Slightly off-mint.

Slightly off-mint

Slightly off-mint

Slightly off-mint

Off-mint

Starting with the growing nationalist demands for independence that followed the Second World War, Guy Arnold’s magisterial history describes the momentous changes that transformed Africa from a collection of European colonies to fifty independent nations. After an introduction to the post-war continent, the book examines how the hopes of the 1960s were followed by the realities of foreign interference, internal tyrannies and corruption. This 2017 edition ends with the growing influence of China, the Arab Spring and the refugee crisis.

Was the Prime Minister of Australia a Chinese spy, and did the Soviets abduct a British frogman from Portsmouth harbour in 1956? As secret documents from the Cold War period become declassified, this exploration into a range of spying revelations and exposés investigates the veracity of the stories and the credentials of their authors and finds that many do not stand up to scrutiny.

MI6 agent William Catesby is tasked with doing whatever is necessary to prevent Argentina from obtaining more lethal Exocet missiles and threatening British lives in the Falklands, set against a backdrop of political differences in Westminster.

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Edited in cooperation with Breaking the Silence, an NGO of former Israeli soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories, this collection of essays reflects on the human cost of 50 years of occupation, conflict and destruction in the West Bank and Gaza. The contributors include such celebrated international writers as Mario Vargas Llosa, Colm Tóibín, Eimear McBride, Hari Kunzru, Dave Eggers and Rachel Kushner.

Fidel Castro’s 1959 triumph in Cuba sparked Eric Hobsbawm’s interest in Latin America, ‘a continent apparently bubbling with the lava of social revolutions’. The 31 essays and articles collected here represent his sustained fascination with the area and its politics. They cover topics including revolutionaries (not least Che Guevara), the Chilean road to socialism, the region’s peasant movements and its agrarian structures.

When India became a free nation in August 1947 many doubted would it survive. Journalist and broadcaster Mihir Bose analyses how the country transformed into one capable of rivalling China as the pre-eminent economic superpower.

The primary role of American B-52 bombers in the earlier years covered by this study was to carry the US nuclear threat. Other jet operations of the 1950s and 1960s saw MiGs, Mirages and F-4 Phantoms in action in conflicts including the Six Day War and Vietnam.

The 1960s is known as the decade of music, fashion and youth culture; this volume has its share of Beatles but shifts the emphasis to people and events in the news, including Kim Philby, Christine Keeler, the army in Belfast and England collecting the World Cup.

As MP for Chester and a government whip, Gyles Brandreth had a ringside seat at Westminster from the fall of Margaret Thatcher to the election of Tony Blair. His frank and often funny diaries provide an insight into the workings of modern government, profiles of the key players, and the first-ever insider's account of the secret world of the Whips' Office. This updated edition continues the story to the arrival of David Cameron as Tory leader.

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John Warwicker, a former Special Branch officer, tells the story of his six years in charge of security at No 10 Downing Street, protecting Prime Ministers Wilson, Callaghan and Thatcher during an era in which the Cold War and the IRA were ever-present threats.

The second volume of Ken Wharton’s history offers a month-by-month account of events in the troubled province from January 1988 to December 1990, a period of unremitting bombings, shootings, ambushes and kidnappings. The timeline is interspersed with frank interviews with both Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries, members of the security forces and victims’ relatives. Unapologetically raw and emotional, the book is explicit in its portrayal of the human cost of terrorism, and its condemnation of both sides in the conflict.

Along with a sketch of the social and economic background and a timeline of events, this volume profiles the lives and achievements of Robert Baden-Powell, the fraudster Horatio Bottomley, Marie Stopes, David Lloyd George, Lord Reith and Bertrand Russell.

An unprecedented smog hit London in December 1952, plunging the city into an eerie and poisonous darkness that killed 12,000 people. A few days later, John Christie strangled his wife and, over the following months, committed a further three killings. This true crime story draws together the notorious Rillington Place murders and the environmental disaster to chronicle a dark period in austerity London. Off-mint with a felt-tip mark on upper trimmed edge.

