THE NO 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A personal account of the life and character of Britain's longest-reigning monarch, from the writer who knew her family best 'Compelling . . . Fascinating' DAILY MAIL 'The writer who got closest to the human truth about our long-serving senior royals' THE TIMES 'The book overflows with nuggets of insider knowledge' TELEGRAPH Paints a unique picture of the remarkable woman who reigned for seven decades. Fascinating insights' HELLO! __________ Gyles Brandreth first met the Queen in 1968, when he was twenty. Over the next fifty years he met her many times, both at public and at private events. Through his friendship with the Duke of Edinburgh, he was given privileged access to Elizabeth II. He kept a record of all those encounters, and his conversations with the Queen over the years, his meetings with her family and friends, and his observations of her at close quarters are what make this very personal account of her extraordinary life uniquely fascinating. From her childhood in the 1920s to the era of Harry and Meghan in the 2020s, from her war years at Windsor Castle to her death at Balmoral, this is both a record of a tumultuous century of royal history and a truly intimate portrait of a remarkable woman. __________ Praise for Gyles Brandreth's bestselling royal writing: 'Beautifully written book. I have read many other books about Philip but this is the best' DAILY EXPRESS 'Brilliant, totally inspiring . . . It's a joy to read a book that comes from a perspective of fondness' KIRSTIE ALLSOPP, THE TIMES 'As a sparkling celebration of Prince Philip, the book will be hard to beat' TELEGRAPH 'So readable and refreshing even after the millions of words that have been written about Prince Philip in the past couple of weeks' THE TIMES 'Brilliant . . . There is so much in this book you won't find anywhere else' LORRAINE

The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism's most insidious seeds. Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)-founder of the John Birch Society-is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right. A child prodigy who entered college at age 12, Welch became an unlikely candy magnate, founding the company that created Sugar Daddies, Junior Mints, and other famed confections. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society. Though the group's paranoiac right-wing nativism was dismissed by conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, its ideas gradually moved from the far-right fringe into the mainstream. By exploring the development of Welch's political worldview, A Conspiratorial Life shows how the John Birch Society's rabid libertarianism-and its highly effective grassroots networking-became a profound, yet often ignored or derided influence on the modern Republican Party. Miller convincingly connects the accusatory conservatism of the midcentury John Birch Society to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Tea Party, the Trump administration, Q, and more. As this book makes clear, whether or not you know his name or what he accomplished, it's hard to deny that we're living in Robert Welch's America.

Shortly after Ponce de Leon discovered La Florida in 1513, early Spanish settlers found a large and sheltered bay on the Gulf of Mexico. The bay became known as Pensacola after the Penzacola Indians who lived along the shore. In 1698, the first permanent colony was established by pioneers who recognized the strategic importance of a fine harbor with protective barrier islands and a high bluff, or barranca, on the mainland across from a defensible mouth. For centuries the bay was fortified and refortified. Battles raged in four wars, and five nations raised their flags along the harbor. Pensacola Bay: A Military History traces the rich military history of the bay from Spanish times to the present-day Naval Air Station Pensacola, home of the Navy's Blue Angels. The book presents over 200 black-and-white images that highlight the acquisition of Florida by the United States in 1821, the construction of fortifications and naval installations, the Civil War, both World Wars, the Old Navy Yard, the Naval Air Station, and present-day military activity.

On 15 April 1912, passengers stood on a dimly lit Boat Deck, looking down at the lifeboats they were told to enter. In the freezing air, away from the warmth of the interior, they had to decide whether to enter a boat that would be lowered into darkness or remain on an 'unsinkable' ship. RMS Titanic in 50 Objects is a look at the world-famous liner through the objects that tell her story. Sheet music recovered from the body of a musician, a full-sized replica of her First Class Entrance Hall clock, a lifeboat from a fellow White Star Line ship - all of these objects and more come together to tell not only the tragedy of the ship herself, but also that of her passengers and crew. Lavishly illustrated and extensively researched by two of the world's most foremost Titanic experts, this is her history brought to life like never before.

From the bestselling historian and acclaimed broadcaster 'A rich social history ... Paxman's book could hardly be more colourful, and I enjoyed each page enormously' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES 'Vividly told ... Paxman's fine narrative powers are at their best' THE TIMES Coal is the commodity that made Britain. Dirty and polluting though it is, this black rock has acted as a midwife to genius. It drove industry, religion, politics, empire and trade. It powered the industrial revolution, turned Britain into the first urban nation and is the industry that made almost all others possible. In this brilliant social history, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of coal mining in England, Scotland and Wales from Roman times, through the birth of steam power to war, nationalisation, pea-souper smogs, industrial strife and the picket lines of the Miner's Strike. Written in the captivating style of his bestselling book The English, Paxman ranges widely across Britain to explore stories of engineers and inventors, entrepreneurs and industrialists - but whilst coal inevitably helped the rich become richer, the story told by Black Gold is first and foremost a history of the working miners - the men, women and often children who toiled in appalling conditions down in the mines; the villages that were thrown up around the pit-head. Almost all traces of coal-mining have vanished from Britain but with this brilliant history, Black Gold demonstrates just how much we owe to the black stuff.

