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Scotland was of grave strategic importance during the war due to its geographical position, while its capital was the location of a significant number of important military and civil organisations. Aberdeen possessed important shipbuilding facilities, including Hall, Russell & Co., which built a number of vessels during the war, such as corvettes and frigates, resulting in the yard being targeted by the Luftwaffe on a number of occasions. The fishing fleet was also of prime importance in supply...

Between late antiquity and the fifteenth century, theologians, philosophers, and poets struggled to articulate the correct relationship between sound and sense, creating taxonomies of sounds based on their capacity to carry meaning. In World of Echo, Adin E. Lears traces how medieval thinkers adopted the concept of noise as a mode of lay understanding grounded in the body and the senses. With a broadly interdisciplinary approach, Lears examines a range of literary genres to highlight the poeti...

The Battle of Hastings, fought on 14 October 1066, changed the course of English history. This most famous moment of the Norman Conquest was recorded in graphic detail in the threads of the Bayeux Tapestry, providing a priceless glimpse into a brutal conflict. In this fresh look at the battle and its surrounding campaigns, leading medieval military historians Michael Livingston and Kelly DeVries combine the imagery of the tapestry with the latest modern investigative research to reveal the stor...

World-famous Bridgnorth town is situated on the river Severn near Kidderminster and is a very popular anglers' haunt and tourist destination. Within the shadow of its very own Civil War-ravaged castle lies a unique funicular rail system and the north-western terminus of the famous Severn Valley heritage railway line. Although steeped in military history, much of its Great War social history has remained obscure until now. This enthralling account explores many surprising and unknown facts about...

Presents the candid diary of Thomas Macaulay, Victorian statesman, historian and author of "The History of England". This work shows how, spanning the period 1838 to 1859, the journal is the longest work from Macaulay's pen. It states that these unique manuscripts held at Trinity College, Cambridge, are most revealing of all his writings.

In the thirty years after the Second World War, the British army entered a period of intense technological development. Due to the lack of surviving documentation, this period is almost a second Dark Age. What survives shows the British Army's struggle to use cutting edge technology to create weapons that could crush the Soviet Union's armed forces, all the while fighting against the demands of Her Majesty's Treasury. On this journey, the Army entertained ideas such as micro-tanks of about 20 t...

On 15 March 1945, a force of sixteen Avro Lancasters from RAF Bomber Command's Nos 9 and 617 Squadrons was despatched to attack a viaduct at Arnsberg. The fourteen aircraft from 9 Squadron carried Tallboys, whilst the two remaining Lancasters, from 617 Squadron, were loaded with Grand Slams. During the mission, which failed to cut the viaduct, three crew members from one of the 9 Squadron Lancasters baled out from their badly-damaged aircraft over the eastern Ruhr. The author of this book, Flyi...

In 1945 it was announced that Allied airmen who had taken part in the Battle of Britain in 1940 would be entitled to the "immediate" award of the 1939-1945 Star, with Battle of Britain Clasp. This was the only Clasp awarded with the 1939-1945 Star. In the following years holders of the Clasp held informal get-togethers. In 1958 the Battle of Britain Fighter Association (BBFA) was formed, with full membership only available to holders of the Battle of Britain Clasp. Lord Dowding was the first Pre...

One of the most versatile fighting vehicles in the British army and many other forces for a quarter of a century, the Universal Carrier - more popularly known by its original title of Bren Gun Carrier - was developed as a fast and agile infantry-support vehicle. In this volume in Pen & Sword's LandCraft series, Robert Jackson traces its design and manufacturing history and describes its operational role throughout its long career. The Bren Carrier served in every theatre of the Second World War...

That the commercial developments of the centuries between 1000 and 1500 are important for understanding social change is the focus for discussion in this text. The author explores the significance of the growth and mulitiplication of English towns, the growing use of money and the increasing dependance of many families upon trade. He builds these observations into a broader understanding of change, in which related legal and administrative developments ae also assessed.

David Cooper's book reappraises the evidence regarding the early battles for Wessex territory. It charts the sequence of battles from the c. AD 500 siege of Badon Hill, in which the Britons defeated the first Saxon attempt to gain a foothold in Wessex territory, to Langport in 710, which consolidated King Ine's position and pushed the Britons westwards. Discussion of the post-Roman British and Germanic factions provides context and background to Badon Hill, which is then covered in detail and di...

In July 2018, the nation looked skyward over Buckingham Palace in awe as the Royal Air Force celebrated its first 100 years with a spectacular parade and flypast over London. This event demonstrated a very different perspective of the RAF; well away from its operational commitments. The expertise and precision of those RAF pilots flying in some of the most famous aircraft in the world has been displayed since the very first days of military aviation. The Inter-War period was dominated by the He...

Many books have been written about the Jacobite rebellions - the armed attempts made by the Stuarts to regain the British throne between 1689 and 1746 - and in particular about the risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745. The key battles have been described in graphic detail. Yet no previous book has given a comprehensive military account of the campaigns in their entirety - and that is the purpose of Jonathan Oates's new history. For over fifty years the Jacobites posed a serious threat to the go...

Although Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland together dominate fourteenth-century English literature, their respective masterpieces, The Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman, could not be more different. While Langland's poem was immediately popular and influential, it was Chaucer who stood at the head of a literary tradition within a generation of his death. John Bowers asks why and how Chaucer, not Langland, was granted this position. His study reveals the political, social, and religious fact...

Who can resist the allure of Merlin? In British and Celtic mythology, Merlinus Ambrosius is perhaps the most compelling of the many charismatic figures associated with King Arthur and the Grail. For 1500 years the great enchanter has ensnared legions of willing interpreters in his web of powerful charms and spells. In her ebullient new history, one of Britain's foremost authorities on Welsh and Celtic folklore traces the `birth' of Merlin in the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth to the rise of th...

Designs on Democracy examines a pivotal period in the formation of the modern profession of architecture in Britain. It shows how architects sought to meet the newly articulated demands of a mass democracy in the wake of the First World War. It does so by providing a vivid picture of architectural culture in interwar London, the Imperial metropolis, drawing on histories of design, practice, professionalism, and representation. Most accounts of this period tend to deal exclusively with the emerge...

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Featuring essays from some of the most prominent voices in early medieval studies, Dating Beowulf playfully redeploys the word 'dating', which usually heralds some of the most divisive critical impasses in the field, to provocatively phrase a set of new relationships with an Old English poem. The volume argues for the relevance of the early Middle Ages to affect studies and vice-versa, offeri...

An authoritative life of Edward the Confessor, the monarch whose death sparked the invasion of 1066 "In putting flesh back on Edward's bones Licence has brought a new succession story to popular attention."-Leanda de Lisle, The Times "This fine biography of Edward the Confessor is both entertaining and elegiac."-Nicholas Vincent, The Tablet One of the last kings of Anglo-Saxon England, Edward the Confessor regained the throne for the House of Wessex and is the only English monarch to have be...

This book tells the story of the first helicopter in the world designed from the outset to be deployed at sea, in Destroyers and Frigates. It is primarily based on the words of those who operated it. Designed from the outset to cope with the restricted space of a warship both for stowage and flight operations it proved an immediate success. Its original role was to act as a weapon carrier to launch torpedoes and depth charges on submarine contacts out of range of the parent ship's weapons range....

Refreshed, renewed, reloaded! Readers can discover all the foul facts about the Cut-throat Celts, including: why weird Celt warriors fought with no clothes on, how to preserve your enemy's brain and why the Celts laughed at funerals. Refreshed with a fantastic new design, these bestselling titles are sure to be a huge hit with yet another generation of Terry Deary fans. With shiny foil cover