While the Cuban Missile Crisis is remembered as a period when Cold War tension peaked, the world came nearer to destruction in 1983 – the year of Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’ speech and Star Wars programme, when the Soviets shot down the Korean flight KAL 007, and a NATO exercise unnerved Andropov into believing war had started for real. Drawing on hundreds of recently discovered documents, this book reveals how genuine the threat of nuclear catastrophe became.

In telling the life story of Elizabeth II, Andrew Marr is concerned with the influences on her and 'why she does what she does'. The result is a study of the monarchy that chronicles the Queen's pivotal role at the centre of state, which is largely hidden from the public gaze, and makes a strong case for the institution itself. Marr presents a vivid account not only of Elizabeth II, but also of the country she has reigned over for six decades.

‘I saw a V1 coming in south of Dover and caught up with it about three miles south of Canterbury. I was flying at 400mph and had no difficulty overtaking …’ This book features long-form interviews with over 40 veteran pilots of the beloved Gloster Meteor, the RAF’s first jet-powered aeroplane, which came into service in 1944 and played a significant role in the early stages of the Cold War, despite being alarmingly accident-prone.

David Caute tells the story of Isaiah Berlin’s bitter feud with Isaac Deutscher, not simply as Anglo-American liberal versus Leninist socialist, but as a complex ideological clash between two of the most politically influential intellectuals of the Cold War era.

Margaret Thatcher remains one of Britain’s most polarizing prime ministers. This provocative investigation sheds new light on the Iron Lady’s war against the ‘enemies within’: striking miners, trades unionists, anti-nuclear protestors, feminists, gay rights campaigners and poll tax protesters. Drawing on countless news reports, studies and personal recollections, it sifts the real conspiracies from the theories that flourished in a paranoid age, to chart the lasting effects of the growth of the secret state on British society.

China is rapidly becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and its leader, Xi Jingping, is enshrined in its constitution – an honour not seen since Chairman Mao. This succinct, accessible primer charts his rise to power and explains his world-view, his plans to eradicate poverty and extend his country’s global reach, his thoughts on China’s Communist legacy – and how far he is prepared to go to defend it.

On VE Day, 8 May 1945, Winston Churchill was the victorious leader who had steered Britain through five years of war. By VJ Day in August, he had been ejected from office and his great ally Franklin Roosevelt was dead. This history provides a month-by-month account of how Churchill, increasingly fearful of Stalin’s ambitions in Europe, became a voice in the wilderness once again, warning of the danger of Communism as he had warned against Nazism in the 1930s.

The defining year in a decade of change, 1965 witnessed a social, political, artistic and technological landslide that shaped modern Britain. Blending meticulous research with biting satire, this lively history charts how the old order was laid to rest with Winston Churchill, and the new generation – artist Bridget Riley, filmmaker Ken Loach, radical psychiatrist RD Laing – forged a new world, while the Beatles received MBEs and Home Secretary Roy Jenkins ushered in the ‘permissive society’.

Ideal for students new to philosophy, each book in this series places a major philosopher in historical context, explains their key arguments and considers their legacy.

This series presents engaging, academically credible biographies, written from an explicitly historical perspective.

Israel's victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 gave the young nation new confidence, but not all of its consequences were beneficial. In the final volume of his acclaimed trilogy charting Israel's history, Leslie Stein provides a vivid account of the country's economic, social and political development over the past four decades, its military engagements, its relations with the Palestinians, the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and the varying fortunes of migrants from Russia and Ethiopia.

Recent events have propelled the secretive Communist state of North Korea into the news, but for six decades it has remained a mystery to outsiders. This book includes 150 rare photos, many of them never seen before in the West, that chart the devastation of the war that gave it birth, and the determined reconstruction that followed. The accompanying essay by Balazs Szalontai recounts the untold story of how ordinary Koreans endured the conflict, and the totalitarian system that emerged from it.

