Who was this heroic Victorian campaigner, this secular saint who, as "the lady of the lamp", became a living legend? This revealing biographical guide looks at Florence Nightingale – the tireless, far-sighted and often cantankerous reformer who lies beyond the myth: at her youth, her time in the Crimea and her later career, using primary sources including extracts from her prolific letters and illustrated with her own artefacts and possessions.

Lord Louis Mountbatten achieved great things both in war and peace as a military leader and public servant. The First World War and its aftermath shaped his early life, in mid-career he was a victorious commander in the Second World War, and when peace came he brought independence to India and Pakistan. Mountbatten remains a controversial figure, but when his faults are considered in the light of the world-shaking events in which he was involved, they are overwhelmingly outweighed by his achievements. His murder, and those of members of his family and a friend, on 27 August 1979 by the IRA shocked the world.

Thomas Edward Lawrence, more popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, is remembered today more for his immortalization on stage and screen rather than for his dramatic exploits in the Middle East during the First World War. This book shines a light on his military achievements, his major campaigns and the impact that his influence had on shaping the war in the Middle East. Lawrence quickly rose to prominence following the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in 1916. His skills in Arab languages helped him co-ordinate Navy support in an effort to regain captured coastal ports, whilst gathering widespread local support and building up the Arab Northern Army. He pioneered new tactics, which would shape British strategy four decades later, recognising the importance of aircraft, mobile artillery and armour in desert warfare. In two short years the obscure staff officer had attained the rank of full colonel and helped to shape the outcome of the war in the Middle East.

Simon Bolivar was the archetypal romantic revolutionary. Born into privilege and nurtured in the Rousseau's philosophy of the Homme Sauvage, it was not until the young colonial visited Europe that the taper of revolution was lit that sent the young man on a death-defying quest to fight for the people of his homeland, and eventually liberate the whole of continental South America. Bolivar's struggle for liberty is a story of extraordinary courage and fortune. Since the age of the Conquistadores, South America was controlled from Spain with an iron grip. The Spanish army brutalised the people while the wealth of the continent was shipped away to Europe. In 1807, he returned to Caracas and joined the resistance movement, declaring independence for Venezuela four years later. He soon gave up politics, however, to search for a military solution, devising the 'Decree of War until Death' in July 1813, and claiming the title El Liberador. Yet once again, after initial victories he found himself fleeing for his life. His final campaign from 1817 to 1821 saw the eventual liberation of Venezuela, Columbia, Equador and Panama. He continued his commitment to liberty with the subsequent conquest of Peru. In 1825, the new nation of Bolivia was created in the spirit that had driven Bolivar himself to achieve so much - revolutionary zeal and enlightenment principles. Nonetheless, by 1828 Bolivar had declared himself a dictator. After assassination attempts and uprisings the liberator was finally hounded from office and eventually died as he waited to go into exile in Europe. Bestselling author of "The War of Wars", Robert Harvey bring a lifetime's fascination into Bolivar and explores the complex personality behind the revolutionary. He vividly recreates the story of the campaigns and draws a panoramic portrait of South America at the turning of the Spanish Empire.

When the adventurer Walter Ralegh first encountered Elizabeth I, he supposedly placed his cloak over a puddle and allowed the queen to walk across it. Thus began one of the most intriguing relationships between a monarch and her favourite. "The Favourite" explores the labyrinthine complexity of human emotion, ambition and ritual within the restricted confines of the Tudor court. Was the favourite a Machiavellian schemer who fooled the queen in her affections? Was Elizabeth willing to manipulate her courtier for her own ends? The Queen's affection for Ralegh would protect him but he would soon become the 'most hated man in England'. In "The Favourite", Mathew Lyons reveals a new portrait of an immortal relationship and a fascinating exploration of the many layers of love between Gloriana and Ralegh - courtier, chancer and privateer.

Napoleon Bonaparte is renowned as one of the greatest military commanders in history, and the central figure in so many of the events of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Throughout the first decade of the 19th century he won battle after battle by wielding the Grande Armee decisively against the other powers of Europe - Prussia, Austria and Russia. Yet his fortunes changed in 1812 when the invasion of Russia wrecked his forces, and Napoleon suffered his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

Sir Martin Frobisher was one of the great sea dogs of Elizabethan England. He was a pirate and a privateer - he looted countless ships and was incarcerated by the Portuguese as a young man - and he aided Sir Francis Drake in one of his most daring voyages to attack the Spanish in the West Indies. But Frobisher was also a warrior who was knighted for his services against the Spanish Armada, and he was an explorer. He was the first Englishman to attempt to find the fabled Northwest Passage to Cathay – to China. He commanded three voyages into the uncharted northern wastes Canada and Greenland and devoted eighteen years of his life to this dream. Taliesin Trow’s new biographical study of this many-sided Elizabethan adventurer should revive interest in him and in this extraordinary period in English seafaring history. For Frobisher was a fascinating, enigmatic character whose reputation is often eclipsed by those of his remarkable contemporaries, Drake, Hawkins and Ralegh.

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, is one of the great commanders of history. Using his great charm and diplomatic skills he was able to bind troops from various European states into a cohesive army that won a string of victories over the French armies of King Louis XIV, the first of which was perhaps his most spectacular triumph - the battle of Blenheim. Other great victories followed, but political and social turmoil proved harder opponents to defeat. This book provides a detailed look at the many highs and lows in the career of the most successful British general of his era.

