Post War 20th Century History

Doomsday Men 15% off

Smith, P.D. Normal price £20.00 — Discount price £17.00 — You save £3.00  <convert> 

In this gripping narrative, Peter Smith tells the untold story of the doomsday bomb. In 1950, for the first time in history, mankind realised that he had within his grasp a truly God-like power - the ability to destroy life itself. "Doomsday Men" reveals the personalities behind the technologies of nuclear doomsday and shows how, in the end, the doomsday machine became the ultimate symbol of humanity's deepest fears about the science of destruction. As Smith forcefully shows, the culture that grew up in the shadow of this frightening weapon has helped shape all our contemporary anxieties about science, technology, and the future.

Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 15% off

Kynaston, David Normal price £20.00 — Discount price £17.00 — You save £3.00  <convert> 

Coursing through "Austerity Britain" is an astonishing variety of voices - vivid, unselfconscious, and unaware of what the future holds. A Chingford housewife endures the tribulations of rationing; a retired schoolteacher observes during a royal visit how well-fed the Queen looks; a pernickety civil servant in Bristol is oblivious to anyone's troubles but his own. An array of working-class witnesses describe how life in post-war Britain is, with little regard for liberal niceties or the feelings of their 'betters'. Many of these voices will stay with the reader in future volumes, jostling alongside well-known figures like John Arlott (here making his first radio broadcast, still in police uniform), Glenda Jackson (taking the 11+) and Doris Lessing (newly arrived from Africa, struck by the levelling poverty of postwar Britain. David Kynaston weaves a sophisticated narrative of how the victorious 1945 Labour government shaped the political, economic and social landscape for the next three decades.

Deeply researched, often amusing and always intensely entertaining and readable, the first volume of David Kynaston's ambitious history offers an entirely fresh perspective on Britain during those six momentous years.

1967 15% off

Segev, Tom Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £21.25 — You save £3.75  <convert> 

1967 did not mark the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it was a year that changed the course of history. When Egypt's President Nasser closed the straits of Tiran to Israeli navigation, it triggered a conflict between Israel and the armies of Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Within six days the Israelis had occupied territories three times wider than their own, populated by over a million Palestinian Arabs. Israel suddenly became something of a colonial empire, more Goliath than David. The war granted political legitimacy to Menachem Begin's right-wing Herut party, and Arab terrorism paved the way for Israel's secret service to become a major factor in the country's power structure. 1967 will not be a military history, nor will it focus mainly on political developments. The year 1967 dramatically altered the lives of millions of individuals and this book will focus on the personal stories from both sides of the conflict.

Having It So Good 20% off

Hennessy, Peter Normal price £30.00 — Discount price £24.00 — You save £6.00  <convert> 

"Having It So Good" evokes Britain emerging from the shadow of war and the privations of austerity and rationing into growing affluence. Peter Hennessy takes his readers into the front-rooms where the Coronation was watched on television, to the classrooms and now coffee bars of 1950s Britain - and also into the secret Cabinet rooms in which decisions about the British nuclear bomb were taken and plans made for the catastrophe of nuclear war. He brings to life the ageing Churchill, in his last faltering spell as Prime Minister, the highly-strung Anthony Eden taking his country to war in the teeth of American opposition and world opinion, and the rise of 'Supermac' Harold Macmillan, gliding over problems with his Edwardian insouciance. Above all, "Having It So Good" captures the smell and the flavour of an extraordinary decade in which affluence and anxiety combined to produce their own winds of change.

Englishness and Empire 1939-1965 10% off

Webster, Wendy Normal price £18.99 — Discount price £17.09 — You save £1.90  <convert> 

Did loss of imperial power and the end of empire have any significant impact on British culture and identity after 1945? Within a burgeoning literature on national identity and what it means to be British this is a question that has received surprisingly little attention. "Englishness and Empire" makes an important and original contribution to recent debates about the domestic consequences of the end of empire. Wendy Webster explores popular narratives of nation in the mainstream media archive - newspapers, newsreels, radio, film, and television. The contours of the study generally follow stories told through prolific filmic and television imagery: the Second World War, the Coronation and Everest, colonial wars of the 1950s, and Winston Churchill's funeral.

Postwar 15% off

Judt, Tony Normal price £10.99 — Discount price £9.34 — You save £1.65  <convert> 

Europe in 1945 was prostrate. Much of the continent was devastated by war, mass slaughter, bombing and chaos. Large areas of Eastern Europe were falling under Soviet control, exchanging one despotism for another. Today, the Soviet Union is no more and the democracies of the European Union reach as far as the borders of Russia itself. "Postwar" tells the rich and complex story of how we got from there to here. It tells of Europe's recovery from the devastation; of the decline and fall of Soviet Communism and the rise of the EC and EU; of the end of Europe's empires; and of Europe's uneasy and changing relationships with the memory of the war and with the two great powers that bracket it, Russian and America. With clarity and economy, he tells of developments across the continent as a whole, as well as of the contrasting experiences of Eastern and Western Europe. Along the way, we learn of Greece's Civil War, of Scandinavian social democracy, the stresses of multilingual Belgium, the struggles of Northern Ireland and the Basque country.

Power, Faith and Fantasy 10% off

Oren, Michael B. Normal price £22.00 — Discount price £19.80 — You save £2.20  <convert> 

From the first cannonballs fired by American warships at North African pirates to the conquest of Falluja by the Marines - the US has been involved in the Middle East. Featuring original maps and photographs, this book reconstructs the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this land.

Timelines

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