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The Weight of Numbers: A Novel (Books That Changed The World Ser.)
by Simon IngsWinner of the O2 X Award'Dynamic'-- Daily Telegraph 'Dazzling'-- Guardian 'Ambitious and virtuoso'-- Financial Times 'Unforgettable'-- The Times 'Ingenious... shimmering'-- New StatesmanOn July 21, 1969 two astronauts set foot on the moon; far below, in ravaged Mozambique, a young revolutionary - hailed as the saviour of his country - is murdered by a package bomb.From these two unconnected events, Simon Ings weaves a great and glittering web that entangles four lives: Anthony Burden, a mathematical genius destroyed by the beauty of numbers; Saul Cogan, transformed from prankster idealist to trafficker in the poor and dispossessed; and Stacey Chavez, ex-teenage celebrity and mediocre performance artist, hungry for fame and starved of love. All are haunted by Nick Jinks, a man who sows disaster wherever he treads.As the twentieth century unravels, Burden, Cogan, Chavez and Jinks are powerless to escape the connections that bind them. This is not fate, but its opposite: the weight of numbers.
This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War
by Samanth SubramanianSHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2015SHORTLISTED FOR RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2016In the summer of 2009, the leader of the dreaded Tamil Tiger guerrillas was killed, bringing to a bloody end the stubborn and complicated civil war in Sri Lanka. For nearly thirty years, the war's fingers had reached everywhere: into the bustle of Colombo, the Buddhist monasteries scattered across the island, the soft hills of central Sri Lanka, the curves of the eastern coast near Batticaloa and Trincomalee, and the stark, hot north. With its genius for brutality, the war left few places, and fewer people, untouched. What happens to the texture of life in a country that endures such bitter conflict? What happens to the country's soul? Samanth Subramanian gives us an extraordinary account of the Sri Lankan war and the lives it changed. Taking us to the ghosts of summers past, and to other battles from other times, he draws out the story of Sri Lanka today - an exhausted, disturbed society, still hot from the embers of the war. Through travels and conversations, he examines how people reconcile themselves to violence, how religion and state conspire, how the powerful become cruel, and how victory can be put to the task of reshaping memory and burying histories.This Divided Island is a harrowing and humane investigation of a country still inflamed.
In the Hour of Victory: SHORTLISTED FOR THE MARITIME MEDIA AWARDS
by Dr Sam WillisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 MARITIME MEDIA AWARDSBetween 1794 and 1815 the Royal Navy repeatedly crushed her enemies at sea in a period of military dominance that equals any in history. When Napoleon eventually died in exile, the Lords of the Admiralty ordered that the original dispatches from seven major fleet battles - The Glorious First of June (1794), St Vincent (1797), Camperdown (1797), The Nile (1798), Copenhagen (1801), Trafalgar (1805) and San Domingo (1806) - should be gathered together and presented to the Nation. These letters, written by Britain's admirals, captains, surgeons and boatswains and sent back home in the midst of conflict, were bound in an immense volume, to be admired as a jewel of British history. Sam Willis, one of Britain's finest naval historians, stumbled upon this collection by chance in the British Library in 2010 and soon found out that only a handful of people knew of its existence. The rediscovery of these first-hand reports, and the vivid commentary they provide, has enabled Willis to reassesses the key engagements in extraordinary and revelatory detail, and to paint an enthralling series of portraits of the Royal Navy's commanders at the time. In a compelling and dramatic narrative, In the Hour of Victory tells the story of these naval triumphs as never before, and allows us to hear once more the officer's voices as they describe the battles that made Britain great.
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years In The North Korean Gulag
by Kang Chol-Hwan Pierre Rigoulot'I beseech you to read this account' - Christopher HitchensA magnificent, harrowing testimony to the voiceless victims of North Korea.Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of a North Korean concentration camp to escape the 'hermit kingdom' and tell his story to the world. This memoir reveals the human suffering in his camp, with its forced labour, frequent public executions and near-starvation rations. Kang eventually escaped to South Korea via China to give testimony to the hardships and atrocities that constitute the lives of the thousands of people still detained in the gulags today. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this story of one young man's personal suffering finally gives eye-witness proof to this neglected chapter of modern history.
