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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Historical, political & military
The urgent, explosive story of Russia's espionage efforts against
the West from the Cold War to the present - including their
interference in the 2016 presidential election. Like a scene from a
le Carre novel or the TV drama The Americans, in the summer of 2010
a group of Russian deep cover sleeper agents were arrested. It was
the culmination of a decade-long investigation, and ten people,
including Anna Chapman, were swapped for four people held in
Russia. At the time it was seen simply as a throwback to the Cold
War. But that would prove to be a costly mistake. It was a sign
that the Russian threat had never gone away and more importantly,
it was shifting into a much more disruptive new phase. Today, the
danger is clearer than ever following the poisoning in the UK of
one of the spies who was swapped, Sergei Skripal, and the growing
evidence of Russian interference in American life. In this
meticulously researched and gripping, novelistic narrative, Gordon
Corera uncovers the story of how Cold War spying has evolved - and
indeed, is still very much with us. Russians Among Us describes for
the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI
agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it
reveals new information about today's spies-as well as those trying
to catch them and those trying to kill them.
Zilliacus lived through turbulent years. He was an enemy of fascism
from the 1930s, and after the Second World War worked against Cold
War hysteria through meetings and contascts with Stalin,
Khrushchev, Tito and Castro. Ernest Bevin hated the critical
Gateshead Member of Parliament, and this led to his expulsion from
the Labour Party. Zilliacus fought back and was re-admitted. In
1955 he won the parliamentary seat of Manchester Gorton for Labour.
This biography, based on the Zilliacus Papers and other sources,
traces the life of this remarkable man and throws light upon people
and events over the first decades of the 20th Century. 'A brilliant
biography of a brilliant man.' Tony Benn
An astonishing tale of romance, resistance and bravery 'A sad and
beautiful book, shining a light on quiet heroism in dark times.'
Lucy Adlington, New York Times bestselling author of The
Dressmakers of Auschwitz Sabine's War is the previously untold
story of a remarkable resistance fighter and her incredible story
of survival against the odds. When Germany invaded Holland in May
1940, Sabine Zuur joined the resistance movement without a moment's
hesitation aged just 22. Helping to hide those avoiding the German
authorities, she was soon betrayed and subjected to repeated
violent interrogations. Many of her friends were executed but
Sabine was instead sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, via
the Amersfoort and Ravensbruck camps. Enduring gruelling conditions
and backbreaking forced manual labour, she survived through a
combination of guile and good fortune. But it was only after
Sabine's death that her daughter Eva discovered an archive of
letters detailing her extraordinary life, revealing a rich inner
world and a past she had discussed little. Amongst them were
declarations of love from pilot Taro, shot down in his Spitfire
over northern France aged just 26; notes from Sabine's second love
Gerard, executed by the Germans; letters to her mother smuggled out
in her prison laundry; and passionate, creepy missives from a
German professional criminal named Gebele who would ultimately save
Sabine's life. She emerges from this correspondence as a woman with
an indefinable aura, somehow in control of her own destiny even
when to all intents and purposes she was not. A transfixing story
of survival, Sabine's War captures a remarkable life in the words
of the young woman who lived it.
"A profound and uplifting account of Robert F. Kennedy's brave
crusade for racial equality. This is narrative history at its
absolute finest, with RFK squarely at the center of the 1960s civil
rights movement along with Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin,
Cesar Chavez, and other fearless activists. Bare-knuckled, with a
golden heart, RFK was a visionary force to reckon with. This
towering biographical portrait will stand the test of time."
-Douglas Brinkley, author of Rosa Parks A leading civil rights
historian places Robert Kennedy for the first time at the center of
the movement for racial justice of the 1960s-and shows how many of
today's issues can be traced back to that pivotal time. History,
race, and politics converged in the 1960s in ways that indelibly
changed America. In Justice Rising, a landmark reconsideration of
Robert Kennedy's life and legacy, Patricia Sullivan draws on
government files, personal papers, and oral interviews to reveal
how he grasped the moment to emerge as a transformational leader.
When protests broke out across the South, the young attorney
general confronted escalating demands for racial justice. What
began as a political problem soon became a moral one. In the face
of vehement pushback from Southern Democrats bent on massive
resistance, he put the weight of the federal government behind
school desegregation and voter registration. Bobby Kennedy's
youthful energy, moral vision, and capacity to lead created a
momentum for change. He helped shape the 1964 Civil Rights Act but
knew no law would end racism. When the Watts uprising brought calls
for more aggressive policing, he pushed back, pointing to the root
causes of urban unrest: entrenched poverty, substandard schools,
and few job opportunities. RFK strongly opposed the military
buildup in Vietnam, but nothing was more important to him than "the
revolution within our gates, the struggle of the American Negro for
full equality and full freedom." On the night of Martin Luther
King's assassination, Kennedy's anguished appeal captured the hopes
of a turbulent decade: "In this difficult time for the United
States it is perhaps well to ask what kind of nation we are and
what direction we want to move in." It is a question that remains
urgent and unanswered.