During the Cold War a complex infrastructure of defence installations was built across Britain in response to the threat from nuclear weapons. After 1989 many of these formerly secret sites were considered obsolete and abandoned. This volume reports the findings of a project to identify those most in need of preservation, with photographs (both archive and modern) of the buildings, Ordnance Survey images, cutaway diagrams, architectural plans and ephemera, while the detailed text explains their purpose and construction and the historical background.

One of the most charismatic and outspoken politicians of the past 50 years, Ken Livingstone has never fought shy of controversy. In this frank and engaging memoir, he recalls his tough South London childhood, his formative political experiences, the demise of the GLC, and his comeback as Mayor of London. It offers an eye-opening insight into his battles with Thatcher and Blair, the committee-room intrigues of civic politics, and the seismic shift in social attitudes in recent decades.Slightly off-mint.

Although now consigned to history, the Cold War remains a vivid memory for many, and the events of the period between the 1940s and 1991 are still echoed in conflicts around the world today. Using nearly 150 photographs and reproductions, each accompanied by a detailed caption, this book depicts both the high-level political and military stand-off and what the Cold War meant for ordinary men and women during the 'delicate balance of terror' years.

After the most devastating war in human history, how did the world emerge from the wreckage? Drawing on hundreds of eye-witness accounts and personal stories, this study focuses on the immediate aftermath of the Second World War: the months following the surrender of the Axis powers. It begins with the liberation of the camps and surveys the problems of repatriation, hunger, revenge, war crimes tribunals and military occupation, but also the restoration of democracy and the start of the UN.

The 1951 Festival of Britain brought both excitement and optimism to the drab post-war years of rationing and austerity. This book explores the intentions of its creators, recounts the effect of its satellite festivals all over Britain, and records how it transformed London's South Bank with buildings such as the Royal Festival Hall and the futuristic Skylon, spawned the Miss World contest, introduced Britons to Scandinavian design and even offered them their first experience of soft lavatory paper.

Richard Aldous's dual biography of Reagan and Thatcher dispels the myth of their 'special relationship', reveals the depth of their disagreement and shows how, confronted by the USSR, they struggled to overcome their differences.

Brendan O’Shea, an Observer with the European Community Monitoring Mission during the Bosnian conflict, 1992–5, gives an account of the war in the Bihac Pocket in north-west Bosnia: a microcosm of the wider conflict.

Subtitled The Impact of the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland, this volume looks at post-conflict peace- building efforts in the political, social and economic long-term peace.

This concise, readable and timely book offers an in-depth treatment of environmental, social and demographic issues, discussing topics such as energy supplies, cross-border crime and immigration.

With tales from the days of indoor sandals and navy knickers, Latin verbs and transistor radios, semolina pudding and O Levels, this light-hearted social history is based on the experiences of pupils from 18 schools around the country and describes how things were for grammar school girls – at school and at home – between about 1955 and 1965.

About 20,000 French women were punished for alleged collaboration during the Occupation by having their heads shaved in public. This study looks in depth at this brutally administered punishment and at the guilt or innocence of the women.

Patrick Wright uncovers the story of the British politicians, scientists and artists - among them Clement Attlee, Nye Bevan, AJ Ayer and Stanley Spencer - who were invited by Chou En-lai to 'come and see' the New China in 1954.

Dealing analytically with the movement as a whole, this is a study of the East German uprising that overthrew Honecker's regime and culminated in the transition to parliamentary democracy in 1990. No jacket.

Fidel Castro (1926-2016) was a towering figure, the leader of Cuba's revolution and one of the world's last Communist strongmen; but his fiercely defended privacy meant that biographers could barely scratch the surface of his personal life. Here Juan Sanchez, once Castro’s bodyguard, but later persecuted by the regime, shares his intimate knowledge of this 'man of the people' who amassed vast personal wealth (partly through government-sanctioned drug-running) and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle including a luxury yacht and secret island marina.

In the summer of 1945 servicemen were coming home, and life was expected to return to normal. Drawing on many interviews, this social history shows that in reality many families found it hard to adjust. Couples who had been apart for years were confused by their changed roles; children were reunited with fathers they hardly knew; and some men, traumatized by experiences they could not bring themselves to speak of, were angry and distant.