In 1803, at the age of 14, Robert Hay ran away from home to join the Royal Navy, and for the next eight years experienced the trials and tribulations of a sailor s life. Intelligent, agile and willing, he became a boy servant to a series of officers, all of whom helped advance his education as was the practice of the day. But the taxing conditions of life onboard he found detestable and he was, after an action off the French coast, sorely tempted to desert but the well known and ruthless treatment of deserters, if caught, deterred him this time. He was then posted to the East Indies where he was badly wounded and nearly lost a leg before returning home after five years with £14 and fourteen days leave to look forward to. His next ship ran aground off Plymouth and, this time, he took the opportunity to desert but was then quickly taken by a press gang. Terrified of being identified, he managed to escape and reach the Scotland and home. As well as a wonderful yarn, the book is also an impressive description of early nineteenth-century naval life, and his ability as a writer was considerable. His descriptions of his remarkable experiences in the East Indies are full of the flavour of the region, while the sailor s natural inclination to drink and debauchery is told with verve. But also running through the narrative are many fine observations on nature and on the human condition. A true and vivid account of the sailor s life of this era.

History is brought to life through the colourful stories of eleven queens and empresses. Their lives were often tempestuous and tragic, ending in execution, suicide, divorce or abdication. Some were child brides, pawns in political games, and most had unfaithful husbands. These women differed widely: Queen Elizabeth spoke six languages, while Catherine I of Russia was an illiterate ex-kitchen maid. The tomboyish Christina, Queen of Sweden, contrasted with the beautiful Mary Queen of Scots. Catherine the Great was tyrannical, while Marie Antoinette was helpless and irresponsible. The conscientious Maria Theresa and the respectable Queen Victoria differed from the duplicitous Catherine de Medici and 'the Serpent of Old Nile', Cleopatra. There were great failures, as Catherine de Medici failed to preserve the Valois dynasty in France and Maria Theresa saw her empire diminished. On the other hand, under Queen Elizabeth the arts flourished in England, while Catherine the Great made Russia a major power, and Cleopatra's wiles warded off Roman suzerainty over Egypt.

George S. Patton Jr. was the iconic American field commander of World War II, and widely regarded as the US Army's finest practitioner of mechanized warfare. This title examines Patton's colorful life and leadership in three wars, with a concentration on his command in World War II. Despite his ability, Patton was thoroughly reviled by most GIs, partly due to his insistence on traditional military discipline in the ranks, but also because of his unwillingness to pander to the growing power of the press. This combination of ability and controversy have combined to make him one of the most interesting figures in American military history.

Immortalised in the plays of Shakespeare, Henry V is the most famous and celebrated of all England's medieval monarchs. Although his most famous battles and conquests took place in France, Henry, as was common amongst medieval aristocracy, was introduced to battle at an early age when he fought with his father, Henry IV, at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. On his accession to the throne, Henry turned his attention towards foreign affairs and the English position in France. This title will examine Henry's key battles and sieges, how he systematically extended English control throughout northern France and how he was perceived by his contemporaries as a military leader. It will also deal with his controversial military decisions, such as the slaughter of the French prisoners at Agincourt.

Erich von Manstein was one of the most successful German commanders of World War II. His military mind proved outstanding in many a conflict but perhaps his greatest triumph was his ingenious operational plan that led to the rapid defeat of France in May 1940. Manstein also showed great skill under adversity by commanding a furious rebuff to the Soviet armies in 1943, whilst Germany were retreating. However, his skill could not reverse Germany's declining fortunes and Manstein's frequent disagreement's with Hitler over military strategy led to his dismissal. Robert Forczyk tells the story of one of Germany's most valuable military talents, from his early years to his post-war conviction and his later career.

Harry Gosling was born in 1861. He left school at thirteen and was soon apprenticed as a lighterman on the River Thames. The great dock strike of 1889 engendered a rash of new unionism, and much activity within the old unions. By 1893, Gosling had been elected General Secretary of his Union, a full-time post. He was also extremely active in local government, becoming a member of the London County Council in 1904. It was in July 1910 that Ben Tillett, the leader of the Dockers' Union, convened a meeting of waterside unions to discuss the formation of the National Transport Workers' Federation. Harry Gosling was elected President. Ernest Bevin was soon elected to the Executive, after which he and Gosling worked very closely together. Eventually, the Transport and General Workers' Union was formed out of the multiplicity of unions constituting the Federation, and Gosling was its founding President. After several attempts to win election to Parliament, Gosling was finally victorious in a by-election in 1923, at Whitechapel. The following year the first Labour Government was formed and MacDonald appointed Gosling as Minister of Transport. He died while still a Member of Parliament, in 1930. All these adventures and insights, recounted in his own words in his autobiography, which has long been out of print, will resonate with new generations.

