUCATE MY INTELLIGENT BOY, AGED 11.''In 1938, Jewish families are scrambling to flee Vienna. Desperate, they take out adverts offering their children into the safe keeping of readers of a British newspaper, the Manchester Guardian. The right words in the right order could mean the difference between life and death.Eighty-three years later, Guardian journalist Julian Borger comes across the advert that saved his father, Robert, from the Nazis. Robert had kept this a secret, like almost everything else about his traumatic Viennese childhood, until he took his own life. Drawn to the shadows of his family''s past and starting with nothing but a page of newspaper adverts, Borger traces the remarkable stories of his father, the other advertised children and their families, each thrown into the maelstrom of a world at war.From a Viennese radio shop to the Shanghai ghetto, internment camps and family homes Trade ReviewOne extraordinary story after another... not only forensically well-researched but tender, evocative and deeply moving -- Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape ArtistA powerful, eloquent and deeply affecting book. I loved it -- Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare With Amber EyesJulian's book is profoundly affecting, part memoir, part detective story, part history, at once elegiac and fascinating, it is so deeply relevant for our times, I zipped through it withy the deepest personal interest -- Philippe Sands, author of East West StreetIncredible... and so beautifully told. One of those books that reminds you that great sweeps of history are made up of individual human lives, as real and hopeful as any of us -- Hadley FreemanA compelling account of love, loss and great courage... Beautiful, powerfully told and deserving of the widest possible audience -- Fergal Keane, author of The MadnessA terrifying and enthralling dissection of Europe's greatest crime. Part memoir, part detective story - Borger ensures we know the full horror of the Holocaust, through his own family's experience. This work is a crucial part of the Holocaust testimonies - a dark story which we need to keep front and centre -- Alan RusbridgerA moving account of the life changing impact of acts of kindness to strangers in need... a salutary reminder for our own times -- Martin Sixsmith, author of The Lost Child of Philomena LeePoignant beyond measure. In this dark telling, there is also light -- Lyse DoucetIntensely moving... an utterly absorbing read -- Fiona Hill, author of There Is Nothing for You HereRemarkable stories told with love, insight and respect... This book is more than a poignant eulogy - it has important lessons for the modern era -- David MilibandAn extraordinary book... a work of meticulous investigation... You may think you've read everything you need to about the Holocaust, but you haven't -- Lindsey Hilsum, author of In ExtremisMagnificent... One of the best books I have read on the "second generation" literature -- Christophe Boltanski, author of The Safe HouseRaw, unflinching and honest -- Baroness Arminka Helic of Millbank, former Special Advisor to the UK Foreign SecretaryAn astonishing, moving and unflinching work of courage -- David Rohde, author of In DeepA book for anyone interested in social history and the nature of humanity... It brings a sweeping slice of history down to the very personal, the story of a father, of the decency of ordinary people. It shows that if people are given a start in life and a bit of security they can achieve great things, even in the face of terrible emotional damage -- Mick LynchMagnificent... a beautiful, heart-breaking, amazing book -- Eric Schlosser, author of Command and ControlA family memoir, a collective biography and a gripping detective story rolled into one * Guardian *'Borger's splendid narrative is as much that of a world now vanished - Habsburg Vienna and the Jews of central and eastern Europe - as it is that of survivors and the terrible burden they carried' * Irish Times *This is a compelling story, desperately sad yet shot through with moments of selflessness, hope and kindness, and Borger skilfully weaves the different strands of the narrative together * Daily Mail, Book of the Week *
£15.29
Little, Brown Book Group Friends and Enemies
Book SynopsisIncluded in The Times and Daily Telegraph Book of the Year round-ups''Friends and Enemies is an extraordinary read showing unflinching candour from a truly remarkable woman'' Elton John ''Blistering . . . shockingly candid . . . stiletto-sharp memoir of the year'' Daily Mail''Magnetic and magnificent . . . Amiel is superb, furious and, best of all, funny. Say what you like about her - and many have - but the Black Lady can write'' The TimesBarbara Amiel''s long-awaited memoir is shockingly honest, richly detailed and pulls few punches. An instinctive feminist and now a foe of feminism''s political correctness, her own memoirs cover a formidable array of experiences - political, sexual, marital and material. Born in London during the Blitz, the only consistent strain in her early life was a fierce belief in her identity as a Jew even as the Jewish community disowned her and an unquestioned Trade ReviewFriends and Enemies is an extraordinary read showing unflinching candour from a truly remarkable woman * Elton John *Magnetic and magnificent . . . Amiel is superb, furious and, best of all, funny. Say what you like about her - and many have - but the Black Lady can write -- Quentin Letts * The Times *Blistering . . . shockingly candid . . . stiletto-sharp memoir of the year * Daily Mail *Extraordinary -- Camilla Long * Sunday Times *Utterly gripping . . . [Amiel] has raised the bar stratospherically for the celebrity memoir -- Carol Midgley * The Times *Frighteningly, hilariously, gob-smackingly honest book . . . whatever you do, read this brilliant book -- Anna van Praagh * Evening Standard *I could go on reading about her life for ever . . . frank and funny -- Jan Moir * Daily Mail *A fabulous tale of sex and high society . . . 