Let it be Morning
by Sayed KashuaImagine your own home surrounded by roadblocks and tanks, your water turned off and the cashpoints empty. What would you do next? A young journalist, recently married with a new baby, is seeking a quieter life away from the city and has bought a large new house in his parent's hometown, an Arab village in Israel. Nothing is as they remember: everything is smaller, the people petty and provincial and the villagers divided between sympathy for the Palestinians and dependence on the Israelis. Suddenly and shockingly, the village becomes a pawn in the power struggles of the Middle East. When Israeli tanks surround the village without warning or explanation, everyone inside is cut off from the outside world. As the situation grows increasingly tense, our hero is forced to confront what it means to be human in an inhuman situation.
Spitfire: The Biography
by Jonathan GlanceyIt is difficult to overestimate the excitement that accompanied the birth of the Spitfire. An aircraft imbued with balletic grace and extraordinary versatility, it was powered by a piston engine and a propeller, yet came tantalisingly close to breaking the sound barrier. First flown in 1936, the Spitfire soon came to symbolize Britain's defiance of Nazi Germany in the summer of 1940. Flown by pilots of many nations, it saw service as far afield as Australia and the Soviet Union. Spitfire: The Biography is a celebration of a great British invention, of the men and women who flew it and supported its development, and of the industry that manufactured both the aircraft and the Rolls-Royce engines that powered it. It is also about a boy who wished he could have been a Second World War fighter pilot and who was later able to fly the aircraft that took his father into combat.
Tribune of Rome: False God Of Rome (Vespasian #1)
by Robert FabbriONE MAN: ONE DESTINYTHE FIRST INSTALMENT IN THE VESPASIAN SERIES26 AD: Sixteen-year-old Vespasian leaves his family farm for Rome, his sights set on finding a patron and following his brother into the army. But he discovers a city in turmoil and an Empire on the brink. The aging emperor Tiberius is in seclusion on Capri, leaving Rome in the iron grip of Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard. Sejanus is ruler of the Empire in all but name, but many fear that isn't enough for him. Sejanus' spies are everywhere - careless words at a dinner party can be as dangerous as a barbarian arrow. Vespasian is totally out of his depth, making dangerous enemies (and even more dangerous friends - like the young Caligula) and soon finds himself ensnared in a conspiracy against Tiberius.With the situation in Rome deteriorating, Vespasian flees the city to take up his position as tribune in an unfashionable legion on the Balkan frontier. But even here there is no escaping the politics of Rome. Unblooded and inexperienced, he must lead his men in savage battle with hostile mountain tribes - dangerous enough without renegade Praetorians and Imperial agents trying to kill him too. Somehow, he must survive long enough to uncover the identity of the traitors behind the growing revolt...
Treason's Tide (Archives of Tyranny #1)
by Robert WiltonAn intense, imaginative and darkly atmospheric historical spy thriller - Patrick O'Brian meets John le Carré. (previously published as The Emperor's Gold)'A sparkling gem of a novel' - M C ScottJuly 1805: Napoleon's army masses across the Channel - Britain is within hours of invasion and defeat. Only one thing stands in the way - an obscure government bureau of murky origins and shadowy purpose: The Comptrollerate General for Scrutiny and Survey. And, rescued from a shipwreck, his past erased, Tom Roscarrock is their newest agent.In England, the man who recruited Roscarrock has disappeared, his agents are turning up dead, and reports of a secret French fleet are panicking the authorities. In France, a plan is underway to shatter the last of England's stability. Behind the clash of fleets and armies, there lies a secret world of intrigue, deception, treachery and violence - and Roscarrock is about to be thrown into it headfirst.
What It Is Like To Go To War
by Karl MarlantesIn 1968, at the age of 22, Karl Marlantes abandoned his Oxford University scholarship to sign up for active service with the US Marine Corps in Vietnam. Pitched into a war that had no defined military objective other than kill ratios and body counts, what he experienced over the next thirteen months in the jungles of South East Asia shook him to the core. But what happened when he came home covered with medals was almost worse. It took Karl four decades to come to terms with what had really happened, during the course of which he painstakingly constructed a fictionalized version of his war, MATTERHORN, which has subsequently been hailed as the definitive Vietnam novel.WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GO TO WAR takes us back to Vietnam, but this time there is no fictional veil. Here are the hard-won truths that underpin MATTERHORN: the author's real-life experiences behind the book's indelible scenes. But it is much more than this. It is part exorcism of Karl's own experiences of combat, part confession, part philosophical primer for the young man about to enter combat. It It is also a devastatingly frank answer to the questions 'What is it like to be a soldier?' What is it like to face death?' and 'What is it like to kill someone?'
