Contemporary History

Travelling through the Balkans and drawing on his own experiences there as a war correspondent in the 1990s, Tim Butcher follows the journey of Gavrilo Princip, from a village in the mountains to Sarajevo, where he shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

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.

In 1962, a year after the Berlin Wall went up, a group of young West Germans risked imprisonment, torture and death to liberate friends, lovers and even strangers from the East. Based on interviews with the participants, and previously unavailable Stasi and CIA files, this history tells how two US TV networks financed their tunnel-building in return for the rights to screen the escapes, and how JF Kennedy’s White House, fearful of confrontation with Russia, tried to suppress the results.

Suzanne Spaak was born into an affluent Belgian Catholic family and married into the country's leading political dynasty. In occupied Paris she mingled with the cultural elite while leading a double life. Drawing on archive documents and eyewitness testimonies, this biography tells how she used her wealth and social status to create a clandestine network that saved hundreds of Jewish children from the gas chambers, before she herself paid the ultimate price for her courage.

Reflecting in its title the fragmentary nature of the nation it describes, The Archipelago tells how, after emerging from the war in ruins, Italy became an economic and cultural powerhouse. It explores the multifaceted nature of Italian society through TV, cinema, football and popular songs, and celebrates its capacity for reinvention despite deep political divisions, crime, terrorism, corruption and industrial unrest. Finally, it examines the career of Silvio Berlusconi and the rise of populism in the 21st century.

Tracking John F Kennedy’s exploits in Britain between 1935 and 1963, from the era of the Great Depression in the USA to the Cold War arms race, Christopher Sandford looks in depth at how Britain shaped JFK throughout his adult life, and how he in turn charmed British society. Set against the Second World War and its aftermath, the story of this ‘special relationship’ suggests how certain experiences of Britain may have influenced Kennedy’s basic thinking as president.

Had the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 escalated to nuclear strikes, American missiles would have been launched from sites in England and those locations were therefore targets themselves. Drawing on interviews with the RAF personnel responsible for holding the Thor ballistic missiles in a state of constant readiness, this analysis explores the most dangerous period of the Cold War from the perspective of Britain as the front line.

The former British Ambassador in Germany and France, Sir Christopher Mallaby began his diplomatic career in the USSR; and in 1962 he was in Moscow during the Cuban missile crisis. It was the first of several crucial moments in world history which Sir Christopher witnessed – including the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the Falklands War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany – and his memoirs offer an insider’s view of international diplomacy and the diplomatic world.

Foreign correspondents risk their own safety to report from the most dangerous places in the world, and are often witnesses to pivotal moments in history. In this celebration of the profession, John Simpson recalls his experiences in Kosovo, Kabul and Baghdad and tells the stories of past and present journalists including Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, Don McCullin and Marie Colvin, offering an insight into the origin, development and practice of this most challenging occupation.

Amy Knight, an expert on the KGB, describes today’s Russia as ‘a truly criminal regime’. She first traces the long Kremlin tradition of covert violence and the development of the country’s post-war security services. In the remainder of the book she investigates the background to several recent killings – including the Litvinenko poisoning and the 2015 shooting of outspoken Putin critic Boris Nemtsov – and examines the evidence for Russian involvement in the Boston Marathon bombings.

The Nobel-Prizewinning author Svetlana Alexievich has drawn together hundreds of interviews into a cohesive, flowing narrative to tell the stories of ordinary Russians over the two decades following the fall of communism in 1991. Their testimonies speak of triumphs, sorrows and tragedies as the belief system that shaped their lives was overturned. Off-mint with American-cut pages and a felt-tip mark on the lower trimmed edge.

In 2018 Latvia’s politicians released KGB files seized when the Soviet Union collapsed almost three decades earlier. Alongside eyewitness interviews, they form the basis of this disturbing account of 50 years of tyranny that saw dissidents tortured and killed and 45,000 exiled to the gulags.

For the Hungarian historian and journalist Victor Sebestyen, 1946 was the year that shaped the modern world: ideologies and an Iron Curtain divided East and West, India was moving towards independence, European empires were dying, the Chinese communists were nearing victory, and the decision was taken to create a Jewish homeland. Sebestyen’s authoritative study evokes the beginning of the Cold War in the devastated aftermath of the Second World War and shows how decisions made in 1946 continue to affect our world.

After the Second World War, the initiative to divide Korea at the 38th Parallel was put forward by America. The war that followed resulted in the death of around three million civilians. This critique of America’s involvement in the Korean War of 1950–53 examines the origins of the conflict, America’s response to China’s involvement, including the chemical weapon bombing campaign, and the legacy of militarism and bitterness that remains in North Korea.