Containing just the twentieth-century chapters from Howard Zinn's bestselling A People's History of the United States, this revised and updated edition includes two new chapters -- covering Clinton's presidency, the 2000 Election, and the "war on terrorism."

Highlighting not just the usual terms of presidential administrations and congressional activities, this book provides you with a "bottom-to-top" perspective, giving voice to our nation's minorities and letting the stories of such groups as African Americans, women, Native Americans, and the laborers of all nationalities be told in their own words.

Without the Red (or Soviet) Army, it is likely that the Western Allies would have taken much longer to defeat the Third Reich - they may even have lost altogether. However even decades after the war's end, little is widely known about this giant organization that numbered millions of soldiers. Broken down by key battles or campaigns within each theatre of war, The Red Army in World War II shows the strengths and organizational structures of the Red Army's ground forces campaign by campaign, building into a detailed compendium of information. With extensive organizational diagrams and full-colour campaign maps showing the disposition of units, The Red Army in World War II is an easy-to-use guide to the Russian, Polish, Czech and units of other nationalities that served as part of Stalin's army, their strengths during key campaigns and battles, and details of where they served throughout the war. The book will be an essential reference guide for any serious enthusiast of World War II.

How does one play bridge in a gas mask? Or enjoy motoring without consuming petrol? Or deal with a nationwide shortage of pea-sticks? For this compact little book Heath Robinson joined forces with writer Cecil Hunt to show civilians 'how to make the best of things' during the air raids, rationing, allotment tending and blackouts of the Second World War. The result is a warm celebration of the British population's ability to 'make do and mend'.

Nadia Comaneci is the Romanian child prodigy and global gymnastics star who ultimately fled her homeland and the brutal oppression of a communist regime. At the age of just 14, Nadia became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games and went on to collect three gold medals in performances which influenced the sport for generations to come, cementing Nadia's place as a sporting legend. However, as the communist authorities in Romania sought an iron grip over its highest-profile athletes, Nadia and her trainers were subjected to surveillance from the Securitate, the Romanian secret police. Drawing on 25,000 secret police archive pages, countless secret service intelligence documents, and numerous wiretap recordings, this book tells the compelling story of Nadia's life and career using unique insights from the communist dictatorship which monitored her. Nadia Comaneci and the Secret Police explores Nadia's complex and combustible relationship with her sometimes abusive coaches, Bela and Marta Karolyi, figures who would later become embroiled in the USA Gymnastics scandal. The book addresses Nadia's mental struggles and 1978 suicide attempt, and her remarkable resurgence to gold at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. It explores the impact of Nadia's subsequent withdrawal from international activity and reflects on burning questions surrounding the heart-stopping, border-hopping defection to the United States that she successfully undertook in November 1989. Was the defection organised by CIA agents? Was it arranged on the orders of President George Bush himself? Or was Nadia aided and abetted by some of the very Securitate officers who were meant to be watching the communist world's most lauded sporting icon? What is revealed is a thrilling tale of endurance and escape, in which one of the world's greatest gymnasts risked everything for freedom.

The midwife: medical professional, friend in a woman's hour of greatest need, potent social and cultural symbol. Though the role of midwife has existed since time immemorial, it is only since the Victorian era that it has been a recognised and regulated profession. This book, from social history expert Susan Cohen, looks at midwifery in Britain from ancient times up to the present, paying particular attention to its incredible medical and social advances of the last 150 years. It is a fully illustrated tour that takes in fictional midwives such as Dickens' Sarey Gamp, the founding of the Royal College of Midwives in 1881, the Second World War, the forming of the NHS and the Central Midwives Board, and looks at the increasing medicalisation of childbirth and the countervailing trend for giving birth at home.

The debt medicine owes to botany is not commonly appreciated. In the past, medicine relied almost entirely on plants, and even today, many western medicines are plant derived. Despite this, historians have largely neglected the study of domestic medicine, practised by the ordinary person and passed down through generations, in favour of 'official medicine'. The History of Domestic Plant Medicine brings together manuscripts, letters, diaries, personal oral interviews and other primary evidence to produce a detailed picture of the medicinal use of native plants in Britain from 1700 to the present day. Recording for posterity this neglected aspect of our heritage, it is a valuable contribution to the study of the folklore of modern Britain and a fascinating piece of social history.