608 gloriously indiscreet pages of elegant vitriol -- Hilary Rose * The Times *A scorching memoir exposing the cut-throat world of the one per cent -- Chantal Clarendon * Daily Telegraph *Amiel is capable of taking one's breath away with her searing frankness, and, from the evidence so far presented, her book is grisly and gripping in almost equal measure . . . an absorbing historical document . . . a salacious read -- Simon Kelner * i news *Full of passion and fury . . . What a woman -- Sarah Sands * Mail on Sunday *An observant and unforgiving account of a life that "has always been a precarious mix of gutter and ballroom, of intense work and absolutely unhealthy play". Packed with enough memorable characters, household moves, dinner parties, and jewelry shopping excursions to fill at least three typical memoirs. A celebrity memoir with an uncompromising kick * Kirkus Reviews *Extraordinary . . . jaw-dropping candour . . . a terrific writer * Jewish Chronicle *Neither holds a candle to Barbara Amiel's sizzling sexpot-and-shopping extravaganza . . . entirely riveting -- Judith Woods * Mail on Sunday *Fabulously furious, frequently jaw-dropping book . . . This raging, splendid, defiant, crazy tigress of a book said it all -- Allison Pearson * Sunday Telegraph *I don't think I've enjoyed a book as much as Barbara Amiel's autobiography in years . . . Pure, wicked joy -- Anna van Praagh * Evening Standard *A beautifully written memoir that I could not put down . . . her memoir sets a new standard as an unreserved, self-deprecating narrative . . . Deploying her uncommon talent as a wordsmith, she has written a memoir that is a testament to her fearlessness in facing and admitting her own demons as well as in exposing the foibles, cruelty and failings of others -- Diane Francis * Financial Post *This is undoubtedly the autobiography of the decade. Barbara Amiel's searing - and sometimes brutal - honesty, both about herself and others, leaves the reader staggered. The fact that she has for decades been the most sexually attractive female public intellectual on either side of the Atlantic, and certainly knew it, got her into extraordinary scrapes which she describes with a political incorrectness that is as refreshing as it will be highly controversial. How one person could have lived so many starkly different lives - bikini model, gangster's moll, first female editor, TV provocateur, multi-married sexual adventuress, proud Zionist, poet's muse, Cold War warrior, titled society hostess, assiduous prison visitor, and more - is truly extraordinary. There is not a hint of self-pity despite endless opportunities for it - including a rape, an abortion, depression, and three divorces - but instead we get many abandoned, laugh-out-loud scenes and witticisms that will live with the reader for a long time. No-one expected a discreet memoir from Barbara Amiel, but few could possibly have imagined that it would be quite this powerfully, dangerously, profoundly self-revelatory * Andrew Roberts *Fabulously gutsy and revealing memoir (Daily Mail memoir of the year) -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail *An operatic reckoning -- Sarah Sands * Spectator *
£21.25
Pan Macmillan Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years
Book Synopsis‘I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest . . . But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.’ Long Walk to FreedomIn 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa’s citizens, black and white, were equal before the law. Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela’s presidential years, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term of office, but was unable to finish. Now, the acclaimed South African writer, Mandla Langa, has completed the task using Mandela’s unfinished draft and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. With a prologue by Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, the result is a vivid and inspirational account that tells the extraordinary story of the transition from decades of apartheid rule and the challenges Mandela overcame to make a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa.
£999.99
Pan Macmillan Her Father's Daughter: Two Families. One Man's
Book SynopsisThe international bestseller.From the Sunday Times bestselling author Beezy Marsh, comes a moving true story of two women fighting to survive scandal, poverty and war.When Annie marries Harry after years of heartache in a London slum she believes she's found her happy ever after. But the horrors of the Blitz soon threaten everything they hold dear. The terrible sights Harry witnesses as an air raid warden bring back traumatic memories of his time during the First World War. Suddenly Annie finds herself struggling to cope not only with life in wartime and two little children, but also with a husband who seems like a stranger.Kitty has always been protective of her little brother Harry. Hiding the scandal about their father from the world was the only way to survive as they were growing up in Newcastle. But when she discovers Harry too has a shocking secret, she is torn. Meanwhile Annie wonders why Harry refuses to discuss his life before their marriage and why she has never met his sister. Will the truth ever come to light?From the bombed-out terraces of London to the docks of Newcastle, Her Father's Daughter is Beezy Marsh's moving and poignant true story about the unbreakable bonds of family, and the power of love to heal the worst wounds.