A Hay Festival and The Poole VOTE 100 BOOKS for Women Selection One
of the most famous accounts of living under the Nazi regime of
World War II comes from the diary of a thirteen-year-old Jewish
girl, Anne Frank. Today, The Diary of a Young Girl has sold over 25
million copies world-wide; this is the definitive edition released
to mark the 70th anniversary of the day the diary begins. '12 June
1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have
never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a
great source of comfort and support' The Diary of a Young Girl is
one of the most celebrated and enduring books of the last century.
Tens of millions have read it since it was first published in 1947
and it remains a deeply admired testament to the indestructible
nature of the human spirit. This definitive edition restores thirty
per cent if the original manuscript, which was deleted from the
original edition. It reveals Anne as a teenage girl who fretted
about and tried to cope with her own emerging sexuality and who
also veered between being a carefree child and an aware adult. Anne
Frank and her family fled the horrors of Nazi occupation by hiding
in the back of a warehouse in Amsterdam for two years with another
family and a German dentist. Aged thirteen when she went into the
secret annexe, Anne kept a diary. She movingly revealed how the
eight people living under these extraordinary conditions coped with
hunger, the daily threat of discovery and death and being cut off
from the outside world, as well as petty misunderstandings and the
unbearable strain of living like prisoners. The Diary of a Young
Girl is a timeless true story to be rediscovered by each new
generation. For young readers and adults it continues to bring to
life Anne's extraordinary courage and struggle throughout her
ordeal. This is the definitive edition of the diary of Anne Frank.
Anne Frank was born on the 12 June 1929. She died while imprisoned
at Bergen-Belsen, three months short of her sixteenth birthday.
This seventieth anniversary, definitive edition of The Diary of a
Young Girl is poignant, heartbreaking and a book that everyone
should read.
An inspirational memoir-meets-manifesto by Danica Roem, the
nation's first openly trans person elected to US state legislature
Danica Roem made national headlines when--as a transgender former
frontwoman for a metal band and a political newcomer--she unseated
Virginia's most notoriously anti-LGBTQ 26-year incumbent Bob
Marshall as state delegate. But before Danica made history, she had
to change her vision of what was possible in her own life. Doing so
was a matter of storytelling: during her campaign, Danica hired an
opposition researcher to dredge up every story from her past that
her opponent might seize on to paint her negatively. In wildly
entertaining prose, Danica dismantles all the stories her opponents
tried to hedge against her, showing how through brutal honesty and
loving authenticity, it's possible to embrace the low points, and
even transform them into her greatest strengths. Burn the Page
takes readers from Danica's lonely, closeted, and at times
operatically tragic childhood to her position as a rising star in a
party she's helped forever change. Burn the Page is so much more
than a stump speech: it's an extremely inspiring manifesto about
how it's possible to set fire to the stories you don't want to be
in anymore, whether written by you or about you by someone
else--and rewrite your own future, whether that's running for
politics, in your work, or your personal life. This book will not
just encourage people who think they have to be spotless to run for
office, but inspire all of us to own our personal narratives as
Danica does.
"Kati Marton's True Believer is a true story of intrigue,
treachery, murder, torture, fascism, and an unshakable faith in the
ideals of Communism....A fresh take on espionage activities from a
critical period of history" (Washington Independent Review of
Books). True Believer reveals the life of Noel Field, once a
well-meaning and privileged American who spied for Stalin during
the 1930s and forties. Later, a pawn in Stalin's sinister master
strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB and forced to
testify against his own Communist comrades. How does an Ivy
League-educated, US State Department employee, deeply rooted in
American culture and history, become a hardcore Stalinist? The
1930s, when Noel Field joined the secret underground of the
International Communist Movement, were a time of national collapse.
Communism promised the righting of social and political wrongs and
many in Field's generation were seduced by its siren song. Few,
however, went as far as Noel Field in betraying their own country.