Kamchatka
by Marcelo FiguerasWinner of the 2012 Premio Valle Translation Prize Shortlisted for the 2011 INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZEIn the forecourt of a petrol station outside of Buenos Aires, a father says goodbye to his son: 'Kamchatka,' he whispers softly into his ear. And then they part, forever. A ten-year-old boy lives in world of Superman comics and games of Risk - a world in which men have superpowers and boys can conquer the globe on a board game. But in the outside world, a military junta have taken power; and amid a political climate of fear and intimidation, people are beginning to disappear without trace... Kamchatka is a heartbreaking novel; set in Argentina during the bloody coup d'etat of 1976, it tells the enchanting story of a young boy trying to make sense of a world during a time of extraordinary upheaval.
Unmanned
by Dan FespermanAs an F-16 fighter pilot, Darwin Cole was a family man on top of his world. Now he's a washout - drunk and alone in a trailer in the Nevada desert, haunted by the memory of an Afghan child running for her life from the Predator drone he 'piloted'. Reluctantly, Cole teams up with three journalists seeking to discover the identity of the anonymous intelligence operative who called the shots in that ill-fated mission. But in a surveillance culture, even the well-intentioned must sometimes run for their lives. Especially when they're tracking leads to the very heart of that culture - in intelligence, in the military, and among the unchecked private contractors who stand to profit richly from the advancing technology... Technology not just for use 'over there', but for right here, right now.
End Game
by Matthew GlassJuly 5 2018, Masindi, Uganda:218 people are massacred when the Lord's Resistance Army attack an undefended hospital. Amongst the dead are 32 American medical volunteers. September 12, UN Security Council:The US announces its plan to eradicate the Lord's Resistance Army once and for all. But it will mean military intervention in China's African sphere of influence. The message from the Chinese is keep out. October 17, Wall Street:Stock prices tumble as a wave of uncertainty sweeps the US markets. Memories of the collapse a decade ago are still fresh, and Washington is prepared to do what it takes to prop up America's banks. But the government's concern is that this time the turmoil is orchestrated. That someone is deliberately undermining the US markets.Three unrelated incidents, or the opening moves in a much larger confrontation between two superpowers?
The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs: SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2003
by Damon GalgutSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, 2003An intense and sizzling novel seething with betrayal and political upheaval.A year ago Patrick Winter was in Namibia completing his military service. Now, during the first free elections, Patrick has returned to the country he defended; the place where he fell in love for the first and only time. With the country poised to change forever, Patrick is forced to revisit his past and scale the wall that he has built around his painful memories of love, war and loss.'An astonishingly sensitive writer.' Irish Times'Engaging and enduring... devastating in the lucidity and austere assurance of its prose.' TLS'A work whose psychological observation is as subtle as its political analysis.' The Times'A beautifully written and thoughtful meditation on love, loss and longing.' Attitude
Engines of War: How Wars Were Won and Lost on the Railways
by Christian WolmarEngines of War tells the dramatic story of how the railways revolutionized the nature of warfare, ushering in an age of industrialized conflict in which wars were fought on a previously unimaginable scale. From the moment of its first appearance, the 'iron road' not only rendered armies more mobile, but also massively increased the power and the deadliness of the weaponry available to them. Christian Wolmar's epic account of how an invention that brought prosperity in peace-time metamorphosed in time of war into a weapon of death, is counterpointed by a wealth of human stories of personal endeavour and private tragedy. Embracing every major conflict in which railways have played a part - the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the First and Second Boer Wars, the two World Wars, the Korean War and the Cold War, Engines of War is awe-inspiring tale of industrial might and the transformative power of machinery.
