France, 1940. The once glittering boulevards of Paris teem with spies, collaborators, and the Gestapo now that France has fallen to Hitler's Wermacht. For Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery, and scores of other cultural elite who have been denounced as enemies of the Third Reich the fear of imminent arrest, deportation, and death defines their daily life. Their only salvation is the Villa Air-Bel, a chateau outside Marseille where a group of young people will go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive.

A powerfully told, meticulously researched true story filled with suspense, drama, and intrigue, "Villa Air-Bel" delves into a fascinating albeit hidden saga in our recent history. It is a remarkable account of how a diverse intelligentsia--intense, brilliant, and utterly terrified--was able to survive one of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century.

Accounts of brutality fill the history of warfare. The behavior of any human being is, of course, a very complex phenomenon, whether in war or in peace. Historians in large part have described in detail the actions of military groups that have committed brutalities, but have not dealt with the factors that contributed to those actions. After examining the collective behavior of six military groups, representing different combat actions in different periods, some unexpected similarities became clear. While these groups were in very different situations and operated during different periods in history, there are similar factors that allowed the members of these groups to kill men, women and children in cold blood, and to commit acts of unspeakable brutality. After a close analysis of these military groups, five principle factors that had the greatest influence, either directly or indirectly, on these soldiers have been identified. Together, the factors supported each other and crystallized into a modus operandi that resulted in atrocities and bestial acts on civilians. This is the first book to identify the factors that lead to some of the most horrific cruelty in history, and to predict the actions of future groups given similar circumstances.

Bonegilla was a point of reception and temporary accommodation for approximately 320,000 post-war refugees and assisted migrants to Australia from 1947 to 1971. Its function was integral to the post-war immigration scheme, something officially lauded as an economic and cultural success. However, there were considerable hardships endured at Bonegilla, particularly during times of economic and political insecurity. Enforced family separation, poor standards of care, child malnutrition, and organised migrant protest need to be recognised as part of the Bonegilla story. Histories of Controversy: The Bonegilla Migrant Centre gives this alternative picture, revealing the centre's history to be one of containment, control, deprivation and political discontent. It tells a more complex tale than a harmonious making of modern Australia to include stories of migrant resistance and their demands on a society and its systems.

'The Book Collectors of Daraya celebrates the political and therapeutic power of the written word . . . defiant and cautiously optimistic' Financial Times '[An] incredible chronicle . . . The book tells the kind of story that often gets buried beneath images of violence' LitHub In 2012 the rebel suburb of Daraya in Damascus was brutally besieged by Syrian government forces. Four years of suffering ensued, punctuated by shelling, barrel bombs and chemical gas attacks. People's homes were destroyed and their food supplies cut off; disease was rife. Yet in this man-made hell, forty young Syrian revolutionaries embarked on an extraordinary project, rescuing all the books they could find in the bombed-out ruins of their home town. They used them to create a secret library, in a safe place, deep underground. It became their school, their university, their refuge. It was a place to learn, to exchange ideas, to dream and to hope. Based on lengthy interviews with these young men, conducted over Skype by the award-winning French journalist Delphine Minoui, The Book Collectors of Daraya is a powerful testament to freedom, tolerance and the power of literature. Translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud.

This is the third and final 'stand-alone' account of C Squadron SAS's thrilling operations against the relentless spread of communist backed terrorism in East Africa. Drawing on first-hand experiences the author describes operations against communist-backed terrorists in Angola and Mozambique, aiding the Portuguese and Renamo against the MPLA and Frelimo respectively. Back in Southern Rhodesia SAS General Peter Walls, realising the danger that Mugabe and ZANU represented, appealed directly to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This correspondence, published here for the first time, changed nothing and years of corruption and genocide followed. Although C Squadron was disbanded in 1980 many members joined the South African special forces. Operations undertaken included unsuccessful and costly destabilisation attempts against Mugabe and missions into Mozambique including the assassination of Samora Machel. By 1986 deteriorating relationships with the South African authorities resulted in the break-up of the SAS teams who dispersed worldwide. Had Mike Graham not written his three action-packed books, C Squadron SAS's superb fighting record might never have been revealed. For those who are fascinated by special forces soldiering his accounts are 'must reads'.