With a reporter's eye for detail, and a historian's grasp of the
cataclysmic events of the twentieth century, Kati Marton, in a
"relevant...fascinating...vividly reconstructed" (The New York
Times Book Review) account, captures Field's riveting quest for a
life of meaning that went horribly wrong. True Believer is
supported by unprecedented access to Field family correspondence,
Soviet Secret Police records, and reporting on key players from
Alger Hiss, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and World War II spy master,
"Wild Bill" Donovan-to the most sinister of all: Josef Stalin.
"Relevant today as a tale of fanaticism and the lengths it can take
one to" (Publishers Weekly), True Believer is "riveting reading"
(USA TODAY), an astonishing real-life spy thriller, filled with
danger, misplaced loyalties, betrayal, treachery, and pure evil,
with a plot twist worthy of John le Carre.
*THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *A Financial Times Book of the
Year* *Economist Book of the Year* 'A political epic' - Guardian
'This is the book Trump fears most.' - Axios Few journalists have
covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. And few
better understand the polarizing 45th president or his motivations.
In this astonishing, illuminating book, Haberman reveals all about
Trump the man, the president and the phenomenon. Interviews with
hundreds of sources and with Trump himself portray a complicated
and often contradictory figure. Capable of kindness but relying on
casual cruelty as it suits his purposes. Pugnacious. Insecure.
Lonely. Vindictive. Menacing. Smarter than his critics contend and
colder and more calculating than his allies believe. A man who
embedded himself in popular culture for decades, laying the
groundwork to galvanize support for a successful run for high
office. Chronicling Trump's entire career, from his rise in New
York City to his tortured post-presidency and potential comeback,
Confidence Man is a magnificent, disturbing reckoning of the
president who pushed American democracy to the brink.
Joe Biden: Quotes to Live By is an inspiring and hilarious
collection of over 170 quotes from one of America's most beloved
politicians. Homespun, caring and empathetic, Joe is the nation's
uncle, but his sometimes bizarre and baffling remarks can seem
misjudged at best and offensive at worst, even when they are the
innocent result of his no-filter plainspeak. With his fascinating
backstory, from conquering his famous stutter and his humble
middle-class upbringing, to becoming the youngest senator elected
to Congress at the time, to the deep tragedy of the loss of his
young wife and baby daughter, and later his son Beau, to his
light-hearted bromance with President Obama, Joe has an
unparalleled ability to connect with the ordinary 'joe'. Despite
his tendency for foot-in-the-mouth gaffes, his integrity, moral
fortitude and patriotism shine from his words, revealing a
dedicated public servant, devoted family man, person of faith and
ardent American.You will find his thoughts on success, and his many
failures, along with his hopes and dreams for the American people -
because it's always the people whom he serves. Joe Biden has said,
'In this world, emotion has become suspect. The accepted style is
smooth, antiseptic and passionless', which is certainly something
that could never be said about him.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK CHOSEN AS A
BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TELEGRAPH AND THE NEW STATESMAN "A
marvellous book" Rev Richard Coles "Gripping... filled with
compassion." Sunday Times "Remarkable... hopeful and uplifting."
Mail on Sunday "An antidote to despair" Daily Mirror
"Enthralling... vivid and humane" Observer "Exemplary" New
Statesman When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a
pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone starts to ring. Lucy is a
world-leading authority on recovering from disaster. She holds
governments to account, supports survivors and helps communities to
rebuild. She has been at the centre of the most seismic events of
the last few decades, advising on everything from the 2004 tsunami
and the 7/7 bombings to the Grenfell fire and the war in Ukraine.
Lucy's job is to pick up the pieces and get us ready for what comes
next. Lucy takes us behind the police tape to scenes of chaos, and
into government briefing rooms where confusion can reign. She also
looks back at the many losses and loves of her life and career, and
tells us how we can all build back after disaster. When the Dust
Settles lifts us up, showing that humanity, hope and humour can -
and must - be found on the darkest days.
He lived a double-life in the sixties. Faked his own death in the
seventies. And retained his cover in the eighties. 'A case more
important than Profumo' Financial Times 'A riveting read' Literary
Review A period thriller with powerful political and espionage
themes, Agent Twister is the remarkable story behind one of the
greatest scandals of the 1970s, told in full for the first time. If
you think you know the true story of John Stonehouse - think again.
It's November 1974 and John Stonehouse MP, once a star in Harold
Wilson's Labour government, is missing in Miami, presumed drowned.