The Second World War: A Military History
by Gordon CorriganIn this major new history, Gordon Corrigan argues that what we call the Second World War was in fact two separate conflicts: one against Germany (and, for a while, Italy) in Western Europe, Soviet Russia and North Africa; the other against Japan in the Far East and Pacific. Each conflict had distinct causes and had to be fought in different ways against very different enemies, who rarely, if ever, coordinated their efforts. This is a new and cogent account of an immense, exhausting six-year conflict that continues to fascinate. Corrigan examines the agendas of the warring nations and offers fresh and vivid interpretations; Britain's own part in the war comes in for particularly close scrutiny: militarily, the British suffered an agonising series of defeats before the tide turned. The country emerged economically broken, with the loss of her empire a virtual certainty. The Second World War is vast in its erudition and epic in its execution. It will change forever the way we think about the titanic conflicts that dominated the years 1939 to 1945.
Matterhorn: A Novel Of The Vietnam
by Karl MarlantesWINNER OF THE FLAHERTY-DUNNAN FIRST NOVEL PRIZEFire Support Base Matterhorn: a fortress carved out of the grey-green mountain jungle. Cold monsoon clouds wreath its mile-high summit, concealing a battery of 105-mm howitzers surrounded by deep bunkers, carefully constructed fields of fire and the 180 marines of Bravo Company. Just three kilometres from Laos and two from North Vietnam, there is no more isolated outpost of America's increasingly desperate war in Vietnam.Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, 21 years old and just a few days into his 13-month tour, has barely arrived at Matterhorn before Bravo Company is ordered to abandon their mountain and sent deep in-country in pursuit of a North Vietnamese Army unit of unknown size. Beyond the relative safety of the perimeter wire, Mellas will face disease, starvation, leeches, tigers and an almost invisible enemy. Beneath the endless jungle canopy, Bravo Company will confront competing ambitions, duplicitous officers and simmering racial tensions. Behind them, always, Matterhorn. The impregnable mountain fortress they built and then abandoned, without a shot, to the North Vietnamese Army...
The Missing of the Somme (Phoenix Press Ser.)
by Geoff DyerThe Missing of the Somme has become a classic meditation upon war and remembrance. It weaves a network of myth and memory, photos and films, poetry and sculptures, graveyards and ceremonies that illuminate our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.
Free Fall: A Sniper's Story from Chechnya
by Nicolai LilinFree Fall tells the brutal engrossing story of the Second Chechen War, through the eyes of a young Russian Soldier. Nicolai Lilin was trained as a sniper in an unorthodox Russian Special Forces regiment called the Saboteurs. This hardened and close-knit band of brothers, operating beyond the control of military code, faced mercenary fighters, anti-personnel mines and torture of the most extreme kind. Free Fall offers a sniper's-eye view of one of the most controversial wars in living memory. It is unflinching, unforgiving and unputdownable.
War Experiences in Rural Germany: 1914-1923 (The Legacy of the Great War)
by Benjamin ZiemannWorld War I was a uniquely devastating total war that surpassed all previous conflicts for its destruction. But what was the reality like on the ground, for both the soldiers on the front-lines and the women on the homefront?Drawing on intimate firsthand accounts in diaries and letters, 'War Experiences in Rural Germany' examines this question in detail and challenges some strongly held assumptions about the Great War. The author makes the controversial case for the blurring of 'front' and 'homefront'. He shows that through the constant exchange of letters and frequent furloughs, rural soldiers maintained a high degree of contact with their home lives. In addition, the author provides a more nuanced interpretation of the alleged brutalizing effect of the war experience, suggesting that it was by far not as complete as has been previously understood. This pathbreaking book paints a vivid picture of the dynamics of total war on rural communities, from the calling up of troops to the reintegration of veterans into society.
Occupied Economies: An Economic History of Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1939-1945 (Occupation in Europe)
by Hein A.M. Klemann Sergei KudryashovWhat were the consequences of the German occupation for the economy of occupied Europe? After Germany conquered major parts of the European continent, it was faced with a choice between plundering the suppressed countries and using their economies to supply its needs. The choices made not only differed from country to country, but also changed over the course of the war. Individual leaders; the economic needs of the Reich; the military situation; struggles between governors of occupied countries and Berlin officials; and finally racism, all had an impact on the outcome.In some countries the emphasis was placed on production for German warfare, which kept these economies functioning. New research, presented for the first time in this book, shows that as a consequence the economic setback in these areas was limited, and therefore post-war recovery was relatively easy. However, in other countries, plundering was more characteristic, resulting in partisan activity, a collapse of normal society and a dramatic destruction not only of the economy but in some countries of a substantial proportion of the labour force. In these countries, post-war recovery was almost impossible.