Miles Dempsey, Commander of the British Second Army in the invasion of Europe 1944-45, is almost unknown to the general public. Yet his part in Britain’s contribution to that campaign was second only to Montgomery’s in importance. Dempsey survived two and a half years of bitter fighting as an infantry officer on the Western Front before accompanying his beloved Royal Berkshire Regiment in the little-known North West Persia campaign of 1920-21. In six years he rose from Major to command over half a million men in the largest combined operation in history, and led them to victory a year later. Based on sources which include some of Dempsey’s previously unpublished work and the views of those who knew him, the book traces his career as a soldier of rare distinction, a talented sportsman and a man of huge charm and shrewd intellect, dedicated to his beloved regiment and ever mindful of the lives of his soldiers. It examines his methods of command and his relationships with Montgomery, his Corps commanders, the Americans and the RAF. It highlights his crucial role in the Dunkirk evacuation, the training of the Canadian Army, and the invasion of Sicily, Italy, and North West Europe. It analyses why his army performed so brilliantly on D Day, and examines his contribution to the campaign in Europe.

The first edition of Zuma, published in late 2008, concluded with Jacob Zuma’s future balancing on a knife’s edge. National elections loomed, but so did corruption charges and endless court battles. Since then Zuma’s star has spectacularly risen – the corruption charges were dropped, he led the ANC to election victory and duly became President of South Africa, and his new cabinet and government appointments were generally well received. But he has also recently suffered a huge blow with revelations of another love-child, this time with the daughter of soccer supremo Irvine Khoza. Many of his supporters have distanced themselves from him, and Zuma is looking isolated. Pundits are once again wondering how long he’ll survive as President. In this revised and updated edition, Jeremy Gordin takes the reader right up to present. He covers in detail the highs and lows of Zuma’s past 18 months, including the final salvoes of his legal battles, as well as his first year as President.

Charismatic, erudite and often controversial Winton Churchill was one of the most inspiring leaders of the twentieth century, and one of its greatest wits.His much-celebrated sense of fun and mischief has led to many of his jokes and ripostes becoming almost as well known as his famous wartime speeches. Gloriously definitive, Richard Langworth includes all Churchill's most famous quips and witticisms, as well as little known asides and observations. The only book of its kind to be sanctioned by the Churchill estate, it captures the great statesman at his most eloquent, witty, and engaging, Churchill's Wit celebrates the humour and humanity of this most imposing man. "My dear young man, thought is the most dangerous process known to man.' 'I believe I am the only man in the world to have received the head of a nation naked." "[A politician] is asked to stand, he wants to sit and he is expected to lie." " - Winston, you are drunk, and what's more you are disgustingly drunk. - Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly."

Joseph Goebbels was the most notorious demagogue of the twentieth century, and Hitler's closest confidant. This book uses his complete diary from 1923-1945, only recently released from the Soviet Union, to present a challenging new interpretation of his life. It charts Goebbels' rise from provincial obscurity in the Rhineland, through his emergence as the most dynamic speaker of the Nazi Party and the Gauleiter of Berlin in the 1920s, to his appointment as Hitler's Propaganda Minister in 1933. Combining analysis of Goebbels' relationships with women and of his political career, it argues that there were clear threads running through his life, from a turbulent adolescence through to his death. Goebbels' love of German culture, his obsession with 'sacrifice', his fascination for Hitler, and his hatred of the Jews led him into a fatal involvement with German politics which culminated in his suicide, together his wife and six children, in Hitler's bunker in 1945.

Arthur Ransome is best remembered as the author of the series of books that began with Swallows and Amazons and sold millions of copies around the world. But before he became the jolly Lakeland storyteller, offering idyllic images of brave children messing about in boats, Ransome had spent a decade in Russia and lived a very different life as a spokesman for authoritarianism and violence. He went there in 1913 as a struggling young freelance writer and made friends with leading Russian liberals, and wrote a fine book of tales based on Russian folk legends. But as the country sank into chaos and war, Ransome was caught up in the whirlwind of revolution. Always impressionable and eager to please, he gained the confidence of the Bolshevik leadership and became, for three crucial years, their main defender and propagandist in the West. His reports in the "Guardian" were uncritical and disingenuous. "MI6" considered him an agent of a foreign power; British officials argued that he should not be allowed to return to Britain. Yet at the same time, while Ransome was so intimate with the Communist leadership that he could get exclusive interviews with Lenin - who he portrayed as an avuncular, folksy, straight-talking politician - he was also offering to help elements of the British intelligence services with information about what was going on in Russia.

Edward William Watkin bestrides the Victorian Railway Age. As a boy of 11 he witnessed the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Two years before his death he was present at the opening of Marylebone Station, the terminus of the Great Central's London Extension, the last main-line railway to be built in Britain. Between these two occasions lay a varied and colourful life. Beginning his career with one of the constitutents of the London & North Western Railway, Watkin went on to manage the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire, before becoming chairman of the M&SL and also the South Eastern Railway and the Metropolitan. Best remembered as the driving force behind the London Extension, Watkin was also the main protagonist of the Channel Tunnel project, the completion of London's Inner Circle, and the building of the ill-fated Wembley Tower. When president of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, he played a prominent part in the political unification of the country. Throughout his life Watkin was politically active. Beginning as a Manchester Radical and supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League, he later became a Liberal and then Liberal Unionist M.P. for 25 years. He was a leading member of the Railway Interest in the Commons and one of the most important spokesmen for the industry. No biography of Sir Edward Watkin has hitherto been published. Here for the first time is a fully rounded, scholarly picture of one of giants of the Railway Age, based entirely on extensive archival research in both British and Canadian sources. It describes Watkin's individualistic career in railway management and politics in the setting of personal and company inter-relationships and rivalries, commercial and economic developments, and the national and local politics of the day. The book will appeal not only to railway enthusiasts and academics interested in nineteenth-century politics and transport history, but also rail professionals, since Watkin dealt with many issues that concern the industry today. David Hodgkins's new book is serious railway history at its best.