His disappearance exposes the most lurid details of his life,
including identity fraud, corporate corruption, a love triangle,
blackmail, links with the Mafia and a decade-long career as a
Soviet spy. The public are gripped by this story, happy to forget
the strikes, IRA bombs and rising prices that are making daily life
a misery. On Christmas Eve, Stonehouse is tracked down in
Melbourne, Australia, where he is suspected of being that other
missing Englishman, Lord Lucan. The comic absurdity of the story is
offset by claims of a mental breakdown and a refusal to resign as
an MP, even when he is extradited back to the UK and up on charges
at the Old Bailey. For the first time, Agent Twister reveals the
corporate crimes at the heart of Stonehouse's business empire, the
true extent of his ten-year collusion with powerful Soviet proxies
and the political consequences of his antics. It's a scandal
greater than Profumo that lay buried for thirty years, with three
prime ministers - Wilson, Callaghan and Thatcher - covering it up
for very different reasons. Written by the makers of the Channel
Four documentary The Spy Who Died Twice, Agent Twister is the first
impartial account to put this extraordinary scandal in political
context and reveal why John Stonehouse really disappeared.
The unforgettable true story of two married journalists on an
island-hopping run for their lives across the Pacific after the
Fall of Manila during World War II-a saga of love, adventure, and
danger. On New Year's Eve, 1941, just three weeks after the attack
on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital
of Manila, where journalists Mel and Annalee Jacoby had married
just a month earlier. The couple had worked in China as members of
a tight community of foreign correspondents with close ties to
Chinese leaders; if captured by invading Japanese troops, they were
certain to be executed. Racing to the docks just before midnight,
they barely escaped on a freighter-the beginning of a tumultuous
journey that would take them from one island outpost to another.
While keeping ahead of the approaching Japanese, Mel and Annalee
covered the harrowing war in the Pacific Theater-two of only a
handful of valiant and dedicated journalists reporting from the
region. Supported by deep historical research, extensive
interviews, and the Jacobys' personal letters, Bill Lascher
recreates the Jacobys' thrilling odyssey and their love affair with
the Far East and one another. Bringing to light their compelling
personal stories and their professional life together, Eve of a
Hundred Midnights is a tale of an unquenchable thirst for
adventure, of daring reportage at great personal risk, and of an
enduring romance that blossomed in the shadow of war.
A revelatory intellectual biography of Tocqueville, told through
his wide-ranging travels-most of them, aside from his journey to
America, barely known. It might be the most famous journey in the
history of political thought: in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville sailed
from France to the United States, spent nine months touring and
observing the political culture of the fledgling republic, and
produced the classic Democracy in America. But the United States
was just one of the many places documented by the inveterate
traveler. Jeremy Jennings follows Tocqueville's voyages-by sailing
ship, stagecoach, horseback, train, and foot-across Europe, North
Africa, and of course North America. Along the way, Jennings
reveals underappreciated aspects of Tocqueville's character and
sheds new light on the depth and range of his political and
cultural commentary. Despite recurrent ill health and ever-growing
political responsibilities, Tocqueville never stopped moving or
learning. He wanted to understand what made political communities
tick, what elite and popular mores they rested on, and how they
were adjusting to rapid social and economic change-the rise of
democracy and the Industrial Revolution, to be sure, but also the
expansion of empire and the emergence of socialism. He lauded the
orderly, Catholic-dominated society of Quebec; presciently
diagnosed the boisterous but dangerously chauvinistic politics of
Germany; considered England the freest and most unequal place on
Earth; deplored the poverty he saw in Ireland; and championed
French colonial settlement in Algeria. Drawing on correspondence,
published writings, speeches, and the recollections of
contemporaries, Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America is a
panoramic combination of biography, history, and political theory
that fully reflects the complex, restless mind at its center.
On the night of 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler leaned out of a
spotlit window of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, bursting with
joy. The moment seemed unbelievable, even to Hitler. After an
improbable political journey that came close to faltering on many
occasions, his march to power had finally succeeded. While the
story of Hitler's rise has been told in books covering larger
portions of his life, no previous work has focused on his
eight-year climb to rule: 1925-1933. Renowned author Peter Ross
Range brings this period back to startling life with a narrative
history that describes brushes with power, quests for revenge,
nonstop electioneering and underhand campaign tactics. For Hitler,
moments of gloating triumph were followed by abject humiliation.
This is the tale of a school dropout's climb from the infamy of a
failed coup to Germany's highest office. It is a saga of personal
growth and lavish living, a melodrama rife with love affairs and
even suicide attempts. But it is also the definitive account of
Hitler's unrelenting struggle for control over his raucous movement
as he fought off challenges, built and bullied coalitions, quelled
internecine feuds and neutralised his enemies - all culminating in
the creation of the Third Reich and the world's descent into
darkness. One of the most dramatic and important stories of the
twentieth century, Hitler's ascent spans Germany's wobbly recovery
from the First World War through years of growing prosperity and,
finally, into crippling depression. Masterfully woven into an
unforgettable and urgent narrative, The Unfathomable Ascent will
remind us of what we should never forget.