As the Cairo bureau chief of the New York Times from 2011 to 2015, Kirkpatrick arrived in Egypt shortly before the popular uprising against the Mubarak regime; he watched as a new president was elected and then deposed in a military coup that brought a ferocious crackdown on dissent. This eyewitness account of the turmoil combines analysis of Egyptian politics with the author’s experiences among ordinary people caught up in perplexing and heartbreaking events.

US foreign policy has undergone a troubling change in recent decades. Drawing on newly uncovered materials, his own experience in the State Department, and interviews with warlords, whistleblowers and every living Secretary of State including Henry Kissinger and Hillary Clinton, Farrow analyses the systematic dismantling of the diplomatic service. Under successive presidents, in his view, a shoot-first policy has replaced the skilled, patient statecraft that once secured America’s interests across the globe.

The Second World War was one of the most destructive in history, but also one of the most innovative, sweeping away empires and creating new global institutions. Ranging over five continents, this study examines how the war shaped the modern world, inaugurating the arms race and the space race, the United Nations and Bretton Woods, decolonization and globalization. With demagoguery on the rise again, it argues, we cannot afford to ignore this legacy.

With his usual incisive analysis, Chomsky surveys the international situation and examines the way in which the United States, although diminished in power since its peak at the end of the Second World War, still sets the terms of global discourse. He asks not only ‘who rules the world?’ but explores how they are proceeding, where their efforts are leading, and how the people can overcome the power of business and nationalist ideology.

As the chief reporter and news editor for the News of the World, Neville Thurlbeck was one of Fleet Street's most prominent journalists for over 20 years. In this memoir he recalls the most sensational scoops and scandals, including the Jeffrey Archer perjury case, the David Beckham and Rebecca Loos affair, and a variety of stories involving politicians, celebrities, serial killers and even MI5.

From Trump’s United States to Erdogan’s Turkey, the press is under attack as never before. Can it survive the post-truth age of fake news? In this wide-ranging, documented survey, John Lloyd assesses the state of journalism around the world, and the commercial and political threats it faces, arguing that a free world is only possible with a free press.

From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, and Windscale to Bikini Atoll, humanity’s management of the power of atomic energy has been riven with danger, secrecy, deceit, human error and short-sighted politics. Environmental journalist Fred Pearce travels through former test sites, closed Soviet cities and toxic wastelands where radioactive wolves roam the streets, to explore the growing legacy of our nuclear past and the dilemmas facing us over decommissioning and future safety. Off-mint.

Located deep in the north Kenyan desert, far from any other settlement, Dadaab is home to half a million refugees from Somalia and elsewhere. Over four years, Ben Rawlence came to know this sprawling city of mud, wood and plastic shacks. Through the stories of Tawane, a youth leader, Guled, a former child soldier who lives for football, the bright schoolgirl Kheyro, and six others, he shows that its inhabitants should not be reduced to statistics. Off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

This detailed account of 16 days in late 1956 juxtaposes the Hungarian Uprising and the Suez Crisis (or Second Arab-Israeli War) which, though thousands of miles apart, were both driven by Cold War tensions and threatened the precarious stability between the USA and USSR. Alex von Tunzelmann’s tense narrative, which switches rapidly between locations (London, Tel Aviv, Washington, Budapest, etc.), describes the powerplay between protagonists, including Ben-Gurion, Eden, Eisenhower, Nasser and Nagy, which resulted in conspiracy, assassination and bloodshed.

The former BBC industrial editor Martin Adeney blends memoir and history as he surveys the ruins of great industries and the rise of Thatcherism to reveal how the long decline of the British Empire has shaped the nation.

A graduate of Britain’s top-secret Joint Services School for Linguistics, Douglas Boyd was posted to an RAF airbase in Berlin in 1958 to spy on the armed forces of Warsaw Pact countries. He was subsequently arrested and imprisoned in solitary confinement in Potsdam, where he was interrogated by the KGB. In this memoir, Boyd describes his work as a signals interceptor in Berlin, where he listened in on pilots flying over East Germany, and his encounters with key security personnel.

Celebrated director Oliver Stone filmed a number of interviews with Vladimir Putin between 2015 and 2017, discussing his childhood and rise to power as well as current policies and relationships with Western politicians. These transcripts of the interviews give a detailed insight into the Russian leader and question whether his demonization by the West in recent years is justified. Off-mint.

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.

