'Simon Farquhar succeeds brilliantly (and with real empathy for all concerned) in setting the story in its historical, social and emotional context, with the victim and her family always at the heart of his writing ... A Desperate Business is an absolute must-read.' - Carol Ann Lee, the bestselling author of The Murders at White House Farm Winter 1969. Rupert Murdoch, newly arrived in Britain, has bought The Sun and the News of the World, immediately provoking outrage by serialising the sensational memoirs of Christine Keeler. Watching him being interviewed on television, two men hatch a plot to kidnap Murdoch's wife for a million-pound ransom. But the plan goes wrong. Following Murdoch's Rolls-Royce to a house in Wimbledon, they are unaware that he has gone to Australia for Christmas and loaned the car to his friend and colleague, Alick McKay. On Monday, 29 December 1969, Alick arrives home to find his wife, Muriel, has vanished. She was never seen again. Acclaimed author and journalist Simon Farquhar has spent three years investigating one of the most frightening and perplexing mysteries in British criminal history, which began with a case of mistaken identity and led to one of the first convictions for murder without a body being found. Presenting a wealth of new information and, for the first time, a possible solution, A Desperate Business is a meticulous and sensitive account of a tragedy. It is a story of greed, unimaginable cruelty, and newspaper rivalry, but most of all, the story of an adored woman who never came home.

The core of the book is Oliver's account of his research travels throughout tropical Africa from the 1940s to the 1980s; his efforts to train and foster African graduate students to teach in African universities; his role in establishing conferences and journals to bring together the work of historians and archaeologists from Europe and Africa; his encounters with political and religious leaders, scholars, soldiers, and storytellers; and the political and economic upheavals of the continent that he witnessed.

Covering territory from Russia in the east to Germany and Austria in the west, The Routledge History of East Central Europe since 1700 explores the origins and evolution of modernity in this turbulent region. This book applies fresh critical approaches to major historical controversies and debates, expanding the study of a region that has experienced persistent and profound change and yet has long been dominated by narrowly nationalist interpretations. Written by an international team of contributors that reflects the increasing globalization and pluralism of East Central European studies, chapters discuss key themes such as economic development, the relationship between religion and ethnicity, the intersection between culture and imperial, national, wartime, and revolutionary political agendas, migration, women's and gender history, ideologies and political movements, the legacy of communism, and the ways in which various states in East Central Europe deployed and were formed by the politics of memory and commemoration. This book uses new methodologies in order to fundamentally reshape perspectives on the development of East Central Europe over the past three centuries. Transnational and comparative in approach, this volume presents the latest research on the social, cultural, political and economic history of modern East Central Europe, providing an analytical and comprehensive overview for all students of this region.

The unprecedented urbanization of the 19th century prompted a range of theoretical and empirical writings on the city. Some of these writings addressed specific urban problems, especially relating to infrastructure, housing and poverty. Others were more generally concerned with the nature and texture of city life. This set collects together some of the most significant writings on the city from the period 1898 to 1938. Primarily dealing with North America and the UK, the volumes nonetheless reflect the experience of rapid urban growth, making them particularly relevant to many of the newly industrializing countries. In all some nine volumes are reproduced in their entirety, and these are supplemented by an original introduction and collection of contemporary essays.

Now in its second edition, Britain since 1688 is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to British History from 1688 to the present day that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. Chronological in structure yet thematic in approach, the book guides the reader through major events in British history from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, offering extensive coverage of the British Empire and continuing through to recent events such as Britain's exit from the European Union. Fully revised and updated using the most recent historical scholarship, this edition includes discussion of the Brexit referendum and Britain's subsequent exit from the European Union, along with increased coverage of Britain's imperial past and its legacy in the present. New sidebars on themes such as race, immigration, religion, sexuality, the presence of empire and the experience of warfare are carried across chapters to offer students current and relevant interpretations of British history. Written by a team of expert North American university professors and supported by textboxes, timelines, bibliographies, glossaries and a fully integrated companion website, this textbook provides students with a strong grounding in the rich tapestry of events, characters, and themes that encompass the history of Britain since 1688.

