The Wellington Bomber was omnipresent during the Second World War, employed in a variety of contexts in the fight against the Axis powers. The pilots who flew this aircraft did so with an immense amount of pride, and there is perhaps no-one better placed to tell the story of this incredible aircraft than these men. Martin Bowman has drawn together a selection of first-hand pilot testimonies in an effort to record authentically the experience of flying the much-mythologised Wellington during one...
Against the Law (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 50th anniversary list)
by Peter Wildeblood
In March 1954 Peter Wildeblood, a London journalist, was one of five men charged with homosexual acts in the notorious Montagu Case, as it came to be known. Wildeblood was sentenced to eighteen months for homosexual offences, along with Lord Montagu and Major Michael Pitt-Rivers. The other two men were set free after turning Queen's Evidence. In this book, first published in 1955, Peter Wildeblood tells the story of his childhood and schooldays, his war service and university days, his life as...
The Women's Liberation Movement and the Politics of Class in Britain
by George Stevenson
This is the first study of the British Women's Liberation Movement's relationship with class politics. It explores the meaning of class to women's liberationists' identities and activism, both nationally and regionally, using a previously neglected feminist cluster in North East England as a case study. Stevenson demonstrates that British feminism was shaped fundamentally by its relationship to, synthesis with, and rejection of class politics. Through these processes, feminists recognised how p...
In December 1962, nationalists in Brunei, the hugely wealthy small kingdom on the North Coast of Borneo, formed the Army of North Kalimantan (TNKU) and, demanding greater democracy, engineered a rebellion against the Sultan and seized a large number of hostages. Perceived to be an attempt by communists to destabilise the Sultanate and seize power, within twelve hours of its outbreak, British forces were despatched by ship and aircraft from Singapore to restore order, the first unit to arrive be...
The Bomber War: A Ladybird Expert Book (The Ladybird Expert)
by James Holland
Part of the new Ladybird Expert series, The Bomber War is an accessible, insightful and authoritative introduction to the airborne Allied fight against Nazi Germany.- How did aeroplane technology change the theatre of war?- How did the Blitz affect Britain's ability to fight?- How did the Allies finally triumph?DISCOVER how the complex impact of bomber technology shaped the outcome of World War II. From the Blitz to the Battle of the Ruhr, the Bomber War transformed the state of warfare in the t...
Here are overlooked or forgotten tales from the world's greatest conflict. These are stories of courage, daring, and stupidity, some of which would challenge the imaginations of Hollywood scriptwriters. Some of the many true tales that author Donald Aines recounts include: - He would never be cast as a dashing war hero, but a cast member of "The Addams Family" television show volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs the Army Air Force had to offer.- The US Navy's deadliest submarine clai...
Neglected Skies uses a reconsideration of the clash between the British Eastern Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy's First Air Fleet in the Indian Ocean in April 1942 to draw a larger conclusion about declining British military power in the era. In this book, Angus Britts explores the end of British naval supremacy from an operational perspective. By primarily analyzing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period, as well as the challenges that the peacetime Royal Navy w...
The U.S. Navy and Its Cold War Alliances, 1945-1953
by Corbin Williamson
After World War I, the U.S. Navy's brief alliance with the British Royal Navy gave way to disagreements over disarmament, fleet size, interpretations of freedom of the seas, and general economic competition. This go-it-alone approach lasted until the next world war, when the U.S. Navy found itself fighting alongside the British, Canadian, Australian, and other Allied navies until the surrender of Germany and Japan. In The U.S. Navy and Its Cold War Alliances, 1945-1953, Corbin Williamson explore...
World War One had a devastating, cataclysmic impact on the world and the British people. As its reverberations were so long-lasting and significant, it is easy to assume that the social consequences were as profound. In this highly readable and moving survey of life back at home during the First World War, Gerard DeGroot challenges this assumption, finding pre-war social structures were surprisingly resilient. Despite economic and technological changes, the British peoplemanaged to cling onto th...
Between the opulent Edwardian years and the 1920s, between the England of "Pomp and Circumstance", the first Post-Impressionist show and "Man and Superman" and the England of "The Waste Land", "Facade" and "The Green Hat", World War I opens like a gap in history, separating one world of beliefs and values from another, and changing not only the map of Europe, but the ways in which men and women imagined reality itself. Because of the war, England after the war was a different place: the arts wer...
*A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 2021*'Preposterously entertaining' Observer'Brilliant' Daily Telegraph'Rollicking' Sunday TimesFrom the bestselling author of The Long Weekend: a wild, sad and sometimes hilarious tour of the English country house after the Second World War, when Swinging London collided with aristocratic values.As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising ta...
Spitfire Pilot is the exhilarating and moving memoir of D. M. Crook, an airman in the legendary 609 Squadron - one of the most successful RAF units in the Battle of Britain. Beginning with his fond recollections of his halcyon days in training - acrobatics, night flying and languorous days spent playing sport and nights off visiting Piccadilly Circus - Crook goes on to recount in thrilling detail the dogfights, remarkable victories and tragic losses which formed the daily routine of Britain's h...
No self-respecting Victorian lady would enter a British pub, a florid drinking den where working men guzzled pints of beer. When brewers, inspired by the Progressive belief that the physical environment influenced moral behavior, turned to the problem of working-class drinking during the interwar years, they set to work reinventing the pub itself. Acting on a genuine belief in the possibility of social betterment, reformers found ready allies among not only government officials but religious le...
'An exceptional account.' Prospect'Enlightening.' SpectatorFor the first time in millennia we live without formal empires. But that doesn't mean we don't feel their presence rumbling through history. The Great Imperial Hangover examines how the world's imperial legacies are still shaping the thorniest issues we face today. From Russia's incursions in the Ukraine to Brexit; from Trump's 'America-first' policy to China's forays into Africa; from Modi's India to the hotbed of the Middle East, Puri...
Sinking of the Prince of Wales & Repulse
by Patrick Mahoney and Martin Middlebrook
Born into the gap between the eras of austerity and boom, David grew up in Merseyside amid an inexorable tide of progress, developing a fascination with the past. With a vivid eye for detail and boundless childhood curiosity for everything from steam trains to ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’, his account documents the uneasy relationship between worlds old and new. Featuring unique photographs and authoritative observations on architecture, social and local history based on forty years' work in museums...
You're nicked is the first comprehensive study of television police series in the UK. It shows how British television's most popular genre has developed stylistically, politically and philosophically from 1955 to the present. Each chapter focuses on a particular decade, investigating how the most-watched series represent the inner workings of the police station, the civilian life of criminals and the private lives of police officers. This new methodological approach unearths the complex ideology...
The bestselling, prize-winning author explores the impact of the Second World War - for nations, cities and families around the world. The Second World War was one of the most catastrophic events in human history. But how did the experience and memory of bloodshed - and bonding - affect the modern world? How did fears of violence, dreams of equality, and craving for freedom and belonging affect the world, countries and communities we live in today?The Fear and the Freedom describes and analyses...