£7.99
Random House USA Inc A Promised Land
Book SynopsisA riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • NPR • The Guardian • Marie Claire In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.
£33.75
Pan Macmillan Brothers in Arms: Real War. True Friends.
Book SynopsisDarkly funny, shockingly honest, Brothers in Arms is an unforgettable account of a soldier's tour of Afghanistan, the brutal reality of war – every scary, exciting moment – and the bonds of friendship that can never be destroyed.‘If you could choose which two limbs got blown off, what would you go for?’ Danny said. ‘Your arms or your legs?’In July 2009, Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan with the rest of The Firm – Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they’d be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon – a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for. As they fight furiously, are pushed to their limits, hemmed in by IEDs and hampered by the chain of command, Gez starts to wonder what is the point of it all. The bombs they uncover on patrol, on their stomachs brushing the sand away, are replaced the next day. Firefights are a momentary victory in a war they can see is unwinnable. Gez is a warrior – he wants more than this. But then death and injury start to take their toll on The Firm, leaving Gez with PTSD and a new battle just beginning.'Jones writes of his brothers and their Afghan experience, from its adrenalin-filled highs to the many lows, with passion and candour.' – Major Adam Jowett, bestselling author of No Way Out'A gritty, brutal book about men at war. Raw and real. Brilliant.' – Tom Marcus, author of Soldier SpyTrade ReviewA stunning account of war that gives a detailed look into the psyche of the twenty-first century British infantryman. Jones writes of his brothers and their Afghan experience, from its adrenalin-filled highs to the many lows, with passion and candour. The pace is unrelenting, whilst the epilogue stands as the sobering full stop for a generation of soldiers who campaigned in Iraq and Afghanistan. -- Major Adam Jowett, bestselling author of No Way OutA gritty, brutal book about men at war. Raw and real. Brilliant. -- Tom Marcus, bestselling author of Soldier Spy and Capture or KillAt times darkly funny, at times tragic, this is a powerful and honest book about the British soldier, about the reality of conflict and the struggles some face when they come home. -- Brian Wood MC, bestselling author of Double CrossedPowerful, raw and poignant, but also darkly funny in places. * The Times Magazine *
£17.09
Pan Macmillan Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust
Book Synopsis'The Capitol riot was our Chernobyl.'(Guardian interview, Jan 19th 2021)'An absolutely fascinating read.'Emily MaitlisJames Comey, former FBI Director and Sunday Times number one bestselling author of A Higher Loyalty, uses his long career in federal law enforcement to explore issues of justice and fairness in the US justice system.James Comey might best be known as the FBI director that Donald Trump fired in 2017, but he’s had a long, varied career in the law and justice system. He knows better than most just what a force for good the US justice system can be, and how far afield it has strayed during the Trump Presidency.In his much-anticipated follow-up to A Higher Loyalty, Comey uses anecdotes and lessons from his career to show how the federal justice system works. From prosecuting mobsters as an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York in the 1980s to grappling with the legalities of anti-terrorism work as the Deputy Attorney General in the early 2000s to, of course, his tumultuous stint as FBI director beginning in 2013, Comey shows just how essential it is to pursue the primacy of truth for federal law enforcement.Saving Justice is gracefully written and honestly told, a clarion call for a return to fairness and equity in the law.Trade ReviewAn absolutely fascinating read for anyone who wants to understand the workings of the US Justice System and American Politics more broadly. -- Emily Maitlis'The Capitol riot was our Chernobyl...I was sickened to watch an attack on the literal and symbolic heart of our democracy, and, as a law enforcement person, I was angered. I am mystified and angry that Capitol Hill wasn’t defended. It’s a hill! If you wanted to defend it, you could defend it, and for some reason it was not defended. I think that’s a 9/11-size failure and we’re going to need a 9/11-type commission to understand it so that we don’t repeat it.' (Guardian interview, 19th Jan 2021)'The Republican party needs to be burned down or changed. Something is shifting and I’m hoping it’s the fault breaking apart, a break between the Trumpists and those people who want to try and build a responsible conservative party, because everybody should know that we need one. Who would want to be part of an organisation that at its core is built on lies and racism and know-nothingism? It’s just not a healthy political organisation.' (Guardian interview, 19th Jan 2021) 'I just think, on balance, the country is better served by impeaching him [Trump], convicting him in the Senate and letting local prosecutors in New York pursue him for the fraudster he was before he took office.' (Guardian interview, 19th Jan 2021) * The Guardian interview Jan 19th, 2021 *
£18.00
John Murray Press Shortest Way Home: One mayor's challenge and a
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 *
£14.24
Rowman & Littlefield Surviving the Forgotten Genocide: An Armenian
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.
£33.41
Little, Brown & Company Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation
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.
£17.09
Little, Brown & Company Every Day Is a Gift: A Memoir
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.