The Spanish Civil War, fought between 1936 and 1939, was the first battle against fascism in Europe. Five months after the victory of dictator Francisco Franco in Spain the conflict moved to Europe with the outbreak of the Second World War. Fascism and anti-fascism again faced each other on the battlefield. Amid the heat of the Nazi invasions in Europe, anti-fascist resistance groups formed by ordinary citizens emerged in virtually all European countries. Although the Franco dictatorship was not directly involved in the world war, in Spain an anti-Franco resistance movement was organized in 1939 and lasted until 1952. Although the Spanish resistance constituted the first and last anti-fascist resistance movement in Europe, the Spanish case has been consistently overlooked by international studies. This book inserts the Spanish anti-Franco resistance into the European context, proposing a new narrative of anti-fascist resistances in Europe. At the same time, the book offers a new interpretation of guerrilla phenomena with a strongly peasant character, as was the case of the resistance in Spain. The author underlines the importance of primary groups (kinship, neighbourhood, friendship) and secondary groups (camaraderie and political loyalties) in the mobilisation and organisation of armed groups. For this study, Jorge Marco establishes twelve variables that permit him to distinguish between 'neighbours in arms' and 'modern guerrilla'. The studied combinations of groups and types demonstrates the plurality of the identities and cultures of the anti-fascist resistance in Spain. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies.

The German Navy - known as the Kriegsmarine - played a crucial role during World War II in disrupting Allied shipping, especially in the early years, when Britain stood alone against Nazi aggression following the fall of France. Broken down by campaign and key encounters within each theatre of war, German Kriegsmarine in World War II illustrates the strengths and organizational structures of the Third Reich's naval forces, building into a detailed compendium of information. Full-colour order of battle tree diagrams at fleet and flotilla level help the reader quickly understand how and where the ships and U-boats of the German Navy were employed at any given time between 1939 and 1945. Reference tables provide fleet strengths while organizational diagrams show the types and numbers of ships involved in specific operations, such as the U-Boat wolfpacks that hunted Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic and the invasion fleet used for the assault on Crete. With extensive organizational diagrams and full-colour operations maps, German Kriegsmarine in World War II is an easy-to-use guide to German naval forces. The book is an essential reference for anyone with a serious interest in the naval warfare of World War II.

The captivating biography of three women courageously struggling to survive the turbulence of war-time Berlin. Meet Maria, Hannelore, and Kaethe, telephone operators during the rise and fall of Hitler's Germany. Based on live interviews, personal documents, and historical research, author Arthur Rathburn has created a compelling page-turner of decades of friendship and courage throughout the daily tribulations of peace and war.

This book, translated from the original Spanish, is the primary academic and historical study of the Blue Division -- a Falangist initiative involving the dispatch of some forty-thousand Spanish combatants (over a half of whom paid with their lives, health, or liberty) to the Russian Front during the Second World War. Xavier Moreno Julia does not limit himself to relating their deeds under arms, but also analyses -- for the first time -- the political background in detail: the complex relations between the Spanish government and Hitler's Germany; the internal conflicts between the Falangists and the Army; the rise and fall of Franco's brother-in-law, Minister Ramon Serrano Suner, who inspired the Blue Division and became the second most powerful person in Spain; and the attitude of General Agustin Munoz Grandes, commander of the Blue Division, who was encouraged by Berlin to seriously consider the possibility of taking over the reins of Spanish power. In the end, there were 45,500 reasons that led to joining the Blue Division -- one for each young man who decided to enlist. To understand all of the complex reasons behind their military service under German command is impossible at this juncture. It is an irrecoverable past that lies in Spanish cemeteries and on the Russian steppes. This book, based on massive documentation in German, British and Spanish archives, is an essential source of information to understand Spain in the 1940s -- an epoch when the Caudillo's power and the regime's good fortune were less secure than is often believed. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies, LSE.

The mass of available data about World War II has never been as large as it is now, yet it has become increasingly complicated to interpret it in a meaningful way. Packed with cleverly designed graphics, charts and diagrams, World War II: Infographics offers a new approach by telling the story of the conflict visually. Encompassing the conflict from its roots to its aftermath, more than 50 themes are treated in great detail, ranging from the rise of the Far Right in pre-war Europe and mass mobilization, to evolving military tactics and technology and the financial and human cost of the conflict. Throughout, the shifting balance of power between the Axis and the Allies and the global nature of the war and its devastation are made strikingly clear.