Bertie Ahern, three times Irish Taoiseach, is often described as an enigma. The Old IRA man's son who delivered peace in Northern Ireland. A working class boy responsible for the Celtic Tiger. The man of faith who ushered in progressive, cosmopolitan secular Ireland. An ardent nationalist admired by European leaders. 'I know 25 per cent of Bertie Ahern', said his finance minister, Charlie McCreevy, 'and that's 24 per cent more than anyone else.' Now in this frank and revealing autobiography, Ahern gives his own account of a remarkable political life and the personal story that accompanies it. He shows the cost to his family of a life played out in the public eye and, for the first time, discloses what really happened in his final weeks in power. Here for the first time is the truth behind the man who is Bertie. Ahern has been at the cutting edge of Irish politics for over three decades. He was first elected to Dail Eireann in the Fianna Fail landslide victory in 1977 that saw Jack Lynch returned as Taoiseach. In 1982, Charles Haughey appointed him Government Chief Whip. In volatile political times, he strongly supported Haughey during three challenges to his leadership of Fianna Fail. In 1987, Bertie Ahern received his first cabinet portfolio as Minister for Labour. It was a time when the Irish economy was in crisis. Ireland had a higher debt per head than Ethiopia or Sudan. Unemployment stood at 16%. Ahern negotiated Ireland's first social partnership agreement, which underpinned economic recovery and put in place the foundations for a period of sustained growth. In 1991, he was appointed Minister for Finance. International commentators first began to refer to 'Ireland's Tiger economy' in this period. When Bertie Ahern left the Department of Finance in late 1994, for the first time in almost 30 years, Ireland had a budget surplus. Bertie Ahern succeeded Albert Reynolds as leader of Fianna Fail in November 1994. Following the General Election in 1997, he became Ireland's youngest ever Taoiseach. The Ahern Era was a time of unprecedented progress in Irish society. Over the course of his tenure in office, Ireland's economy out-performed that of every other European country. For the first time ever, the number of people in employment in the State reached 2 million. Working closely with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, Ahern won widespread acclaim for his perseverance and skill in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement, which has provided the political framework for a lasting peace in Northern Ireland. On the international stage, he was a respected figure who enjoyed an acclaimed Presidency of the European Council in 2004. He presided over the completion of the largest ever expansion of the EU and concluded negotiations on a European constitution. He is one of only five visiting statesmen to have addressed both the United States Congress and the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. At home, Ahern enjoyed phenomenal electoral support. He was the first Taoiseach since 1944 to win three successive General Elections. Bertie Ahern resigned on 6th May, 2008. He had served for ten years, ten months and ten days as Taoiseach.

“Deep inside that T-shirt where we have tried to trap him,” notes the celebrated Chilean novelist Ariel Dorfman, “the eyes of Che Guevara are still burning with impatience.” Olivier Besancenot and Michael Löwy deftly capture this burning impatience, revealing Guevara as a powerful political and ethical thinker still capable of speaking directly to the challenges of our time.

Edward Baines, editor of the Leeds Mercury, MP for Leeds and man of letters, was one of the most significant political figures of the early nineteenth century and the iconic figure of provincial Dissenting Whiggery. His campaigning newspaper, the Leeds Mercury, became the guiding light of liberal provincial radicalism for almost half a century. Baines's pioneering use of the weekly editorial ultimately gained him a place in the pantheon of newspaper history and the columns of his paper also provided a forum for an intelligent exchange of views throughout the West Riding. His philosophy was based upon a deep commitment to Christian principles. David Thornton's new book, a revised version of a Leeds University Ph.D. thesis, not only describes Edward Baines's career in great detail but also sets his life against the history of Leeds and of Britain.

Mohandas Gandhi and Winston Churchill: India's moral leader and Great Britain's greatest Prime Minister. Born five years and seven thousand miles apart, they became embodiments of the nations they led. Both became living icons, idolized and admired around the world. Today, they remain enduring models of leadership in a democratic society. Yet the truth was Churchill and Gandhi were bitter enemies throughout their lives. This book reveals, for the first time, how that rivalry shaped the twentieth century and beyond. For more than forty years, from 1906 to 1948, Gandhi and Churchill were locked in a tense struggle for the hearts and minds of the British public, and of world opinion. Although they met only once, their titanic contest of wills would decide the fate of nations, continents, peoples, and ultimately an Empire. Here is a sweeping epic with a fascinating supporting cast, and a brilliant narrative parable of two men whose great successes were always haunted by personal failure - and whose final moments of triumph were overshadowed by the loss of what they held most dear.