£22.50
Little, Brown & Company Inside the NRA: A Tell-All Account of Corruption,
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.
£22.50
Little, Brown & Company Rocking Toward a Free World: When the
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.
£21.84
PublicAffairs,U.S. You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote
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.
£20.90
PublicAffairs,U.S. Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage,
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.
£14.24
Red Sea Press,U.S. The Crown And The Pen: The Memoirs of a Lawyer
Book SynopsisThe extraordinary memoir of a progressive lawyer who was a high-ranking official in the government of Emperor Haile Selassie.
£29.71
Interlink Publishing Group, Inc Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine, and the
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£17.09
PM Press Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong
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£17.09
Workman Publishing Of Bears and Ballots: An Alaskan Adventure in
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
£12.99
Hansib Publications Limited Reaching For The Stars: The Life of Dr Yesu
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£18.00
Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd In the dark with my dress on fire: My life in
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.
£16.10
New Internationalist Publications Ltd Confidante of Tyrants: The Story of the American
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£9.49
Verso Books An Impatient Life: A Memoir
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 *
£12.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Westminster Diary: A Reluctant Minister under
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
£42.75
Verso Books Claude Lévi-Strauss: A Critical Study of His
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 *
£28.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A Ransomed Dissident: A Life in Art Under the
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
£34.00
The History Press Ltd A Dangerous Game: Growing Up East of the Oder
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.
£12.34
The History Press Ltd Leakey's Luck: A Tank Commander with Nine Lives
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.
£12.34
The History Press Ltd The Wartime Irish Marine Service: The first-hand
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) *
£16.19
The History Press Ltd Bad Lads: RAF National Service Remembered
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.
£12.34
Atlantic Books The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and
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
£10.44
The Lilliput Press Ltd Broken Landscapes: Selected Letters from Ernie
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.
£33.25
Little, Brown Book Group Climbing The Bookshelves: The autobiography of
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.
£12.99
Nonsuch Publishing Harry Peckham's Tour
Book SynopsisHarry Peckham was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, before being called to the Bar and becoming, in time, a King's Counsel, a Commissioner for Bankrupts and Recorder of Chichester. He was also a witty rake, a keen sportsman (he was a member of the committee that drew up the laws of cricket) and a relentless tourist. Harry Peckham's Tour is a collection of letters he wrote in 1769 while travelling through the Netherlands, Belgium and France and contains insights into the society and culture of the places that he visited, including Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Paris, Rouen and Calais. Perceptive and funny, Harry Peckham's Tour is written in a very engaging style and is a delight to read. This edition contains a new introduction and notes by Martin Brayne and is the only available version of Peckham's text.
£999.99
£18.77
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC First Russia, Then Tibet: Travels Through a Changing World
Book SynopsisOver the course of several months during 1931 and 1932, Robert Byron journeyed to three countries teetering on the brink of change. In Russia, which was stricken by famine, Lenin had just died, Stalin's dictatorship was in its infancy and the Great Terror was yet to begin. Having taken the first commercial flight to India, which took a week, Byron was thrown into the tumultuous last years of the British Raj. Gandhi was imprisoned while rioting and clashes between Hindus and Muslims had become commonplace. Finally Byron entered Tibet, the forbidden country. Exploring the Land of Snows, he saw Tibet as it was when the then Dalai Lama was still ensconced in the Potala Palace, twenty years before China's invasion. Blending classic travel writing with passionate observations on the deeper political and social issues of the time, Byron writes with uncanny prescience of the eventual horrors of the Soviet Union and the downfall of the Raj. As a piece of travel literature, "First Russia, Then Tibet" is compelling and beautifully-written. As a portrait of these countries in the 1930s, it is invaluable. Ultimately, it illuminates the constant quest for meaning that underscored Robert Byron's life and travels.Trade Review'One comes away from reading him with a joyous consciousness of having seen for the first time a whole world of unsuspected things.' - Christopher Sykes; 'He would prove hugely influential: on travel literature, on conservation, and on our appreciation of Eastern cultures.' - Richard Canning, The IndependentTable of ContentsPART I: RUSSIA I. The New Jerusalem II. Creed and Observance III The Russian Aesthetic IV. Moscow V. Leningrad VI. Veliki Novgorodm VII. Early Russian Painting VIII. Yaroslavl and Sergievo IX. The Ukraine PART II: TIBET I. The Air Mail II. The Desert Lands III. Anglo-Himalaya IV. Into Tibet V. The Plains VI. The Pleasures of Gyantse VII. Lunching Out VIII. Winter Comes Early IX. A Tibetan Pilgrimage
£999.99
AK Press The Sons Of Night
Book SynopsisExamining Antoine Gimenez's memoirs.
£20.70
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A Walk On Part: The Fall of New Labour
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 *
£12.58
