'The epic story of an iconic aircraft and the breathtaking courage of those who flew her' Andy McNab, bestselling author of Bravo Two Zero 'Compelling, thrilling and rooted in quite extraordinary human drama' James Holland, author of Normandy 44 From John Nichol, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Spitfire, comes a passionate and profoundly moving tribute to the Lancaster bomber, its heroic crews and the men and women who kept her airborne during the country's greatest hour of need. 'The Avro Lancaster is an aviation icon; revered, romanticised, loved. Without her, and the bravery of those who flew her, the freedom we enjoy today would not exist.' Sir Arthur Harris, the controversial chief of Royal Air Force Bomber Command, described the Lancaster as his 'shining sword' and the 'greatest single factor in winning the war'. RAF bomber squadrons carried out offensive operations from the first day of the Second World War until the very last, more than five and a half years later. They flew nearly 300,000 sorties and dropped around a million tons of explosives, as well as life-saving supplies. Over 10,000 of their aircraft never returned. Of the 7,377 Lancasters built during the conflict, more than half were lost to enemy action or training accidents. The human cost was staggering. Of the 125,000 men who served in Bomber Command, over 55,000 were killed and another 8,400 were wounded. Some 10,000 survived being shot down, only to become prisoners of war. In simple, brutal terms, Harris's aircrew had only a 40 per cent chance of surviving the war unscathed. Former RAF Tornado Navigator, Gulf War veteran and bestselling author John Nichol now tells the inspiring and moving story of this legendary aircraft that took the fight deep into the heart of Nazi Germany.

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.

Former Tornado Navigator John Nichol tells the incredible story of the RAF Tornado force during the First Gulf War in 1991; the excitement and the danger, the fear and the losses. It is an extraordinary account of courage and fortitude. 'We were doing about 620 miles-per-hour, 200 feet above the desert, in total darkness. Everything was running on rails as we approached the target. Then all hell broke loose. I remember the missile being fired at us; I broke left and shouted, "Chaff!" 'All I could see was a flame, like a very large firework, coming towards me. Then there was a huge white flash. I remember an enormous wind and then I was knocked unconscious. My last thoughts were that I was going to die.' In 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighbouring Kuwait, setting in motion a chain of events that had unimaginable political, military and personal repercussions, which still reverberate around the globe today. This is the story of the aircrew at the heart of Operation Desert Storm, almost none of whom had any prior experience of armed combat. It is the story of the Tornado's missions, of those who did not return - and of the families who watched and waited as one of the most complex conflicts in recent history unfolded live on television. It is a story of untold fear and suffering, and astounding courage in the face of hitherto unimaginable adversity.

Meer as ’n honderd jaar na die laaste skote in die Anglo-Boereoorlog geklap het, word genl. Christiaan de Wet steeds bewonder as onverbiddelike bittereinder, die held wat tot die einde toe volhard het. Sy jonger broer, Piet, word onthou as die joiner. In Broedertwis probeer Albert Blake verstaan waarom hulle lynreg in stryd met mekaar gekom het. Wie was reg? Christiaan, wat ten alle koste die vryheidstryd wou voer, of Piet, wat ’n einde aan die smart en lyding van die oorlog wou bring?

General Jannie Geldenhuys is widely regarded as one of the leading military commanders South Africa has ever produced. As Chief of the South African Defence Force from 1985 to 1990 he brought his experience to bear on the South African Border War, and was part of the negotiating team which brought an end to the conflict in 1989. In this edition, Geldenhuys reflects on a life defined as much by a military career spanning more than four decades as it was by politics and indeed the need for peace on the African sub-continent. At the Front covers the years before and during the protracted Border War. But rather than a blow-by-blow official history, it consists of Geldenhuys’ personal experiences and insights. These include facts unknown to civilians and even to some high-ranking military officials. In particular, Geldenhuys sheds light on the final years of the conflict and the negotiated settlement. Geldenhuys also writes of his early years, as he evolved from a rugby-mad young subaltern officer to a deep-thinking, reflective man with ever-sharpening insights into, war, peace, politics and, most of all, himself.

"They flirted with men, and with death." In The Women Who Lived for Danger, acclaimed historian Marcus Binney recounts the story of ten remarkable women -- some famous, some virtually unknown -- recruited to work behind enemy lines as secret agents during WWII. Part of Winston Churchill's Special Operations Executive, formed in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze," the women of the SOE were trained to handle guns and explosives, work undercover, endure interrogation by the Gestapo, and use complex codes. Once in enemy territory, theirs was the most dangerous war of all, leading an apparently normal civilian life but in constant danger of arrest and execution. Passing themselves off as country wenches by afternoon and chic Parisiennes by night, these women put service to Britain and the Allied forces above all concerns for personal safety -- they organized dropping grounds for arms and explosives destined for the Resistance, helped operate escape lines for airmen who had been shot down over Europe, and provided Allied Command with vital intelligence.

The exploits of those chronicled in The Women Who Lived for Danger form a new chapter of heroism in the history of warfare matched only by their legacy of daring, determination, resourcefulness, and ability to stay cool in the face of extreme danger.