Occupied Economies: An Economic History of Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1939-1945 (Occupation in Europe)
by Hein A.M. Klemann Sergei KudryashovWhat were the consequences of the German occupation for the economy of occupied Europe? After Germany conquered major parts of the European continent, it was faced with a choice between plundering the suppressed countries and using their economies to supply its needs. The choices made not only differed from country to country, but also changed over the course of the war. Individual leaders; the economic needs of the Reich; the military situation; struggles between governors of occupied countries and Berlin officials; and finally racism, all had an impact on the outcome.In some countries the emphasis was placed on production for German warfare, which kept these economies functioning. New research, presented for the first time in this book, shows that as a consequence the economic setback in these areas was limited, and therefore post-war recovery was relatively easy. However, in other countries, plundering was more characteristic, resulting in partisan activity, a collapse of normal society and a dramatic destruction not only of the economy but in some countries of a substantial proportion of the labour force. In these countries, post-war recovery was almost impossible.
A New A-Z of International Relations Theory: Crown Service In Sudan, Northern Rhodesia And Britain (Library of International Relations #Digital Original)
by Chris Farrands Imad El-Anis Roy SmithInternational Relations is a multi-disciplinary and heterogeneous subject which goes to the heart of relations between states and international organisations embracing international politics, economics, political economy, diplomatic and international history. It seeks to explain the mainsprings of global politics, is a prime field for historians and especially for political scientists. IR theory provides the essential intellectual underpinning of the discipline.
Anthems and the Making of Nation States: Identity and Nationalism in the Balkans (International Library of Twentieth Century History)
by Aleksandar Pavkovic Christopher KelenAnthems are symbolic means through which nations present themselves to the world. Accordingly, creating seven new nation states out of the bones of Yugoslavia required new anthems. Why did these new states opt for century-old national songs or, failing this, for the anthems without words? What are the images and symbols that each of these states chose as their 'national signatures' and how were these chosen? This book explores a variety of images of nationhood (or the absence of them) in the lyrics of the official anthems and of competing national songs and traces their historical trajectory from the time of their conception to their legal entrenchment. This is the first full-length study into the symbolic representations of nationhood in the recently created nation states of the Balkans.
War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy before World War I (International Library of Twentieth Century History)
by James Pettifer Tom BuchananThe history of the Balkans incorporates all the major historical themes of the 20th Century – the rise of nationalism, communism and fascism, state-sponsored genocide and urban warfare. Focusing on the centuries opening decades, War in the Balkans seeks to shed new light on the Balkan Wars through approaching each regional and ethnic conflict as a separate actor, before placing them in a wider context. Although top-down 'Great Powers' historiography is often used to describe the beginnings of the World War I, not enough attention has been paid to the events in the region in the years preceding the Archduke Ferdinand's assassination. The Balkan Wars saw the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the end of the Bulgarian Kingdom (then one of the most powerful military countries in the region), an unprecedented hardening of Serbian nationalism, the swallowing up of Slovenes, Croats and Slovaks in a larger Balkan entity, and thus set in place the pattern of border realignments which would become familiar for much of the twentieth century
Army of the Night: The Life and Death of Jean Moulin, Legend of the French Resistance (Tauris Parke Paperbacks Ser.)
by Patrick MarnhamWho was the enigmatic Jean Moulin, a man as skilled in deception as he was in acts of heroism? The memory of this French Resistance hero, who was betrayed to the Gestapo and tortured to death by Klaus Barbie, the infamous 'Butcher of Lyon', is revered alongside that of other national icons. But Moulin's story is full of unanswered questions and the truth of his life is far more complicated than the legend. Patrick Marnham, winner of the Marsh Prize for biography, thrillingly tells the epic story of France's greatest war hero, bringing to light the shadowy and often deceitful world of the French Resistance and offers a shocking conclusion to one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Second World War