T. E. Lawrence was the first modern celebrity and since his death the almost mythic figure of the man on a camel enacting a heroic dream has captured the imagination of each succeeding generation. Now, seventy years from Lawrence’s death, this visual biography takes us inside the mind of a man of extraordinary energy, ability and charisma who seemed to have everything in his hands only to throw it away, turning the rest of his life into an obsessive quest for anonymity and sanctuary, culminating in a motorbike crash and death at the age of only forty six. In this wonderfully illustrated book, the drama unfolds in Lawrence’s own atmospheric photographs, haunting paintings of the desert and its peoples, evocative drawings and ephemera, all supported by quotations from his personal account of his experiences.

A hero from the Great War he saw active service in Russia in 1919 - 20 and against the Pathans on the North West Frontier in 1935. By 1940 Alexander was a divisional commander with the BEF in France. His conduct during the withdrawal through Dunkirk where he took over the British 1st Corps in the crisis confirmed his outstanding ability. In the dark days of 1942 by now a full general he was sent to Burma with orders to hold the Japs at Rangoon. Just in time he realised this was impossible and his decision to withdraw prevented a total disaster. Despite this defeat he retained Churchill's confidence and he was appointed C in C Middle East. While eclipsed in PR terms by his subordinate Montgomery many felt that Monty owed his success to Alexander by protecting him from an increasingly impatient Churchill. Alexander went onto commanded the invasion of Sicily and as Army Group Commander masterminded the long slog up through Italy. His charm and easy nature were his greatest strengths as others worked enthusiastically with him. But critics have sought to prove that he lacked true ability and steel.

The year 1721 has many splendours: great houses built by William Kent, fine pictures and the fruits of commerce. But there are also thirteen public hanging days a year, drunkenness is endemic, organised crime rampages through the streets. And politics are ferocious. Robert Walpole, once imprisoned for financial chicanery, assumes political control and becomes Prime Minister. He personally detects a Jacobite plot, is dismissed in 1727 on the death of George I, recruits the new King's clever wife, Caroline, and bounces cheerfully back. Coarse, corrupt and cynical, Walpole dominates King, Parliament and Government until 1742.

Hester Salusbury was a child prodigy. Later, as Hester Thrale, her wit, learning and vivacity would attract the greats of the day, Joshua Reynolds, Fanny Burney, Boswell, David Garrick and Edmund Burke to the household at Streatham Park. She published to great popularity and acclaim on Johnson, irritating the hell out of Boswell, and remains one of our most perceptive sources. One of our first female historians, a feminist without knowing it, she also broke new ground in politics and business. When her husband died, rumours flew that she'd wed Johnson. Instead, she ran off with an Italian music teacher. The scandal consumed London society - and her relationship with her daughters. But Hester was passionately in love (it was a love that nearly killed her). This is a brightly lit portrait of an exceptional woman whose life, loves and letters make a vivid and important contribution to our understanding of Georgian England.

Churchill (1874-1965) was one of the 20th century's most charismatic and controversial figures. He escaped from capture as a prisoner of war in the Boer War, was a Nobel Prize-winning author and twice prime minister. He is best remembered as the astute and powerful orator who inspired a battered Britain to victory and led the post-war, shattered nation to recovery. Richard Langworth, co-chairman and editor of "The Churchill Centre", has spent over 20 years researching Churchill's written and spoken words.In "Churchill by Himself", which is fully authorised by the Churchill Estate, Langworth has edited and annotated this library to make the definitive collection of Churchill's words, thematically arranged. He also highlights the myriad quotations commonly mis-attributed to Churchill. From his meetings with world leaders such as Roosevelt, de Gaulle and Stalin, his verbal engagements with Hitler and the Third Reich, to his wit and oratory on the floor of the Commons, every facet of Churchill's life and times is explored with his own pragmatic intelligence, sharp humour and legendary wisdom.

This edition of the highly acclaimed one-volume Churchill: A Life, is the story of adventure. It follows Winston Churchill from his earliest days to his moments of triumph. Here, the drama and excitement of his story are ever-present, as are his tremendous qualities in peace and war, not least as an orator and as a man of vision. Martin Gilbert gives us a vivid portrait, using Churchill's most personal letters and the recollections of his contemporaries, both friends and enemies, to go behind the scenes of some of the stormiest and most fascinating political events of our time, dominated by two world wars, and culminating in the era of the Iron Curtain and the hydrogen bomb.

This first full biography of Mrs. Nassau Senior, 1822-1877, tells how an extraordinary woman escaped from the constraints of Victorian domesticity to become the first woman in Whitehall and one of Britain's great social reformers. An ardent Christian Socialist radical, like her brother Thomas Hughes (author of "Tom Brown's Schooldays"), Jeanie Senior pioneered social work with Octavia Hill, co-founded the British Red Cross in the Franco-Prussian war and battled as 'Government Inspector' on behalf of exploited Workhouse girls. She was ferociously attacked for advocating the fostering of all pauper orphans rather than their incarceration and for indicting Workhouse 'Barrack' schools for producing prostitution fodder. Her fight to defend her findings against male hostility politicised her and she became an icon for the late 19th century women's movement. Jeanie Senior was also a significant figure in the worlds of art, music and literature, even being, it is argued here, the vital inspiration for her friend George Eliot in creating Dorothea, heroine of Middlemarch. Her life was a great 'human story' as she struggled in the teeth of multiple bereavement, an unhappy marriage and cancer in order to rescue others more desperate and vulnerable still. Florence Nightingale told her she had been 'a noble Army of one' and later grieved that her 'premature death was a national and irreparable loss'.