In the 70 years since the CIA was formed, it has become increasingly effective at sidestepping government control and accountability for its actions. Focusing on the activities of key figures in the agency, John Prados examines its history of covert operations, intelligence analysis and technological development and reveals how the culture that developed led to high profile disasters and the current dysfunction between the agency and the White House.

During the late seventies a series of security breaches within the US Embassy in Moscow led not only to several CIA agents being expelled from Russia, but to the execution of their Russian-born ‘assets’. This story of how the embassy was compromised follows several CIA and National Security Agency officers in their investigations into innovative Soviet tradecraft, uncovering advanced surveillance technology, moles, ‘walk-ins’ and microwave attacks.

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’.

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.

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.

The overthrow of Qaddafi in 2011 appeared to signal a new dawn for Libya, but the country's future now seems uncertain once again. This comprehensive study navigates Libya's long history of occupation and despotic rule, from the ancient Greeks, through the Ottoman Empire to Mussolini. It provides an in-depth account of Qaddafi's regime, the Lockerbie bombing and the Arab Spring, and assesses the prospects for democracy in this troubled land.

Hilde F Johnson, the former UN Special Representative in South Sudan, provides an insider’s account of the years following the country’s declaration of independence in July 2011. From her vantage point in Juba, Johnson witnessed how the seeds of conflict were sown and the rapid escalation of violence into what Desmond Tutu describes in his foreword as ‘an atrocious and senseless civil war’. This in-depth study of the new nation attempts to answer the question: why?

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.

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.

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A comprehensive overview of the evolution of Shi’i opposition in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia from the Iranian Revolution in 1979 to the ascension of King

Bird and Marshall examine how and why the international community failed to achieve its October 2001 objectives in Afghanistan and why life has got worse rather than better for many Afghan citizens.

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.

Western commentators usually attribute the turmoil in the Middle East to interference by global powers such as Britain, France, Russia and the USA. This provocative study aims to overturn that view, arguing that it is the culmination of long-existing trends in the region, from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire to the rise of Isil, and that only when Middle Eastern people take responsibility for their actions, and the West drops its condescending approach, can the region look forward to a real Arab Spring.

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.

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.

This study explores the political and cultural mobilization of the two largest French veterans’ associations during the inter-war years: Union fédérale and Union national des combatants. Cultural History of Modern War series.

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’.

Focusing on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, this book explores the role of unarmed resistance in the Palestinian national movement, and surveys the history of such resistance throughout the Liberation struggle.

Wylie’s adventures start with a text message: her best friend Cassie needs help, but finding her isn’t easy as Cassie’s messages become ever more cryptic. Something is dangerously wrong – but for an Outlier who can read minds, there is always danger. Young adult.

No sooner had the Second World War ended than the governments of the victorious powers were promoting their ideology (and the folly of the alternative) to their peoples and beyond. This collection of posters, many by leading artists, ranges from propaganda regarding the reshaping of Europe on either side of the Iron Curtain, and responses to the nuclear threat, to a selection of cinema posters for films encouraging a partisan reading of the political situation.

Muslim and Bengali-speaking Bangladesh was once East Pakistan, created when India achieved independence in 1947. The country gained its own independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a war in which many hundreds of thousands died. More conflict was to follow, exacerbated by natural disaster, famine and corruption. Salil Tripathi, an Indian journalist and Bengali-speaker, presents the first in-depth account of Bangladesh’s struggle for independence and the troubled aftermath.

With growing economic might, political influence, and dynamic social change, India has emerged as a major power in the 21st century. This volume charts the country's development since independence in 1947, assessing the forces that have contributed to its growth, as well as those that have impeded it. Through the lens of the nation's past, the book offers a new perspective on India today and a glimpse into its future.

Since its foundation in 1948 Israel has been torn between its ambition to be ‘a light unto nations’ and its desire to expand its borders. Drawing on declassified documents, personal archives and interviews, this epic history demonstrates how military service binds Israelis to lifelong loyalty and secrecy, making democracy a hostage to the armed forces. A compelling study of character, rivalry, conflict and the competing impulses for war and peace in the Middle East. Slightly off-mint and 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.

With personal access to world leaders over a period of nearly 70 years, the Queen has witnessed profound political changes as well as experiencing crises in her own family, such as the assassination of Louis Mountbatten and the death of Princess Diana. With historical notes and profiles of leading figures, this photographic biography explores the pageantry and the intrigues of the House of Windsor from the abdication crisis to the Diamond Jubilee.