This is the first book on Italian colonialism that specifically deals with the question of citizenship/subjecthood. Such a topic is crucial for understanding both Italian imperial rule and the complex dynamics of the different colonial societies where several actors, like notables, political leaders, minorities, etc., were involved. The chapters gathered in the book constitute an unprecedented account of a heterogeneous geographical area. The cases of Eritrea, Libya, Dodecanese, Ethiopia, and Albania confirm that citizenship and subjecthood in the colonial context were ductile political tools, which were structured according to the orientations of the Metropole and the challenges that came from the colonial societies, often swinging between submission, cooptation to the colonial power, and resistance. On one hand, the book offers an account of the different policies of citizenship implemented in the Italian colonies, in particular the construction of gradated forms of citizenship, the repression and expulsion of dissidents, the systems of endearment of local people and cooptation of the elites, and the racialization of legal status. On the other, it deals with the various answers coming from the local populations in terms of resistance, negotiation, and construction of social identity.

This text sets out to challenge the reader by posing the question: can we learn from history? More particularly, can we learn from social history and the effects on people living today after National Socialism - the German form of fascism?; Of crucial significance, the authors show how social education in all areas of national socialist society operated and how it functioned in terms of an interest in political formation and social discipline. What is clear is an attempt at complete social control, an unceasing incorporation of the whole lives of all people. At the centre of all these practices stood a process that was meant to lead to a particular formation of identity and ideology. The success of National Socialism in achieving its objectives must today cause us to investigate the relationship between identity and formation, political culture and pedagogic activity.

Succinct analysis and detailed case-studies, based on recent archaeological research, are the basis of this social and economic study of the Roman Imperial frontiers. It examines the concept of "frontier" within the Roman Empire, from the first century AD to the sixth, suggesting that it was a fuzzy set of interlocking zones - political, military, judicial and financial. Elton focuses on how the frontier worked and how it affected life for all those in the frontier zone, not just the Roman army. Each chapter outlines a major problem and illustrates it with examples from different regions and periods. The text examines the key features and periods of the Roman Empire in the light of the most recent archaeological research. The author includes an analysis of the acquisition of the empire and the ways in which it was ruled, and also relationships with allied kingdoms. Finally, he highlights the central importance of trade by special consideration of Palmyra.

Some years ago Donal McCracken was working on a book of Ireland and the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) when, in the British Ministry of Defence Library, the old War Office Library, off Whitehall, he came upon a slim volume. It was a war diary written by a young German from Halbertstad named Ernest Luther. As a child, Luther went with his mother to New York. From there, in a short period, he fought as a volunteer in three wars: the Graeco-Turkish War, the United States-Spanish War and the Anglo-Boer War. In South Africa Luther joined an Irish commando in the Boer army and fought against the British. Aged around twenty, he was killed in action in September 1900 during the Boer retreat through the Eastern Transvaal (Mpumalanga) in the face of Lord Roberts's advancing army. So we have a German-American, coming to South Africa to fight against the British, in an Irish commando, in the Boer army. The diary, published in 1900 in English, consists of only 54 small pages, but it is packed with action and invaluable as a source about the Boer retreat as well as about such matters as indiscipline in the commando, drunkenness, use of dum-dum bullets, which Boer leaders were where when, and so forth. But there is also a fascinating postscript. British Military Intelligence took the diary off the dying Luther. Within ten weeks, it had been shipped to London, possibly translated (the original is lost so we do not know if it was written in German), possibly altered and ultimately published by British Military Intelligence at 16 Queen Anne's Gate. We also know that in at least one instance and probably others, the published diary was handed out to a journalist in the field with General Roberts. So the diary also opens a window into the actions of British Military Intelligence and the embedded journalist within the advancing British army.

This unique and comprehensive account describes the interplay of internal and external factors in the emergence of the Austro-Hungarian Navy from a coastal defence force in 1904 to a respectable battle force capable of the joint operations with other Triple Alliance fleets in the Mediterranean by the eve of World War I. By 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Navy was the sixth largest navy in the world and the quality of its officers and men was widely recognised by most European naval observers at the time. The book describes the relationships between naval leaders, the heir to the throne Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and the Parliament in shaping the dual Monarchy's naval policy. It also shows how the changes in foreign policy in Italy and underlying animosities between Rome and Vienna led to a naval race in the Adriatic that eventually bolstered Germany's naval position in respect to Great Britain in the North Sea.