The reform movements and attempts to establish parliamentary institutions in the Persian Gulf states of Kuwait, Bahrain and Dubai between the First World War and the independent era of the 1970s were not inspired by western example or by any tradition of civil representation. The move to a parliamentary system not only represented a milestone in the history of the region, creating a legacy for future generations, but was a unique transition in the Arab world. The transformation of these states from loose chiefdoms of minimal coherence and centralization, into centralizing and institutionalized monarchies, involved the setting up of primary institutions of government, the demarcation of borders, and establishment of a monarchical order. As this new political and social order evolved, ideas of national struggle and national rights penetrated Gulf societies. Gulf citizens who had spent time in Arab states, mostly in Egypt and Iraq, took part in the genesis of a public ArabGulf national discourse, enabling the Gulf population to become acquainted with national struggles for independence. As a result merchants of notable families, newly educated elements, and even workers, began to oppose the dominance of the rulers. Both the rulers and the commercial elites (including members of the ruling families) tried to formulate a new and different social contract with the rulers seeking to entrench their political power by using new administrative means and financial power. Opposition against this current crystallized in 1938 among the ranks of the commercial oligarchy as well as within the ruling families. In spite of its failure to create its own political institutions, the oligarchy remained the foremost social and economic class. But the ruling families could no longer treat national oil revenues as their private income, and they began to channel part of these funds to public needs. The most important consequence of the 1938' movement was the formation of a new social contract between the two traditional power centers: the governing structures were fitted into the political and economic reality brought about by the oil wealth, but remained essentially tribal and committed to the power division between the major Gulf families.

When Roland Regan and Frederick Mauriello went off to fight the Germans in World War II, they packed cameras and notepaper and documented their experiences, Roland with photos, Frederick with letters to his family. Roland's photos, developed after the war, never went through Army censorship and show an honest firsthand view of the war from the eyes of an enlisted man. Frederick's letters show a young man's devotion to his family, his good-will, and his growing distrust of military authority. As a whole, this collection is a testimony to the courage, faith, and loyalty of all the men who served during World War II. These priceless documents, presented by their sons in this book, offer readers an intimate glimpse at a unique aspect of the American experience.

November 1944. The British government finally agrees to send a brigade of 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine to Europe to fight the German army. But when the war ends and the soldiers witness firsthand the horrors their people have suffered in the concentration camps, the men launch a brutal and calculating campaign of vengeance, forming secret squads to identify, locate, and kill Nazi officers in hiding. Their own ferocity threatens to overwhelm them until a fortuitous encounter with an orphaned girl sets the men on a course of action -- rescuing Jewish war orphans and transporting them to Palestine -- that will not only change their lives but also help create a nation and forever alter the course of world history.

Over 20,000 deserters and war resisters paid the ultimate price at the hands of Hitler's brutal war judges and bloody executioners. Thousands of others died in prison camps and penal battalions. Even for those who escaped death, life was never the same. Even today, many of those who refused to serve the Nazis live as pariahs, scorned by a society that professes to hate the regime they had actively opposed. In contrast, their judges, masters of unbelievably draconian sentences, thrived in post-war Germany and beyond as honoured men in prestigious positions. Hitler's Deserters: When Law Merged with Terror is the story of this incredible injustice. It is the disturbing story of what happened to those who refused to fight for the Third Reich, and - even more horrifying - it is the story of an international community that has turned its back on them.

Zero to Hero is unique in that it tells the story of Victor Roe, one of the longest- serving RAF rear gunners with The Pathfinders and in so doing, plots the rise of an 'institutionalised' lad from a Boys' Home to a well-respected bomber aircrew member amongst peers, who were an elite group of top class airmen and who all of whom had a far better start in life than he did. In stories such as this, it is not uncommon to find the words 'humble beginning' describing the start in life that someone had. In Victor's case a humble beginning would have been a huge step up from where he started his short, but astonishingly praiseworthy life. One of nine children born to two impoverished alcoholics-all of whom were removed by the courts from their parent's custody by the age of two-is hardly the start that would be attributed to a hero of the RAF, but that was how Victor started. Victor was always determined that with the advent of war, he would do his bit for his country, no one can deny that he did that and more.

Military author Rob Morris spent three years tracking down and interviewing veterans of the war in the Pacific, focusing on men who had undergone extreme combat, imprisonment, and/or or sinking. Each stand-alone chapter tells the reader, through the eyes of one to three survivors, what is was like to live through some of the greatest challenges of the Pacific War. From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, from Bataan to the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, each chapter of untold valour and against-the-odds survival tells an intensely personal tale of young Americans fighting for survival. The book is certain to interest anyone with interest in the Second World War, told with the intensely personal style and attention to background research that has become Morris's trademark.

First published in 1853, 12 Years a Slave is the riveting true story of a free black American who was sold into slavery, remaining there for a dozen years until he finally escaped. This powerfully written memoir details the horrors of slave markets, the inhumanity practiced on southern plantations, and the nobility of a man who persevered in some of the worst of conditions, a man who never ceased to hope that he would find freedom and see his beloved family again. This edition has been slightly edited--for spelling and punctuation only--for easier reading by a modern audience. It also includes two helpful appendixes not found in the original book. Now a major motion picture