To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent
contrasting ideals: self-defense versus nonviolence, Black Power
versus civil rights, the sword versus the shield. The struggle for
Black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent
direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American
democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased
outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends
these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who,
despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each
other throughout their adult lives. Now updated with a new
afterword, this is a strikingly revisionist account of Malcolm and
Martin, the era they defined, and their lasting impact on today's
Movement for Black Lives.
A vivid, richly informative biography of the medieval entrepreneur,
social reformer and 'influencer' at court. The extraordinary story
of Richard Whittington, from his arrival in London as a young boy
to his death in 1423, against a backdrop of plague, politics and
war; turbulence between Crown, City and Commons; and the
unrelenting financial demands of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V,
to whom Whittington was mercer, lender and fixer. A man determined
to follow his own path, Whittington was a significant figure in
London's ceaseless development. As a banker, Collector of the Wool
Custom, King's Council member and four-time mayor, Whittington
featured prominently in the rise of the capital's merchant class
and powerful livery companies. Civic reformer, enemy of corruption
and author of an extraordinary social legacy, he contributed to
Henry V's victory at Agincourt and oversaw building works at
Westminster Abbey. In London, Whittington found his 'second'
family: a mentor, Sir Ivo Fitzwarin, and an inspirational wife in
Fitzwarin's daughter Alice. Today's Dick Whittington pantomimes,
enjoyed by millions, have a grain of truth in them, but the real
story is far more compelling-minus that sadly mythical cat.
Peter Shore worked under Hugh Gaitskell, serving in successive
Labour Cabinets under first Harold Wilson and subsequently James
Callaghan. He wrote the 1964, 1966 and 1970 general election
manifestos for the party and stood in both the 1980 and the 1983
party leadership elections. He would go on to be known as one of
the Labour Party's most important thinkers. He had a long political
career at the upper levels of the Labour Party and was close to
successive leaders. Despite this, he was also independent minded,
as evidenced by the 1976 IMF crisis and his long-standing
opposition to European integration. As well as this key debate, the
authors also address crucial issues within the Labour movement,
from macroeconomic management to the extent to which the party can
be a force for socialism. This remarkable new study offers a
comprehensive and timely reappraisal of the man and his record,
examining the context within which he operated, his approach and
responses to changing social and economic norms, his opposition to
Britain's membership of what is now the EU, and how he was viewed
by peers from across the political spectrum. Finally, it examines
the overall impact of Peter Shore on the development of British
politics. With contributions from leading experts in the fields of
political theory, and from Shore's own contemporaries, this book is
an important new assessment of one of Labour's most interesting
political thinkers in twentieth-century British politics.
Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly--overnight
and without warning--was handed the reigns of power to one of the
most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How
can we trust him if we don't know him?
"First Person" is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who
holds the future of Russia in his grip. An extraordinary
compilation of over 24 hours of in-depth interviews and remarkable
photographs, it delves deep into Putin's KGB past and explores his
meteoric rise to power. No Russian leader has ever subjected
himself to this kind of public examination of his life and views.
Both as a spy and as a virtual political unknown until selected by
Boris Yeltsin to be Prime Minister, Putin has been regarded as man
of mystery. Now, the curtain lifts to reveal a remarkable life of
struggles and successes. Putin's life story is of major importance
to the world.
A detailed account of the extraordinary life of Austin Steward, a
black man who lived in the early nineteenth century as both a slave
and then later a free man. Originally published in 1861, Austin
Steward's memoir has long been a staple source of first-hand
evidence about activism against slavery and racism by freed blacks.
Long out of print, the narrative is now available with additional
biographical information and a critical introduction by historian
Graham Hodges. The introduction affords an in-depth discussion of
Steward's career - rising from enslavement to success as a
self-made businessman in upstate New York and as leader of the
ill-fated Wilberforce Colony in Ontario, Canada. Hodges also
expands upon previous recognition of Steward's sizable role in free
black activism in the antebellum northern states. Replete with
images from Steward's life, this new edition of his classic
narrative is stocked with details about the author's relationships
with antislavery activists Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown,
Nathaniel Paul, and Gerrit Smith. The book offers insight into the
creation of African American community life in upstate New York and
into the doomed black utopia of Wilberforce.
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