- Table View
- List View
Dear Mrs Bird: Cosy up with this heartwarming and heartbreaking novel set in wartime London (The Wartime Chronicles #1)
by AJ PearceRichard & Judy Book Club Pick --- Sunday Times BestsellerSet during London's blitz and filled with warmth, wit and heartbreak, Dear Mrs Bird is a wartime story about the power of friendship, the kindness of strangers and the courage of ordinary people.London, 1941. Amid the falling bombs Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming a fearless Lady War Correspondent. Unfortunately, Emmy instead finds herself employed as a typist for the terrifying Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt at Woman’s Friend magazine. Mrs Bird refuses to read, let alone answer, letters containing any form of Unpleasantness, and definitely not letters from the women the war has left lovelorn, grief-stricken or conflicted.But the thought of these desperate women waiting for an answer becomes impossible for Emmy to ignore. She decides she simply must help and secretly starts to write back – after all, what harm could that possibly do?'The most uplifting, lovely book about courage, friendship, love' – Marian Keyes'Utterly charming and helplessly funny' – Jenny Colgan'A proper comfort read' – India Knight
Death machines: The ethics of violent technologies
by Elke SchwarzAs innovations in military technologies race toward ever-greater levels of automation and autonomy, debates over the ethics of violent technologies tread water. Death Machines reframes these debates, arguing that the way we conceive of the ethics of contemporary warfare is itself imbued with a set of bio-technological rationalities that work as limits. The task for critical thought must therefore be to unpack, engage, and challenge these limits. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, the book offers a close reading of the technology-biopolitics-complex that informs and produces contemporary subjectivities, highlighting the perilous implications this has for how we think about the ethics of political violence, both now and in the future.
Decentring Security: Policing Communities at Home and Abroad
by Mark BevirContemporary security governance often relies on markets and networks to link public agencies to non-governmental actors. This book explores the rise, nature, and future of these new forms of security governance across various domestic, transnational, and international settings. The chapters reveal similarities and differences in the way security governance operates in various policy settings. The contributors argue that the similarities generally arise because policy elites, at various levels of governance, have come to believe that security depends on building resilience and communities through various joined-up arrangements, networks, and partnerships. Differences nonetheless persist because civil servants, street level bureaucrats, voluntary sector actors, and citizens all draw on diverse traditions to interpret, and at times resist, the joined-up security being promoted by these policy elites. This book therefore decentres security governance, showing how all kinds of local traditions influence the way it works in different settings. It pays particular attention to the meanings, cultures, and ideologies by which policy actors encounter, interpret, and evaluate security dilemmas. This book was originally published as a special issue in Global Crime.
Decentring Security: Policing Communities at Home and Abroad
by Mark BevirContemporary security governance often relies on markets and networks to link public agencies to non-governmental actors. This book explores the rise, nature, and future of these new forms of security governance across various domestic, transnational, and international settings. The chapters reveal similarities and differences in the way security governance operates in various policy settings. The contributors argue that the similarities generally arise because policy elites, at various levels of governance, have come to believe that security depends on building resilience and communities through various joined-up arrangements, networks, and partnerships. Differences nonetheless persist because civil servants, street level bureaucrats, voluntary sector actors, and citizens all draw on diverse traditions to interpret, and at times resist, the joined-up security being promoted by these policy elites. This book therefore decentres security governance, showing how all kinds of local traditions influence the way it works in different settings. It pays particular attention to the meanings, cultures, and ideologies by which policy actors encounter, interpret, and evaluate security dilemmas. This book was originally published as a special issue in Global Crime.
Defending the Motherland: The Soviet Women Who Fought Hitler's Aces
by Lyuba VinogradovaPlucked from every background, and led by an N.K.V.D. Major, the new recruits who boarded a train in Moscow on 16th October 1941 to go to war had much in common with millions of others across the world. What made the 586th Fighter Regiment, the 587th Heavy-bomber Regiment and the 588th Regiment of light night-bombers unique was their gender: the Soviet Union was creating the first all-female active combat units in modern history.Drawing on original interviews with surviving airwomen, Lyuba Vinogradova weaves together the untold stories of the female Soviet fighter pilots of the Second World War. From that first train journey to the last tragic disappearance, Vinogradova's panoramic account of these women's lives follows them from society balls to unmarked graves, from landmark victories to the horrors of Stalingrad. Battling not just fearsome Aces of the Luftwaffe but also patronising prejudice from their own leaders, women such as Lilya Litvyak and Ekaterina Budanova are brought to life by the diaries and recollections of those who knew them, and who watched them live, love, fight and die.