All over the world and throughout millennia, states have attempted to subjugate, control and dominate non-state populations and to end their wars. This book compares such processes of pacification leading to the end of tribal warfare in seven societies from all over the world between the 19th and 21st centuries. It shows that pacification cannot be understood solely as a unilateral imposition of state control but needs to be approached as the result of specific interactions between state actors and non-state local groups. Indigenous groups usually had options in deciding between accepting and resisting state control. State actors often had to make concessions or form alliances with indigenous groups in order to pursue their goals. Incentives given to local groups sometimes played a more important role in ending warfare than repression. In this way, indigenous groups, in interaction with state actors, strongly shaped the character of the process of pacification. This volume's comparison finds that pacification is more successful and more durable where state actors mainly focus on selective incentives for local groups to renounce warfare, offer protection, and only as a last resort use moderate repression, combined with the quick establishment of effective institutions for peaceful conflict settlement.

HIST 98 short blurb This text examines all the major themes, personalities and issues of this important period in a clear and digestible form. Illustrated with with helpful maps, charts and diagrams. "Aspects of British Political History 1914-1995" examines all the major themes, personalities and issues of this important period in a clear and digestible form. It: introduces fresh angles to long-studied topics; consolidates a great body of recent research; analyzes views of different historians; offers an interpretive rather than narrative approach; gives concise treatment to complex issues; is directly relevant to student questions and courses; is carefully organised to reflect the way teachers tackle these courses; and is illustrated with helpful maps, charts, illustrations and photographs.

In 1917, the British issued the Balfour Declaration for military and strategic reasons. This book analyses why and how the British took on the Palestine Mandate. It explores how their interests and policies changed during its course and why they evacuated the country in 1948. During the first decade of the Mandate the British enjoyed an influx of Jewish capital mobilized by the Zionists which enabled them not only to fund the administration of Palestine, but also her own regional imperial projects. But in the mid-1930s, as the clouds of World War Two gathered, Britain's commitment to Zionism was superseded by the need to secure her strategic assets in the Middle East. In consequence she switched to a policy of appeasing the Arabs. In 1947, Britain abandoned her attempts to impose a settlement in Palestine that would be acceptable to the Arab States and referred Palestine to the United Nations, without recommendations, leaving the antagonists to settle their conflict on the battlefield. Based on archival sources, and the most up-to-date scholarly research, this comprehensive history offers new insights into Arab, British and Zionist policies. It is a must-read for anyone with an interest in Palestine, Israel, British Colonialism and the Middle East in general.

Bringing together scholars from Russia, the United States and Europe, this collection of essays is the first to explore the slippery phenomenon of post-Soviet nostalgia by studying it as a discursive practice serving a wide variety of ideological agendas. The authors demonstrate how feelings of loss and displacement in post-Soviet Russia are turned into effective tools of state building and national mobilization, as well as into weapons for local resistance and the assertion of individual autonomy. Drawing on novels, memoirs, documentaries, photographs and Soviet commodities, Post-Soviet Nostalgia is an invaluable resource for historians, literary scholars and anthropologists interested in how Russia comes to terms with its Soviet past.

Depend on SHP's comprehensive and best-selling core texts to enrich your understanding of A Level History. SHP Advanced History Core Texts are the Schools History Project's acclaimed books for A level History. They offer: - clear and penetrating narrative - comprehensively explaining the content required for examination success - thought provoking and relevant activities that explore the content and help students think analytically about the subject - thorough exam preparation through carefully designed tasks that address the distinctive requirements of A Level history including guidance in essay writing and source-based investigations. - a wide range of revision strategies including structured content summaries Additional features include: - A focus route pathway for independent learners - Learning Trouble Spots - which address common misunderstandings - diagrammatic summaries of key areas of content and historical issues - accessible summaries of recent historical debates. - active learning approaches, including decision-making exercises Russia under Tsarism and Communism 1881-1953 this title is a comprehensive core text on Russian history from 1881 to the death of Stalin. It is a second edition of the bestselling Communist Russia under Lenin and Stalin. This second edition is extended to cover the Tsarist pre-revolutionary period. Major themes include - the nature of Tsarist rule in Russia and the causes and consequences of the 1905 revolution; - the causes and consequences of the Russian Revolution in 1917; - the nature, the achievements and failures of Lenin's and Stalin's Communist regimes; - the ongoing historiographical debate about this period and the current reinterpretations of it. Other improvements for this second edition include more streamlined coverage of Stalin's foreign policy.