Many aspects of Britain's involvement in World War Two only slowly emerged from beneath the barrage of official secrets and popular misconception. One of the most controversial issues, the internment of 'enemy aliens' (and also British subjects) on the Isle of Man, received its first thorough examination in this remarkable account by Connery Chappell of life in the Manx camps between 1940 and 1945. At the outbreak of war there were approximately 75,000 people of Germanic origin living in Britain, and Whitehall decided to set up Enemy Alien Tribunals to screen these 'potential security risks'. The entry of Italy into the war almost doubled the workload. The first tribunal in February 1940 considered only 569 cases as high enough risks to warrant internment. The Isle of Man was chosen as the one place sufficiently removed from areas of military importance, but by the end of the year the number of enemy aliens on the island had reached 14,000. With the use of diaries, broadsheets, newspapers and personal testimonies, the author shows how a traditional holiday isle was transformed into an internment camp. of earning extra income. Eventually the internees took part in local farm work, ran their own camp newspapers and even set up internal businesses. With inmates of the calibre of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Lord Weidenfeld, Sir Charles Forte, Professor Geoffrey Elton and R.W. 'Tiny' Rowland, the life of the camp quickly took on a busy and constructive air; but the picture was not always such a happy one, as angry disputes flared between Fascist inmates and their Jewish neighbours, and a dangerous riot forced the intervention of the Home Office. Even now, there remains the persistent question never settled satisfactorily. Were the internments ever justified or even consistent?

Americans call the Second World War "the Good War." But before it even began, America's ally Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens-and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war's end, German and Soviet killing sites fell behind the Iron Curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness. ? Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single story. With a new afterword addressing the relevance of these events to the contemporary decline of democracy, Bloodlands is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history and its meaning today.

For years, the history of the anti-Nazi resistance in Germany was hidden and distorted by Cold War politics. Providing a much-needed corrective, Red Orchestra presents the dramatic story of a circle of German citizens who opposed Hitler from the start, choosing to stay in Germany to resist Nazism and help its victims. The book shines a light on this critical movement which was made up of academics, theatre people, and factory workers; Protestants, Catholics and Jews; around 150 Germans all told and from all walks of life. Drawing on archives, memoirs, and interviews with survivors, award-winning scholar and journalist Anne Nelson presents a compelling portrait of the men and women involved, and the terrifying day-to-day decisions in their lives, from the Nazi takeover in 1933 to their Gestapo arrest in 1942. Nelson traces the story of the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) resistance movement within the context of German history, showing the stages of the Nazi movement and regime from the 1920s to the end of the Second World War. She also constructs the narrative around the life of Greta Kuckhoff and other female figures whose role in the anti-Nazi resistance fight is too-often unrecognised or under appreciated. This revised edition includes: * A new introduction which explores elements of the Red Orchestra’s experience that resonate with our times, including: the impact of new media technologies; the dangers of political polarization; and the way the judiciary can be shaped to further the ends of autocracy. The introduction will also address the long-standing misconception that the German Resistance only took action when it was clear that Germany was losing the war. * Historiographic updates throughout the book which take account of recent literature and additional archival sources

Back from 44 - The Sacrifice and Courage of a Few. Nick Bentas, Staff Sergeant US Army Air Force, finds himself in a severely crippled B-26 Marauder, trying to return to base, he remembers the different times in his life that led him up to this point. From enlistment to basic training to saying goodbye to his new wife, he remembers his deadly missions around France, Germany and the wider Mediterranean. Experience how it was first hand to encounter enemy flak and fighter attacks, while dealing with the emotional impact of losing close friends. Back From 44 is an in-depth look into the bravery and sacrifice of ordinary men who did extraordinary things during WWII.

What is it to practice history in an age in which photographs exist? What is the impact of photographs on the core historiographical practices which define the discipline and shape its enquiry and methods? In Photographs and the Practice of History, Elizabeth Edwards proposes a new approach to historical thinking which explores these questions and redefines the practices at the heart of this discipline. Structured around key concepts in historical methodology which are recognisable to all undergraduates, the book shows that from the mid-19th century onward, photographs have influenced historical enquiry. Exposure to these mass-distributed cultural artefacts is enough to change our historical frameworks even when research is textually-based. Conceptualised as a series of 'sensibilities' rather than a methodology as such, it is intended as a companion to 'how to' approaches to visual research and visual sources. Photographs and the Practice of History not only builds on existing literature by leading scholars: it also offers a highly original approach to historiographical thinking that gives readers a foundation on which to build their own historical practices.