Defenses of Bermuda 1612–1995 (Fortress #112)
by Mr Adam Hook Nikolai Bogdanovic Terrance McGovern Dr Edward C. HarrisDue to its location in the western North Atlantic some 600 miles off the Carolinas and halfway between Halifax in Canada and Jamaica in the West Indies, the island of Bermuda was a key naval haven for the Royal Navy over the centuries. It was vital for the Navy first in the development of its American colonies, then during its rivalry with the United States, and finally as allies with the United States. The need to defend its 64 miles of coastline and ports has resulted in the construction of about 50 forts from 1617 to 1945 even though its total land mass is only 20.6 square miles. This led to an incredible concentration of fortifications with 2.5 forts for every square mile. Today, the legacy of these defence efforts remain either as disused structures or parks scattered throughout Bermuda, many of them now popular tourist attractions. Using stunning commissioned artwork and meticulous research, this is the fascinating story of Britain's "Gibraltar of the West†?.
Defying Vichy: Blood, Fear and French Resistance
by Robert PikeVichy France under Marshal Pétain was an authoritarian regime that sought to perpetuate a powerful place for France in the world alongside Germany. It echoed the right-wing ideals of other fascist states and was a perfect instrument for Hitler, who drew more and more power and resources from a beaten France whose people suffered. Resistance was an unknown until a small number sought to make a stand in whatever way they could. Each would play their part in destabilising the Vichy state, all the while rejecting the Nazi occupation of their eternal France. The Dordogne was one of many hotbeds of early refusal and its dramatic stories are here told against the backdrop of the rise and fall of Vichy France. These stories, like so many others of often ordinary people – men and women, young and old – tell of a period of betrayal, refusal and heroism.
Deposition 1940-1944
by Léon WerthHistorians agree: the diary of Léon Werth (1878-1955) is one of the most precious--and readable--pieces of testimony ever written about life in France under Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime. Werth was a free-spirited and unclassifiable writer. He is the author of eleven novels, art and dance criticism, acerbic political reporting, and memorable personal essays. He was Jewish, and left Paris in June 1940 to hide out in his wife's country house in Saint-Amour, a small village in the Jura Mountains. His short memoir 33 Days recounts his struggle to get there. Deposition tells of daily life in the village, on nearby farms and towns, and finally back in Paris, where he draws the portrait of a Resistance network in his apartment and writes an eyewitness report of the insurrection that freed the city in August, 1944. From Saint-Amour, we see both the Resistance in the countryside, derailing troop trains, punishing notorious collaborators--and growing repression: arrests, torture, deportation, and executions. Above all, we see how Vichy and the Occupation affect the lives of farmers and villagers and how their often contradictory attitudes evolve from 1940-1944. Werth's ear for dialogue and novelist's gift for creating characters animate the diary: in the markets and in town, we meet real French peasants and shopkeepers, railroad men and the patronne of the café at the station, schoolteachers and gendarmes. They come off the page alive, and the countryside and villages come alive with them. With biting irony, Werth records, almost daily, what Vichy-German propaganda was saying on the radio and in the press. We follow the progress of the war as people did then, day by day. These entries make interesting, often amusing reading, a stark contrast with his gripping entries on the persecution and deportation of the Jews. Deposition is a varied and complex piece of living history, and a pleasure to read.
The Desert War: Book 4 of the Ladybird Expert History of the Second World War (The Ladybird Expert Series)
by James Holland Keith BurnsPart of the ALL-NEW LADYBIRD EXPERT SERIES.____________Why was North Africa such a key component in Britain's success over Mussolini and his Italian Army?How did they blunt Italy's actions?What challenges did they face?And what new technologies were brought to bear?When fascist dictator Mussolini declared war against Britain he was taking a huge risk . . . Italy lacked natural resources, and Britain and France's wealth.He hoped to create a new Roman Empire across the Mediterranean and into Africa. And with Hitler and the Nazi's by his side he had a great chance of doing so - but what was it that stopped him?Discover the answers and more inside James Holland's The Desert War, the thrilling and accessible account that explains what happened, who the key figures were and the tactics, triumphs and failures on both sides . . .