First published in 1986, this text brings together the work of artists who were gay, lesbian or bisexual. It freely discusses and analyzes painting, sculpture and photography which reflects the artist's sexual orientation, placing the work within its artistic, social and historical context, and challenging the view that issues of sexual identity have no place within art. This edition traces the influence of Renaissance artists on later generations of artists; it also looks at the way photography was appropriated to express a range of sexual interests, and scrutinizes the codes used to convey feelings which could not be openly shown. Artists discussed include: Duncan Grant, Ethel Walker, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Harmony Hammond and Jody Pinto. It also covers the lives of artists in order to illuminate their work, particularly in the view of social and legal constraints. Other themes include the limitations of representation and the role of art in defining and shaping attitudes.

A study of Britain's imperial policy in the Middle East over oil, finance and defence. This book brings together different accounts of British policy in the early 20th century, particularly in the Ottoman Empire, to reflect a consistent pattern of preoccupation, policy-making and diplomacy.

With a foreword by Jon Snow. In July 1936 insurgent Spanish troops organized a military coup to oust the elected Republican government in Madrid. The rebel generals expected to force a quick, clean regime change but they failed. The botched uprising turned into a bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands died in a bitter conflict which tore the country apart and rapidly turned into the prelude for an even greater conflict yet to com--the Second World War. The siege of Madrid was the key battle of the war. The world watched and waited for the city to surrender as General Franco's Nationalist army, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, closed in on the Spanish capital. But Madrid did not fall. Madrilenos fought tooth and nail to defend their city. Helped by volunteers from fifty other countries--the International Brigades--they held out against all the odds until the end of the conflict in 1939. Despite its central role in twentieth-century history, the siege of Madrid is an episode largely hidden from today's visitor. There is no guide to the war sites and few clues for the inquisitive traveller who wants to know more. Frontline Madrid fills that gap. This unique guide book explains what life was like in the city under siege and what happened in the battlefield dramas. The simple to follow maps and diagrams make it easy to visit the frontline sites. The vividly written descriptions bring events and people compellingly to life. The role of prominent individuals, British and American--Orwell, Hemingway, John Cornford - is explored. Off the beaten track, from the University district in the city centre to the mountains of Guadarrama less than an hour away, the remains of the war in Madrid can still be found--gun emplacements, bunkers, trenches and occasional debris. Frontline Madrid retraces the footsteps of those who lived through the conflict to take the reader on a tour in time. The usual tourist traps are left far behind to enter the gripping world of a war which shaped modern European history.

In this groundbreaking and absorbing book, credit finally goes where credit is due -- to the bold women who were crucial to the success of the civil rights movement. From the Montgomery bus boycott to the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides, Lynne Olson skillfully tells the long-overlooked story of the extraordinary women who were among the most fearless, resourceful, and tenacious leaders of the civil rights movement.

Freedom's Daughters includes portraits of more than sixty women -- many until now forgotten and some never before written about -- from the key figures (Ida B. Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ella Baker, and Septima Clark, among others) to some of the smaller players who represent the hundreds of women who each came forth to do her own small part and who together ultimately formed the mass movements that made the difference. Freedom's Daughters puts a human face on the civil rights struggle -- and shows that that face was often female.

A study of the Manchurian and Shanghai crises, the first serious confrontation between Japan and the world community. The book focuses on how the League of Nations attempted to cope with the emergency; and on the clash of attitudes in Japanese politics.

