Mid 20th Century: Inter-War and World War II

Comrades 15% off

Service, Robert Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £21.25 — You save £3.75  <convert> 

From Marx to Mao, from Engels to Allende, from Lenin and Stalin to Ceaucescu and Castro, "Comrades" tells the story of communism from its inception to the present day. It offers a succession of incisive pen-portraits of outstanding leaders and decisive events and spans the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. It draws on material from many national collections and several major languages and is the most up-to-date account produced since the 1960s. Ranging across not only the high politics and ideology of the most prominent communist regimes but also daily life under communism, culture and propaganda, Service analyses communism's appeal abroad as well as local attempts to set up communist administrations. He ends by showing that there was more to communism than mere brutality and demonstrates that while communism in its primordial form is now dead in most countries, the causes of its ability to gather support among intellectuals and ordinary people have not vanished: economic poverty and political oppression.

That Neutral Island 15% off

Wills, Clair Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £21.25 — You save £3.75  <convert> 

Despite Winston Churchill's best efforts to the contrary, the Irish premier Eamon de Valera stuck rigidly to Ireland's right to remain outside a conflict in which it had no enemies. Accusations of betrayal and hypocrisy poisoned the airwaves and the printed media; legends of Nazi spies roaming the country freely made Ireland seem a haven for Hitler's friends. This is the background to Clair Wills' brilliant and ground-breaking book. Where previous histories of Ireland in the war years have focused on high politics, "That Neutral Island" mines deeper layers of experience. Sean O'Faolain, Kate O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Flann O'Brien and Louis MacNeice are a few of the writers whose stories, letters and diaries are used to illuminate this small country as it lived under rationing, heavy censorship, the threat of invasion and a strange state of detachment from the real world of the war.

Inferno 20% off

Lowe, Keith Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £20.00 — You save £5.00  <convert> 

In July 1943, British and American bombers launched an attack on the German city of Hamburg that was unlike anything the world had ever seen. For ten days they drenched the city with over 9,000 tons of bombs, creating fires so huge they burned for a month, and were visible for 200 miles. As those who survived emerged from their ruined cellars and air-raid shelters, they were confronted with a unique vision of hell: a sea of flame that stretched to the horizon, the burned-out husks of fire engines that had tried to rescue them, charcoaled corpses and roads that had become flaming rivers of melted tarmac. This book is the first comprehensive narrative of the Hamburg firestorm for almost thirty years. Using many new first-hand accounts, Keith Lowe gives the human side of an inhuman story, and the result is an epic tale of devastation and survival, and a much-needed reminder of the human face of war.

Forgotten Man 20% off

Shlaes, Amity Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £20.00 — You save £5.00  <convert> 

Challenging conventional history, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. She shows how both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt failed to understand the prosperity of the 1920s and heaped massive burdens on the country that more than offset the benefit of New Deal programs. From 1929 to 1940, federal intervention helped to make the Depression great by forgetting the men and women who sought to help themselves. In this illuminating work of history, Shlaes follows the struggles of those now forgotten people, from a family of butchers in Brooklyn who dealt a stunning blow to the New Deal, to Bill W., who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, and Father Divine, a black cult leader. She takes a fresh look at the great scapegoats of the period, from Andrew Mellon to Sam Insull of Chicago. Finally, she traces the mounting agony of the New Dealers themselves. Authoritative, original, and utterly engrossing, "The Forgotten Man" reveals how those dark years shaped both current political challenges and the strong national character that helps us to confront them.

Europe at War 1939-1945 20% off

Davies, Norman Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £20.00 — You save £5.00  <convert> 

What was the biggest operation of World War II in Europe? It wasn't D-Day. What was the name of the largest concentration camp operating in Europe between 1939 and 1945. It wasn't Auschwitz. What European nationality lost the largest number of civilians between 1939-45? It wasn't the French - or the Germans. Bringing his usual fresh eye to bear on a story we think we all know, Norman Davies answers these questions, and many more, in this concise, vivid and thought-provoking new history of the Second World War. Powerfully argued, compellingly written and devastating in its conclusions, Davies forces us to look again at those six years and to discard the usual narrative of Allied good versus Nazi evil and reminds us that for the greater part of the continent, the Allied victory and the 'liberation of Europe' was the beginning of more than fifty years of totalitarian oppression.