Desperate Valour: Triumph at Anzio
by Flint WhitlockA riveting and comprehensive account of the Battle of Anzio and the Alamo-like stand of American and British troops that turned certain defeat into victory The four-month-long 1944 battle on Italy's coast, south of Rome, was one of World War II's longest and bloodiest battles. Surrounded by Nazi Germany's most fanatical troops, American and British amphibious forces endured relentless mortar and artillery barrages, aerial bombardments, and human-wave attacks by infantry with panzers. Through it all, despite tremendous casualties, the Yanks and Tommies stood side by side, fighting with, as Winston Churchill said, "desperate valour." So intense and heroic was the fighting that British soldiers were awarded two Victoria Crosses, while American soldiers received twenty-six Medals of Honor--ten of them awarded posthumously. The unprecedented defensive stand ended with the Allies breaking out of their besieged beachhead and finally reaching their goal: Rome. They had truly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Award-winning author and military historian Flint Whitlock uses official records, memoirs, diaries, letters, and interviews with participants to capture the desperate nature of the fighting and create a comprehensive account of the unrelenting slugfest at Anzio.Desperate Valour is a stirring chronicle of courage beyond measure.
Diary Of A War Bride: Marianne's Marriage Of Convenience The Warrior's Runaway Wife Diary Of A War Bride (Mills And Boon Historical Ser.)
by Lauri RobinsonThe land girl and the US Officer July 1942
Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001–2016
by Steve Coll'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial TimesFrom the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars, this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions, old contacts, favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient, but Bin Laden's successful escape, together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire which lasted many years.At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S', a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving. Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.
Disciplining the Empire: Politics, Governance, and the Rise of the British Navy (Harvard historical studies ; #v. 189)
by Sarah Kinkel“Rule Britannia! Britannia rule the waves,” goes the popular lyric. The fact that the British built the world’s greatest empire on the basis of sea power has led many to assume that the Royal Navy’s place in British life was unchallenged. Yet, as Sarah Kinkel shows, the Navy was the subject of bitter political debate. The rise of British naval power was neither inevitable nor unquestioned: it was the outcome of fierce battles over the shape of Britain’s empire and the bonds of political authority. Disciplining the Empire explains why the Navy became divisive within Anglo-imperial society even though it was also successful in war. The eighteenth century witnessed the global expansion of British imperial rule, the emergence of new forms of political radicalism, and the fracturing of the British Atlantic in a civil war. The Navy was at the center of these developments. Advocates of a more strictly governed, centralized empire deliberately reshaped the Navy into a disciplined and hierarchical force which they hoped would win battles but also help control imperial populations. When these newly professionalized sea officers were sent to the front lines of trade policing in North America during the 1760s, opponents saw it as an extension of executive power and military authority over civilians—and thus proof of constitutional corruption at home. The Navy was one among many battlefields where eighteenth-century British subjects struggled to reconcile their debates over liberty and anarchy, and determine whether the empire would be ruled from Parliament down or the people up.
Disciplining the Empire: Politics, Governance, and the Rise of the British Navy (Harvard historical studies ; #v. 189)
by Sarah Kinkel“Rule Britannia! Britannia rule the waves,” goes the popular lyric. The fact that the British built the world’s greatest empire on the basis of sea power has led many to assume that the Royal Navy’s place in British life was unchallenged. Yet, as Sarah Kinkel shows, the Navy was the subject of bitter political debate. The rise of British naval power was neither inevitable nor unquestioned: it was the outcome of fierce battles over the shape of Britain’s empire and the bonds of political authority. Disciplining the Empire explains why the Navy became divisive within Anglo-imperial society even though it was also successful in war. The eighteenth century witnessed the global expansion of British imperial rule, the emergence of new forms of political radicalism, and the fracturing of the British Atlantic in a civil war. The Navy was at the center of these developments. Advocates of a more strictly governed, centralized empire deliberately reshaped the Navy into a disciplined and hierarchical force which they hoped would win battles but also help control imperial populations. When these newly professionalized sea officers were sent to the front lines of trade policing in North America during the 1760s, opponents saw it as an extension of executive power and military authority over civilians—and thus proof of constitutional corruption at home. The Navy was one among many battlefields where eighteenth-century British subjects struggled to reconcile their debates over liberty and anarchy, and determine whether the empire would be ruled from Parliament down or the people up.
The District Nurses of Victory Walk (The District Nurse #1)
by Annie GrovesThe compelling bestseller from the author of The Mersey Daughter and Winter on the Mersey.
