165 Products

Reaching for the Sky

The Long Range Desert Group was the first British special forces unit of the Second World War, carrying out deep penetration missions in the North African deserts and beyond. Centred around the unit’s founder, Ralph Bagnold, who in the 1930s explored miles of desert in a Model T Ford, this history of the unit and its operations also recounts some of its most daring missions.

John Sadler describes the decisive military engagements within Scottish borders that have been most significant in their scale or consequences, from Mons Graupius (84 CE), which marked the Romans’ most northward advance, to the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746. He discusses the battles’ historical contexts and the development of equipment and fighting styles, as well as using detailed battle plans for tactical analyses. New edition.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Frank Foley worked as Chief Passport Control Officer for the British Embassy in Berlin, a cover for his role as MI6 Head of Station there. As the Nazi administration increased its stranglehold over the country, Foley used his position to issue visas to countless Jews, allowing them to escape to Britain ‘legally’. This biography also recounts many of the escapes that Foley enabled.

Long after slavery was abolished in the British Empire, the trade continued along the east coast of Africa – and many of the ships involved were British. The Royal Navy dispatched a squadron to stamp out the practice – only to come into conflict with wealthy merchants at home. Based on archival research and written with great narrative verve, this is the story of how a coalition of naval officers and abolitionists finally forced the government to act.

The entrepreneurial spirit has often thrived during times of war, and the makeshift photography studios that sprung up in attic rooms, chemists’ shops, cabins and tents in the military encampments of 1861 America did a roaring trade. The result was an unparalleled photographic record of the American Civil War, capturing not only portraits of loved ones, politicians and generals, but battlefields, ordnance and the devastation of conflict, pictured here in this erudite illustrated study of Civil War photography. Slightly off-mint.

The Anglo-Irish soldier Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833–1913) was a household name in his lifetime. In just one year, he captured two powerful Zulu leaders who had inflicted crushing defeats on the British. Drawing on hitherto unused material, including 600 of Wolseley’s own letters, and field trips to long-forgotten battle sites, William Wright brings this ambitious, clever, insecure officer vividly to life, and sheds new light on an important but neglected aspect of colonial history.

Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant was a Somerset-born Australian bushman, drover and versifier, best known for the revenge killings he inflicted on prisoners of war when serving with the British Bushveldt Carbineers regiment during the Boer War. Morant was court martialled and executed for his crimes – wrongly, many have claimed – yet this fastidiously researched biography argues that, despite the romance surrounding Morant and his chaotic lifestyle, his actions in South Africa were ‘judged in proper and orthodox fashion’.

Retaining conscription after the Second World War, Britain required all young men to serve for 18 months (and after 1950, two years) unless employed in an exempt trade. Through interviews with 27 men across all the services and throughout the period of National Service, this book characterizes the experiences that shaped a generation, from fighting in Korea, Malaya, Kenya and Egypt to whitewashing coal in the local barracks.

The Royal Navy was the largest in the world in 1939, and conscription during the Second World War increased the total of employed men to 790,000, the vast majority of whom were seamen of the 'lower deck'. Based on primary research and first-hand accounts, this book examines the lives of these sailors during a period that has seen the introduction of women, the end of hammocks and the rum ration, and ever more emphasis on technical skills.

The change from sail to steam in the Royal Navy was underway by 1850 and in the following decades the work and life of ordinary seamen changed radically as new jobs, servicing the engines and operating the sophisticated gunnery and communications systems, replaced the traditional lot of the sailor. This well-researched history chronicles the increasing professionalization and specialization of the lower deck as the Navy rapidly evolved and introduced many of the roles and practices which are familiar today.

Although his name has become a byword for tyranny, Genghis Khan is also credited with creating the unified trade routes that brought the cultures of Europe, the Middle East and Asia into contact, as well as some enlightened lawmaking (by medieval standards). This account of the great conqueror explores the cultural background of the nomadic Mongolian tribes and analyses the Khan's personality as well as the events that saw him acquire and rule the largest contiguous empire in history.

Roman propaganda helped to create the common perception of Northern Europe’s early warriors as disorganized, uncultured savages. However, as this book shows, there is abundant evidence for the use of innovative technologies and sophisticated strategic thinking in societies across the region. To shed light on the centuries before written records, Wileman analyses such monuments as the Bronze Age hillforts at Maiden Castle in Dorset and Alesia in France together with archaeological finds, from ancient weapons to rock art depicting scenes of battle.

Mike Roberts brings a fresh perspective to the study of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) by focusing on the clash of the two dynamic commanders who were killed in 422 during the battle over the Athenian colony at Amphipolis. Roberts follows the career of the heroic Spartan Brasidas, already a veteran of many campaigns when he headed north to this strategically important city, and reconsiders the Athenian Cleon, whose reputation was tarnished by the historian Thucydides’ vociferous criticism.

Medieval mercenaries were more than just well-armed, freebooting thugs; they were noblemen, too, who took advantage of political chaos to further their own interests. From early Italian mercenaries to the private armies spawned during the Hundred Years War, this intelligent survey of Europe’s freelance fighters describes the many mercenary bands who killed, looted and ransomed their way across Europe’s heartlands, referencing the popular literature, including Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Conan Doyle and Mark Twain, that has guaranteed their place in the collective imagination.

In uniting the tribes of northeast Asia, Genghis Khan led an army whose ingenious and often brutal stratagems created a land-based empire stretching from the Black Sea in the west to Korea in the east. This study reassesses his achievements in the context of Mongol society, referring to sources including the 13th-century History of the World Conqueror and Secret History of the Mongols, and asking whether his legacy was the result of military genius, banditry, or fortuitous circumstance.

With nicknames like Flat Iron and Drag Queen, the Gloster Javelin was not the best-loved of RAF fighters, but it was a significant aircraft, developed to meet the demands of the Cold War. Watson gives a comprehensive, illustrated history of its chequered career.

With detailed entries on each of 164 medals and the battles they mark, from Elizabeth I’s Naval Reward c.1588, generally associated with the defeat of the Armada, to the Iraq Medal 2003, this an indispensable guide for both amateur and expert numismatists. The volume is based on the original 1947 edition by Major LL Gordon, following an easy-to-use chronological format, but incorporating an enormous amount of new material. No jacket. Bound in silver embossed maroon linen.

This 24th edition of the Medal Yearbook is an invaluable reference for collectors, giving details of prices, auctioneers, dealers and specialist booksellers as well as detailed, illustrated entries on hundreds of medals, from the Order of the Garter to the Dickin medal for bravery by birds and animals. The main listings are indexed and there is also a cumulative index to the journal Medal News. For 2018, due to costs, the Yearbook does not cover Commonwealth medals.

The Norman Conquest of 1066 was not the only ‘Conquest’ of the eleventh century; 50 years before William I’s victory at Hastings, the ‘Viking Conquest’ of 1016 made Cnut king of Denmark and England. This book argues that the consequences of that earlier conquest, including the exile of the Anglo-Saxon heirs to the English throne and the entanglement of English, Norman and Scandinavian politics, led to the defeat of Harold Godwinson in 1066.