In this volume the authors examine relationships between the growth and the economic, political and strategic expansion of a country and its propensity for conflict and war. The intention is to ascertain through the systematic analysis of one case over 100 years the extent to which territorial expansion and armed conflict are less an inevitable consequence of growth and development than an outcome of the demands and requirements of states and their economic, political and strategic security needs. Also of critical concern is the extent to which national expansion, once accepted as a security imperative, may create its own demands and requirements for even further expansion. The study combines historical inquiry with quantitative analysis in order to compare Japanese modes of growth, expansion and conflict from the Meiji Restoration to World War I, during the inter-war period and over the years since 1945. This book should be of interest to postgraduates and academics; politics, history and Japanese studies.

At the German Armistice, small-scale Allied intervention in Russia (designed to thwart the Germans, save the Czechs, and overthrow the Bolsheviks) had completely failed. But the presence of Allied troops had enabled some White groups to come together, while Allied finance had kept others alive. Now the Great War was over. Were Allied troops to be withdrawn - or reinforced? All would be decided at the coming Peace Conference. But before it even met, Britain had already decided to supply the Whites in South Russia and Siberia, while France had actually launched a military invasion in the Odessa region. The Peace Conference never properly addressed the Russian problem. After President Wilson's final effort to make peace with Moscow had failed, and the Whites had started an advance in Siberia, and French troops, in open mutiny, had abandoned Odessa, the British were left to carry on single-handed. On the main South Russian, Siberian and Baltic fronts, Churchill and Lloyd George now turned the White forces into expendable British pawns in a temporary forward holding operation, designed to contain the Bolshevik inferno within Russia, and burn it out there, and thus give a prostrate Europe time to recover. This medium British intervention (which the Peace Conference had already been carefully warned was doomed to failure) was thus to prolong the Russian civil war, and cause a further 14 million Russian deaths - due not to the hap-hazard fighting, but to starvation, cholera and typhus, in turn due to the ever-growing dislocation within Russia, and its further ruin. Thus were sown the seeds of the Cold War.

Economic growth in China has transformed both politics and society. Old orthodoxies are painfully being eroded in the drive for reform while new social and cultural tensions are coming to light. It has been argued that the cycles of reform and retreat since 1978 which culminated in the Tiananmen Square tragedy were induced by the tensions of the reform process. It is clear that the way in which China handles these issues in the future will have major implications for the next phase of the country's development. The authors of this book analyze how reform has affected major groups in society such as urban workers, rural and urban cadres, the army, intellectuals and private entrepreneurs. They examine the interaction between old attitudes and new needs in such areas as education, policing and social control, rural administration and the status of women. What emerges is a broad insight into China's reform process which looks both at the enormous changes that have come about and at the problems to follow. This book should be of interest to postgraduates and researchers in Chinese and East Asian studies, politics and economics.

This book looks at India of the 1950s and 60s while it was still emerging from two centuries of colonial rule and striving to come together as a nation. It critically explores the history of nationalism and identity in Northeastern India, a region with diverse ethnolinguistic communities and people, through the personal history of the first Manipuri (Meitei) direct recruit in the Indian Administrative Services. The book weaves in autobiographical stories with the story of Northeast India, capturing its politics, socio-cultural distinctiveness and milieus that set the region apart from the rest of the country. It covers the career of the author in the IAS, serving in Manipur and Karnataka, with the Union Government, and finally as Secretary for the northeastern region. Through these, the book tells the story of a changing society, of a developing nation and a people on the move. It shows how borders and barriers were collapsing and being formed at the same time and how the country was dealing with it. The book is a unique and significant addition to the literature on Manipur; it deepens our understanding of the northeastern states and the complex interactions of the people of the region with the rest of India. Part of the Transitions in Northeastern India series, this book will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of modern history, sociology, social anthropology and postcolonial studies, particularly those concerned with India and Northeast India.

Faced with the sale of the century-old family summer house on Cape Cod where he had spent forty-two summers, George Howe Colt recounts returning for one last stay with his wife and children in this stunning memoir that was a National Book Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.This poignant tribute to the eleven-bedroom jumble of gables, bays, and dormers that watched over weddings, divorces, deaths, anniversaries, birthdays, breakdowns, and love affairs for five generations interweaves Colt's final visit with memories of a lifetime of summers. Run-down yet romantic, The Big House stands not only as a cherished reminder of summer's ephemeral pleasures but also as a powerful symbol of a vanishing way of life.