Division Leclerc: The Leclerc Column and Free French 2nd Armored Division, 1940–1946 (Elite)
by Raffaele Ruggeri Merlin Robinson Thomas Seignon'General Leclerc' was the nom de guerre adopted by the Gaullist officer Philippe de Hautcloque, to protect his family in occupied France. He became France's foremost fighting commander, and his armored division (the '2e DB') its most famous formation. Starting as a small scratch force of mostly African troops organised and led by Leclerc in French Equatorial Africa, it achieved early success raiding Italian and German positions in co-operation with Britain's Long Range Desert Group. Following the Allied victory in North Africa it was expanded and reorganised as a US Army-style armoured division, with American tanks and other armoured vehicles. Shipped to the UK, in spring 1944, it was assigned to Patton's US Third Army, landing in time for the Normandy breakout and being given the honour of liberating Paris in August 1944. Combining a thorough analysis of their combat and organisation with detailed colour plates of their uniforms and equipment, this is the fascinating story of Free France's most effective fighting force.
Dog Company: A True Story of American Soldiers Abandoned by Their High Command
by Lynn Vincent Roger HillThe Army does not want you to read this book. It does not want to advertise its detention system that coddles enemy fighters while putting American soldiers at risk. It does not want to reveal the new lawyered-up Pentagon war ethic that prosecutes U.S. soldiers and Marines while setting free spies who kill Americans.This very system ambushed Captain Roger Hill and his men.Hill, a West Point grad and decorated combat veteran, was a rising young officer who had always followed the letter of the military law. In 2007, Hill got his dream job: infantry commander in the storied 101st Airborne. His new unit, Dog Company, 1-506th, had just returned stateside from the hell of Ramadi. The men were brilliant in combat but unpolished at home, where paperwork and inspections filled their days.With tough love, Hill and his First Sergeant, an old-school former drill instructor named Tommy Scott, turned the company into the top performers in the battalion. Hill and Scott then led Dog Company into combat in Afghanistan, where a third of their men became battlefield casualties after just six months. Meanwhile, Hill found himself at war with his own battalion commander, a charismatic but difficult man who threatened to relieve Hill at every turn. After two of his men died on a routine patrol, Hill and a counterintelligence team busted a dozen enemy infiltrators on their base in the violent province of Wardak. Abandoned by his high command, Hill suddenly faced an excruciating choice: follow Army rules the way he always had, or damn the rules to his own destruction and protect the men he'd grown to love.
Dornier Do 335 (X-Planes #9)
by Robert Forsyth Adam Tooby Wiek Luijken Simon SchatzThe Dornier Do 335 was conceived as a high-speed, all-weather fighter, and represented the pinnacle of piston-engined aircraft design. The Do 335 was a big aircraft, weighing just over 10,000kg when laden with fuel, equipment, and pilot, yet powered by two Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines, it was capable of reaching a maximum speed of 750km/h at 6400 meters, making it the fastest piston engine aircraft produced in Germany during World War II.Some forty aircraft were built between late 1943 and the end of the war, and it was intended to deploy the type as a day fighter, bomber, night fighter, bad weather interceptor, and reconnaissance aircraft, all of which were intended to incorporate the latest armament, bomb sights, communications, and radar equipment, as well as an ejector seat. Featuring archive photography and specially commissioned artwork, this is the full story of the aircraft that the Luftwaffe hoped would turn the tide of the war.
Double Agent Victoire: Mathilde Carré and the Interallié Network
by David TremainMathilde Carré, notoriously known as La Chatte, was remarkable for all the wrong reasons. Like most spies she was temperamental, scheming and manipulative – but she was also treacherous. A dangerous mix, especially when combined with her infamous history of love affairs – on both sides. Her acts of treachery were almost unprecedented in the history of intelligence, yet her involvement in the ‘Interallié affair’ has only warranted a brief mention in the accounts of special operations in France during the Second World War. But what motivated her to betray more than 100 members of the Interallié network, the largest spy network in France? Was she the only guilty party, or were others equally as culpable? Using previously unpublished material from MI5 files, Double Agent Victoire explores the events that led to her betrayal, who may have ‘cast the first stone’, and their motivations, as well as how the lives and careers of those involved were affected. It reveals a story full of intrigue, sex, betrayal and double-dealing, involving a rich cast including members of the French Resistance, German Abwehr and British Intelligence.