POW 20% off

Gilbert, Adrian Normal price £8.99 — Discount price £7.19 — You save £1.80  <convert> 

Just under 300,000 Allied servicemen from Britain, the Commonwealth and the United States were captured in Europe and North Africa between 1939 and 1945. Using a wealth of new sources, "POW" describes their experiences. Prisoners' day-to-day lives are vividly rendered: the workings of the prison-camp system; the ways in which prisoners maintained contact with the outside world through letters, parcels and the benign agency of the Red Cross; artistic and intellectual endeavours; as well as unacknowledged aspects of camp life such as the development of sexual relations - both heterosexual and homosexual. Everyday life is offset by high drama, as "POW" tells of the secret organisations who smuggled escape aids to the prisoners. In return, they furnished their home nations with intelligence from occupied Europe. Although few men were actively engaged in escape attempts, many provided tacit support or were engaged in sabotage and other resistance activities. Adrian Gilbert foregrounds the forgotten voices of the prisoners themselves by threading eleven individual stories through the narrative. "POW" is a compelling window onto a crucial aspect of the Second World War.

Tobruk 

FitzSimons, Peter £19.99  <convert> 

"Tobruk" narrates the taking of Tobruk as part of a general thrust in North Africa by Allied forces. A panicked Winston Churchill wrote: "Tobruk seems to be the place to be held to the death without thought of retirement...nothing must hamper the capture of Tobruk". In the dark heart of World War II, when Hitler turned his attentions to conquering North Africa, a distracted and far-flung Allied force could not give its all to the defence of the key city of Tobruk in Libya. So the job was left to the roughest, toughest bunch they could muster. "Tobruk" is the story of an incredible battle in excruciating desert heat through nine long months, against the might of Adolf Hitler's formidable Afrika Korps. This force's defence of Tobruk against the Afrika Korps' armoured division is one of the great battles of all time, yet rarely talked about. Drawing on extensive source material - including diaries and letters, some never published before - this extraordinary book is the definitive account of this remarkable battle. While Peter Fitzsimons is a celebrated historian, his popularity stems from his fantastic storytelling.

"Tobruk" is written in a narrative style, putting the reader next to men such as General Leslie Morshead as he decides the fate of his men, next to men such as Jack Harris, as he stands in the blood of an injured mate. While detailed and well researched, "Tobruk" reads like a novel.

Alliance 20% off

Fenby, Jonathan Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £20.00 — You save £5.00  <convert> 

The history of the Second World War is usually told through its decisive battles and campaigns. But behind the front lines, behind even the command centres of Allied generals and military planners, a different level of strategic thinking was going on. Throughout the war the 'Big Three' - Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin - met in various permutations and locations to thrash out ways to defeat Nazi Germany - and, just as importantly, to decide the way Europe would look after the war. This was the political rather than military struggle: a battle of wills and diplomacy between three men with vastly differing backgrounds, characters - and agendas. Focusing on the riveting interplay between these three extraordinary personalities, Jonathan Fenby re-creates the major Allied conferences including Casablanca, Potsdam and Yalta to show exactly who bullied whom, who was really in control, and how the key decisions were taken. With his customary flair for narrative, character and telling detail, Fenby's account reveals what really went on in those smoke-filled rooms and shows how "jaw-jaw" as well as "war-war" led to Hitler's defeat and the shape of the post-war world.

Dunkirk 30% off

Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh Normal price £8.99 — Discount price £6.29 — You save £2.70  <convert> 

The rescue in May 1940 of British soldiers fleeing capture and defeat by the Nazis at Dunkirk was not just about what happened at sea and on the beaches. The evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for the tenacity of the British soldiers who stayed behind to ensure they got away. Men like Sergeant Major Gus Jennings who died smothering a German stick bomb in the church at Esquelbecq in an effort to save his comrades, and Captain Marcus Ervine-Andrews VC who single-handedly held back a German attack on the Dunkirk perimeter thereby allowing the British line to form up behind him. Told to stand and fight to the last man, these brave few battalions fought in whatever manner they could to buy precious time for the evacuation. Outnumbered and outgunned, they launched spectacular and heroic attacks time and again, despite ferocious fighting and the knowledge that for many only capture or death would end their struggle.

A Seaman's Pocket-book June, 1943 - By the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty
(15% off)

The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936, Origins of the Civil War
Stanley G. Payne
(10% off)