One of the main functions of the Royal Navy during World War II was to defend from enemy attack Allied merchant shipping carrying vital war supplies to and from the United Kingdom. This it did in two ways. Firstly, it organised merchant ships into convoys escorted by a protective screen of warships and secondly by arming the merchant ships themselves so that they had some means of self defence. This book is an account of Norman Sparksman's experiences whilst serving in the Royal Navy. Firstly as a seaman during his officer training programme on HMS Edinburgh escorting convoys to the Russian Arctic ports of Murmansk and Archangel; and later, having been commissioned, serving in the branch of the Navy responsible for the arming of merchant ships.Surviving the loss of his ship in action while defending an Arctic convoy and the privations of an enforced two month stay in primitive conditions on the desolate snowbound North coast of Russia he then had to face the perilous voyage back to the UK on a destroyer sailing independently with no means of help in the event of mishap. Having arrived home safely the author completed his officer training at HMS King Alfred and the Royal Naval College Greenwich. He was then posted to the convoy assembly point in Belfast Lough to assist with the arming of the merchant ships assembling there for convoy. In April 1945 he was posted to the busy port of Calcutta in India, again to assist in the servicing of defensively equipped merchant ships. Demobilised in August 1946, the author returned home to civilian life. No more dodging bombs and shells. No more wondering if a torpedo would dispatch him to the next world.

A tearaway young man from Norfolk, Astley Cooper (1768–1841) became the world’s richest and most famous surgeon. Admired from afar by the Brontës and up close by his student Keats, his success was born of an appetite for bloody revolutions. He set up an international network of bodysnatchers, won the Royal Society’s highest prize and boasted to Parliament that there was no one whose body he could not steal. Experimenting on his neighbours’ corpses and the living bodies of their stolen pets, his discoveries were as great as his infamy. Caught up in the French Revolution, and in attempts to bring radical democracy to Britain, Cooper nevertheless rose to become surgeon to royals from the Prince Regent to Queen Victoria. Setting the past against his own reactions to autopsies and operations, hospitals and poetry, Burch’s Digging Up the Dead is a riveting account of a world of gothic horror as well as fertile idealism.

From the moment he was shot down to the final whistle, Jimmy James' one aim as a POW of the Germans was to escape. The Great Escaper describes his experiences and those of his fellow prisoners in the most gripping and thrilling manner. The author made more than 12 escape attempts including his participation in The Great Escape, where 50 of the 76 escapees were executed in cold blood on Hitler's orders. On re-capture, James was sent to the infamous Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where, undeterred, he tunnelled out. That was not the end of his remarkable story. Moonless Night has strong claim to be the finest escape story of the Second World War.

On 25 September 1939 Melvin Young reported to No.1 Initial Training Unit. He was selected as a bomber pilot and promoted to Flying Officer. Having undertaken a Lancaster conversion course Melvin and his new crew were posted to 57 Squadron at Scampton - soon to become 617 Squadron. On 15 May the Order for Operation Chastise was issued - the raid to be flown the next night, 16/17 May. The plan for the operation was that three waves of aircraft would be employed. The first wave of nine aircraft, led by Gibson, would first attack the Mohne Dam, then the Eder followed by other targets as directed by wireless from 5 Group HQ if any weapons were still available. This wave would fly in three sections of three aircraft about ten minutes apart led by Guy Gibson, Melvin Young and Henry Maudslay. At 00.43 Melvin and his crew made their attempt on the Mohne dam. Gibson recorded that Young's weapon made 'three good bounces and contact'.Once the dam had been breached Gibson with Melvin as his deputy led the three remaining armed aircraft towards the Eder Dam. On the return trip Melvin Young and his crew fell victim to enemy guns.

Allan Diffey s charming and amusing memoir portrays a long lost era of the Royal Navy in the 1950s, and one boy s love for ships and the sea. Diffey had never seen the sea until he was five years old, having been born just after the outbreak of the Second World War, and evacuated to Andover after his family s house in Gosport was bombed. On leaving school aged only fourteen, Allan was employed by the N.A.A.F.I. Institute and for the next two years delivered Ration Stores to all the small R.N. Craft that were based in Portsmouth Dockyard, and to H.M.S. Vernon. At the age of seventeen Allan became eligible to serve on sea going R.N. ships in a civilian capacity in the Ships Canteen and Goffa Bar whereon five days after his seventeenth birthday he was drafted to his first R.N. ship, H.M.S. Kenya. Allan relates his memoirs in a very simple manner as he recalls an era that was fast coming to an end of R.N. ships, the like of which we shall not see again. This book is a fascinating snapshot of Naval History from a civilian prospective.

In this major new double biography, Anka Muhlstein examines the turbulent relationship between Elizabeth I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots. At this time, quite uniquely, both the thrones of the British Isles were occupied by women, which for the first time brought the issue of royal consorts to the fore. The story of these two queens is one of the most fascinating in British history.