The Double Game: The Demise of America's First Missile Defense System and the Rise of Strategic Arms Limitation
by James CameronHow did the United States move from a position of nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1960s to one of nuclear parity under the doctrine of mutual assured destruction in 1972? Drawing on declassified records of conversations three presidents had with their most trusted advisors, James Cameron offers an original answer to this question. John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon struggled to reconcile their personal convictions about the nuclear arms race with the views of the public and Congress. In doing so they engaged in a double game, hiding their true beliefs behind a façade of strategic language while grappling in private with the complex realities of the nuclear age. Cameron shows how, despite reservations about the nuclear buildup, Kennedy and Johnson pushed ahead with an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system for the United States, fearing the domestic political consequences of scrapping both the system and the popular doctrine of strategic superiority that underpinned it. By contrast, the abrupt decline in US public and congressional support in 1969 forced Nixon to give up America's first ABM and the US lead in offensive ballistic missiles through agreements with the Soviet Union, despite his conviction that the US needed a nuclear edge to maintain the security of the West. By placing this dynamic at the center of the story, The Double Game provides a new overarching interpretation of this pivotal period in the development of US nuclear policy and a window onto current debates over nuclear superiority, deterrence, and the future of American grand strategy.
Drones and Support for the Use of Force
by James Igoe Walsh Marcus SchulzkeCombat drones are transforming attitudes about the use of military force. Military casualties and the costs of conflict sap public support for war and for political and military leaders. Combat drones offer an unprecedented ability to reduce these costs by increasing accuracy, reducing the risks to civilians, and protecting military personnel from harm. These advantages should make drone strikes more popular than operations involving ground troops. Yet many critics believe drone warfare will make political leaders too willing to authorize wars, weakening constraints on the use of force. Because combat drones are relatively new, these arguments have been based on anecdotes, a handful of public opinion polls, or theoretical speculation. Drones and Support for the Use of Force uses experimental research to analyze the effects of combat drones on Americans’ support for the use of force. The authors’ findings—that drones have had important but nuanced effects on support for the use of force—have implications for democratic control of military action and civil-military relations and provide insight into how the proliferation of military technologies influences foreign policy.
The Drowned and the Saved: – Saltire Society History Book of The Year 2018
by Les Wilson'Next morning at about 6 o’clock my mother wakened us to say there had been a shipwreck and bodies were being washed ashore. My father had gone with others to look for survivors ... I don’t think any survivors came in at Port Ellen but bodies did.'The loss of two British ships crammed with American soldiers bound for the trenches of the First World War brought the devastation of war directly to the shores of the Scottish island of Islay.The sinking of the troopship Tuscania by a German U-Boat on 5 February 1918 was the first major loss of US troops in in the war. Eight months after the people of Islay had buried more than 200 Tuscania dead, the armed merchant cruiser Otranto collided with another troopship during a terrible storm. Despite a valiant rescue attempt by HMS Mounsay, the Otranto drifted towards Islay, hit a reef, throwing 600 men into the water. Just 19 survived; the rest were drowned or crushed by the wreckage.Based on the harrowing personal recollection of survivors and rescuers, newspaper reports and original research, Les Wilson tells the story of these terrible events, painting a vivid picture which also pays tribute to the astonishing bravery of the islanders, who risked their lives pulling men from the sea, caring for survivors and burying the dead.
Dunkirk
by A.D. Divine O.B.E.This is the story of Dunkirk and of the men who planned it (insofar as it was planned) and of the men who carried it out, and of their ships. Mr Divine, who was himself with the small boats, writes with the authority of direct knowledge. He had the assistance of the men who were intimately concerned with planning and organising the operation. This is the true story of Dunkirk from its almost nebulous beginnings to the astonishing triumph of its end.
Dutch Navies of the 80 Years' War 1568–1648 (New Vanguard)
by Peter Bull Bouko De GrootThe tiny new state of the United Provinces of the Netherlands won its independence from the mighty Spanish empire by fighting and winning the Eighty Years' War, from 1568 and 1648. In this long conflict, warfare on water played a much bigger role in determining the ultimate victor. On the high seas the fleet carved out a new empire, growing national income to such levels that it could continue the costly war for independence. Yet it was in coastal and inland waters that the most decisive battles were fought. Arguably the most decisive Spanish siege (Leiden, 1574) was broken by a fleet sailing to the rescue across flooded polders, and the battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600, the largest successful invasion fleet before World War II, was one of the most decisive battle in western history. Using detailed full colour artwork, this book shows how the Dutch navies fought worldwide in their war of independence, from Brazil to Indonesia, and from the Low Countries to Angola.