Fidel Castro was the revered leader of Communist Cuba for half a century. In this revelatory memoir, Juan Sánchez, once Castro’s personal bodyguard and later persecuted by the regime, tells the story of his service, imprisonment and escape. He reveals the extent of Castro's vast personal wealth, which was partly amassed by government-sanctioned drug-running, and describes his lavish lifestyle, which included a luxury yacht and a secret island marina.

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.

Having been raised in an Irish family in South Africa, the poet-novelist Christopher Hope grew up with a deep insight into apartheid. He returned to the country, after twelve years’ absence, during the 1987 whites-only election. Recalling a childhood road trip (as a white boy running through the landscape) he gives an objective account of the historic grievances of both Afrikaners and the black townships.

A quarter of a century after the end of apartheid, Christopher Hope embarks on a road trip through his homeland from Cape Town to the Zimbabwean border, meeting exploited black miners and embittered white nationalists. In the face of persisting economic inequality and interracial bitterness, he concludes that Nelson Mandela’s dream of a ‘rainbow nation’ is fading, and it might be the turn of the whites to hear what anti-apartheid politician Oliver Tambo called ‘the Move-on Blues’.

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Mohamed Makhzangi was an Egyptian doctor studying in Kiev in April 1986 when the nuclear reactor exploded at Chernobyl, just 85 kilometres away. This book is his literary response, as an exile, to the tragedy of radiation and lies that befell the Soviet people.

Legendary spy chief James Jesus Angleton was the head of CIA Counterintelligence during the Cold War, which inspired his obsessive hunt for Communist moles. He played a significant role in major KGB defections, the obstruction of investigations into the JFK assassination and the first US forays into mass surveillance. This biography presents another side to him, showing an intriguing, reclusive figure whose friends included Ezra Pound, TS Eliot and members of the underground Washington gay scene.

Since it was founded in 1783, during the reign of Catherine the Great and Potemkin, Sevastopol has survived a long history of conflict, including two major sieges: the city’s commanding strategic advantage as a naval anchorage in the Black Sea has made it a city worth fighting for. In this study, Mungo Melvin traces the story of Sevastopol and its Crimean hinterland since prehistory, illuminating the historical background to the 2014 referendum vote to return to Russia.

A historian with military experience explores the global network of spies during and after the Second World War, when agents of organizations such as MI5, the CIA, the NKVD and Tokko constantly risked exposure or death, often raising the stakes by acting as double or triple agents.

In this detailed Cold War history, the ‘daughters’ of the title are the Eastern European countries where organizations such as the Stasi, overseen and trained by the KGB, undertook surveillance of and control of their own citizens, and carried out covert operations and assassinations abroad.

‘Aimen Dean’ was a bomb maker for al-Qaeda and was well respected in the organization, but grew sceptical of their philosophy and defected to become an MI6 agent. Recalling his life as a spy, which included meeting Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and many other key figures, his extraordinary memoir provides a deep insight into the terrorists’ world. Off-mint.

A momentous year in world events, the dramatic images of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia are emblematic of a turning point in history. Also included in this photographic summary are the protests in Tiananmen Square, the Hillsborough disaster, the fall of Ceau?escu in Romania and the opening of the Louvre pyramid.

One of the Arab world's most distinguished commentators explores the origins, leadership and organization of Islamic State, especially the way it combines over 1,000 years of ideology with 21st-century information technology and the dark web to spread its violent fundamentalist message.

Edward Lansdale was a CIA agent who has been compared to Graham Greene’s ‘Quiet American’. He refused to participate in the overthrow of South Vietnam’s Diem government, a key turning point in the escalating conflict, and continued to argue for a less aggressive approach with more focus on winning hearts and minds. This biography explores his life and the impact that the different approach he advocated might have had.

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While in office, President Obama received thousands of letters a day from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of these at bedtime, whether they were apologies, appreciations, thanks or rants, and he often sent handwritten responses. The author of this book has interviewed the letter-writers, members of the White House staff and Obama himself to create a vivid portrait of an empathetic leader and the people he represented.

The fast-moving 20th century brought extraordinary medical and technological advances as well as some of humanity’s darkest hours. These 50 snapshots encapsulate the century through defining moments from the Boxer Rebellion to the exponential growth of the World Wide Web.

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Picking up where Churchill’s work of the same title left off, Andrew Roberts follows Britain’s relations with the United States and the Commonwealth over the last 120 years. He examines the Western Alliance’s response to the challenges of two world wars and the Cold War, arguing that the unity of the English-speaking peoples is a bastion of liberty, and warning that the ‘wasted breathing space’ between 1991 and 2011 left us ill-prepared to meet the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

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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.