Thomas Carlyle was a major figure in Victorian literature and a unique commentator on nineteenth-century life. Born in humble circumstances in the Scottish village of Ecclefechan in 1795, his rise to fame was marked by fierce determination and the development of a highly distinctive literary voice. In this clear, authoritative and readable biography, John Morrow traces Carlyle's personal and intellectual career. Wide-ranging, prophetic and invariably challenging, his work ranged from the astonishing pseudo-autobiography "Sartor Resartus" to major historical works on the French Revolution and "Frederick the Great", and to radical political manifestos such as "Latter Day Pamphlets". "Thomas Carlyle" is an account of his work and of his life, including celebrity as the Sage of Chelsea and his tempestuous marriage to Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Award-winning biographer Jenny Uglow follows-up books on Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth and the Lunar Society with the life of Thomas Bewick. In "Nature's Engraver" Jenny Uglow tells the story of the farmer's son from Tyneside who never courted fame yet revolutionised wood-engraving and influenced book illustration for a century to come. It is a story of violent change and radical politics, of Newcastle and the Tyne, workshops and family life, mines and fells, the sea and the fierce west winds - a journey into a past whose energy and power still haunt us today, and the beginning of our lasting obsession with the natural world.

Welcome to the fabulous world of Harry Gordon Selfridge (1856-1947): father of modern retailing, philanderer, gambler, dandy and the greatest showman the consumer world has ever known. In Shopping, Seduction and Mr Selfridge, the bustle of turn-of-the-century America is thrillingly evoked by fashion PR legend Lindy Woodhead as we’re introduced to the men who created the first department stores – what Zola called ‘great cathedrals of shopping’. The young Mr Selfridge learnt his trade in the nascent metropolis of Chicago – the Dubai of its day – where riches were lost as quickly as fortunes were made. Moving to London in 1907, Harry Selfridge lived through the tumult of the First World War and the glittering excesses of the 1920's when he lost millions at the gaming tables in France before being ousted from his store in 1939. His seductive talents extended much further than the shop floor too, as he racked up a lengthy list of female companions over the years. To this irrepressible man, ‘the store was a theatre with the curtain going up at 9 o’clock’: Shopping, Seduction and Mr Selfridge tells the story of what happened before the curtain fell.

Cyril Lionel Robert James was the great intellectual of the African revolution. He was a friend and inspiration to Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere, the two leaders of the first generation of independence struggles. His account of Toussaint L'Ouverture's slave rebellion in Haiti is one of the great historical works of the twentieth century. His studies of Hegel and Marx became part of the common knowledge of several generations of radicals in America, Europe, the Caribbean and Africa. Although born in Trinidad, his thought was also shaped by the experience of migration to Britain. James was a product of the colonial education system, a world which shaped him, even as he exposed and fought it. In Britain today, James is known as both for his radicalism and also for his extraordinary autobiography "Beyond a Boundary", by common consent, the greatest book about cricket ever written.

Adam Smith was long ago adopted as the father of a neo-conservative economic ideology, not least by Thatcher and Reagan. More recently, New Labour has tried to kidnap him as an ancestor. In a vigorous and informal book, James Buchan shows that Smith fits no modern political category. As befits the most accessible of all philosophers, this biography does entirely without jargon.

Sir Thomas Fairfax, not Oliver Cromwell, was creator and commander of Parliament's New Model Army from 1645 to 1650. Although Fairfax emerged as England's most successful commander of the 1640s, this book challenges the orthodoxy that he was purely a military figure, showing how he was not apolitical or disinterested in politics. The book combines narrative and thematic approaches to explore the wider issues of popular allegiance, puritan religion, concepts of honour, image, reputation, memory, gender, literature, and Fairfax's relationship with Cromwell. "Black Tom" delivers a groundbreaking examination of the transformative experience of the English revolution from the viewpoint of one of its leading, yet most neglected, participants. It is the first modern academic study of Fairfax, making it essential reading for university students as well as historians of the seventeenth century. Its accessible style will appeal to a wider audience of those interested in the civil wars and interregnum more generally.

This is the shocking memoir by visionary Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, giving an account of his life as a writer and a homosexual and his struggle for freedom of expression. He describes his poverty-stricken childhood in rural Cuba and his adolescence as a rebel fighting for Castro, his suppression as a writer, imprisonment as a homosexual, and his flight from Cuba via the Mariel boat lift. He never really reconciled himself to life in America away from the beloved country of his birth, and committed suicide in 1990 at the age of 47, already dying from Aids.

This book tells the vivid story of the pioneer of photography, Eadweard Muybridge. His extraordinary personal story has all the ingredients of drama. He was born in the English suburbs, and set out to seek adventure and fortune in the American Wild West. While visiting Europe his coach overturned, and he was treated for a fractured skull. It was at this time that photography grew. Muybridge became a pioneering innovator, who not only invented new methods of photography, but devised 'a flying studio' which enabled him to dvelop his pictures in the field. He was betrayed by his wife, and risked everything by killing her lover. Muybridge's work is iconic, the picture of the moving horse, which proved how it lifted its four feet off the ground simultaneously, known throughout the world. His distinctive stop-motion pictures of men, women, boxers, wrestlers, racehorses, elephants and camels frozen in time, captured in the act of moving, fighting, galloping, living, have become some of the most famous images in the history of photography and science.

This book aims to show that Adam Smith (1723-90), the author of "The Wealth of Nations", was not the promoter of ruthless laissez-faire capitalism that is still frequently depicted. Smith's "right-wing" reputation was sealed after his death when it was not safe to claim that an author may have influenced the French revolutionaries. But, as the author, also, of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", which he probably regarded as his more important book, Smith sought a non-religious grounding for morals, and found it in the principle of sympathy, which should lead an impartial spectator to understand others' problems.

John Scott Haldane (1860-1936) was one of the greatest and most colourful of British scientists, acknowledged as the leading physiologist of the era at a time when physiology and much of medical science was coming into its own. The most successful serial self-experimenter in the history of science, Haldane crawled through the carnage of underground explosions, locked himself in sealed chambers, breathed in lethal cocktails of gases, sampled his own blood, burned and healed his own flesh, and experimented on his own children, in an obsessional push to understand the nature of human respiration. What is expired air? How can you make coalmines safer? What does carbon monoxide do to people? These are just some of the vital questions to which Haldane provided the answers, saving thousands of lives in the process. He also designed the first space-suit and invented the gas-mask, among many other innovations and contributions we still benefit from today. Entertaining and enlightening in equal measure, Martin Goodman's lively and revealing biography casts new light on one of the greatest eccentrics of British scientific and intellectual life.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the debut of one of the world's greatest cricketers, this will be an official book, with authoritative text from Mark Baldwin ("The Times"), supported with lavish full colour and b/w photos of Ian Botham's life and cricket career. Following his Test debut in 1977, Ian will be choosing the best photographs that highlight his finest moments in the game, and working alongside Mark Baldwin, he will caption each of them as well as provide an extended introduction on the countries he has played against, players he's faced, and characters he's met along the way. His friend and rock legend, Sir Mick Jagger, will provide the foreword. This will be the only book anyone will need to track the meteor-like career of one of the game's greatest players, as well as see what he gets up to behind the scenes, including his legendary charity walks for John O'Groats to Lands End.

Craig Nelson's rich and vivid biography does justice to one of of the world's greatest thinkers, bringing him to life against the dramatic backdrop of the Revolutionary era and the Age of Enlightenment that he helped to shape. Nelson traces Paine's dramatic path from his years as a struggling London mechanic to his journey after fortune in the New World; from his early pamphleteering to his heroism as the voice of revolution on two continents; and from his miraculous escape from execution in Paris to his final years in America.

Elizabeth Fry, mother of eleven children and a Quaker minister, is today seen as one of the most influential and enigmatic women in English history. Dismayed by the terrible prison conditions in the early nineteenth century, Fry drew the world's attention to the plight of incarcerated women, and became a living legend. A symbol of saintliness and virtue, 'Betsy' Fry was described in parliament as 'the genius of good'. Yet, during her lifetime this remarkable woman aroused hostility as well as admiration. Quakers found her 'worldliness' disquieting; not all of her fellow penal reformers approved of her unorthodox ways and her family felt neglected. As for Betsy herself, she was tortured throughout her life by self-doubt and anxiety and torn between the demands of her family, her religion and her own attraction to the 'high life'. June Rose's classic biography, based on Elizabeth Fry's private journals, reveals the 'saint' as she really was. She removes Fry from her pedestal and reawakens our interest in this complex, contradictory personality who defied the conventions of her age to fulfil her destiny.

Beautiful and talented, versatile and charismatic, Elizabeth Robins was one of the foremost actresses of her day. Yet, this enduring character was also an active and lifelong feminist, and her life as a suffragette saw her working alongside the Pankhursts in the Women's and Social and Political Union. A prolific novelist and playwright, her play "Votes for Women!" changed the nature of theatre by instigating suffrage drama. She became so well known for portraying characters from Ibsen's plays that she is credited with bringing the playwright's work to prominence. Born in America during the Civil War, Elizabeth nevertheless made her home in England, where she became acquainted with Oscar Wilde, Virginia and Leonard Woolf and Henry James. Oscar Wilde introduced her to the London stage, and before long she had become one of the most popular actresses in London with an assured entry into London's leading artistic and political circles. Encountering heartbreak and solitude (Elizabeth's husband George Park drowned himself in 1887), this remarkable actress became one of the most fascinating characters of the fin de siecle world. In this intriguing biography, Angela John examines Elizabeth's historical identity and, drawing extensively on her diaries, letters and reviews, provides a fascinating study of the social culture surrounding a woman who lived a life in the spotlight.

Thomas Hodgkin (1910-1982) was an intriguing figure: public schoolboy, Oxford student, colonial official, Marxist, dissident and Oxford don. He left the colonial office after becoming convinced that Britain was not respecting the Palestinians. He travelled extensively in Africa and became one of the founders of the new discipline of African Studies, writing African Political Parties and Nationalism in Colonial Africa. His Vietnam: The Revolutionary Path was written in the midst of the American intervention. An unconventional scholar, he met many prominent political figures - Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara and Kwame Nkrumah among them. Wolfers records the successes and strengths as well as failures and weaknesses, candidly telling the story of Hodgkin's unusual 'marriage of three'. Drawing on an immense store of unpublished material in the Hodgkin family papers, Michael Wolfers provides the first detailed biography of Thomas Hodgkin - a remarkable human being and intellectual.