On the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Mike Makin-Waite surveys the history of the communist movement, tracking its origins in the Enlightenment, and through nineteenth-century socialism to the emergence of Marxism and beyond. As we emerge from the long winter of neoliberalism, and the search is on for ideas that can help shape a contemporary popular socialism, some of the questions that have preoccupied socialist thinkers throughout left history are once more being debated. Should the left press for reform and work through the state or should it focus on protest and a critique of the whole system? Is it possible to expand the liberal idea of democracy to include economic democracy? Which alliances require too great a compromise and which can help secure future change? Arguments on questions such as these have been raging since the mid-nineteenth century, and were the basis of the split between Social Democrats and Communists in the aftermath of the First World War. Mike Makin-Waite believes that revisiting these debates can help us to avoid some of the mistakes made in the past, and find new solutions to some of these age-old concerns. His argument is that the democratic and liberal counter-currents that have always existed within the communist movement have much to offer the left project today. This unorthodox account therefore tracks an alternative history that includes nineteenth-century revisionists such as Karl Kautsky, Menshevik opponents of Bolshevik oppression in 1917, Popular Front critiques of sectarianism in the 1930s, communist support for 1968's Prague Spring, and the turn to Gramsci and Eurocommunism in the 1970s. The aim of Communism and Democracy: history, debates and potentials is to recover some of the hard-won insights of the critical communist tradition, in the belief that they can still be of service to the twenty-first-century left.

**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER** 25th Anniversary Edition. Foreword by Tom Hanks. The book that inspired Steven Spielberg's acclaimed TV series, produced by Tom Hanks and starring Damian Lewis. In Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose pays tribute to the men of Easy Company, a crack rifle company in the US Army. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the dangerous parachute landings on D-Day and their triumphant capture of Hitler's 'Eagle's Nest' in Berchtesgaden. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. Repeatedly send on the toughest missions, these brave men fought, went hungry, froze and died in the service of their country. Celebrating the 25th anniversary since the original publication, this reissue contains a new foreword from Tom Hanks who was an executive producer on the award-winning HBO series. A tale of heroic adventures and soul-shattering confrontations, Band of Brothers brings back to life, as only Stephen E. Ambrose can, the profound ties of brotherhood forged in the barracks and on the battlefields. 'History boldly told and elegantly written . . . Gripping' Wall Street Journal 'Ambrose proves once again he is a masterful historian . . . spellbinding' People

In January 1969, one of the most promising young lieutenant colonels the U.S. Army had ever seen touched down in Vietnam for his second tour of duty, which would turn out to be his most daring and legendary. David H. Hackworth had just completed the writing of a tactical handbook for the Pentagon, and now he had been ordered to put his counterguerilla-fighting theories into action. He was given the morale-drained 4/39th -- a battalion of poorly led draftees suffering the Army's highest casualty rate and considered its worst fighting battalion. Hackworth's hard-nosed, inventive and inspired leadership quickly turned the 4/39th into Vietnam's valiant and ferocious Hardcore Recondos.

Drawing on interviews with soldiers from the Hardcore Battalion conducted over the past decade by his partner and coauthor, Eilhys England, Hackworth takes readers along on their sniper missions, ambush actions, helicopter strikes and inside the quagmire of command politics. With Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, Hackworth places the brotherhood of the 4/39th into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic warriors.

Wonderful account of one of the top Battle of Britain fighter pilots. Written by one of the foremost military aviation authors who was an RAF Officer himself and personally knew Lacey.

A riveting, minute-by-minute account of the momentous event that changed our world forever

On a quiet Monday morning in August 1945, a five-ton bomb--dubbed Little Boy by its creators--was dropped from an American plane onto the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On that day, a firestorm of previously unimagined power was unleashed on a vibrant metropolis of 300,000 people, leaving one third of its population dead, its buildings and landmarks incinerated. It was the terrifying dawn of the Atomic Age, spawning decades of paranoia, mistrust, and a widespread and very real fear of the potential annihilation of the human race.

Author Stephen Walker brilliantly re-creates the three terrible weeks leading up to the wartime detonation of the atomic bomb--from the first successful test in the New Mexico desert to the cataclysm and its aftermath--presenting the story through the eyes of pilots, scientists, civilian victims, and world leaders who stood at the center of earth-shattering drama. It is a startling, moving, frightening, and remarkable portrait of an extraordinary event--a shockwave whose repercussions can be felt to this very day.

Six men made major scientific breakthroughs during the First World War and in doing so altered its course. Lawrence Bragg pinpointed the position of enemy artillery pieces with sound ranging, which enabled British tanks to break through in late 1917 and 1918. His father worked with the French to develop high frequency echolocation; if the war had gone on longer sonar would have curbed the U-boats. Ernest Starling led a group that discovered the cause of wound shock and saved shocked men with artificial plasma. He utilized what was known about metabolism to ration food fairly in Britain while improving the poor s nutrition. Germans starved. Otto Hahn worked on poisons for gas warfare and devised and tested filters to trap the poisons. He also became an expert on tactics for breaking through enemy lines with gas. Chaim Weizmann and other chemists produced molecules essential for making high explosives; German chemists enabled their side to keep in the war. Antiaircraft defense was developed by the physiologist A. V. Hill who led more than 100 scientists and mathematicians, who learned how to aim supersonic shells to explode near fast-moving targets. Now these threads are brought together for general readers, telling how some of the foremost scientists of all time used their remarkable talents for significant war research. The information comes from their memoirs, letters, reports in the archives, and from coworkers recollections. Four of these brilliant and diverting men were Nobel laureates and one became the president of Israel. The work of two outstanding women is described in the narrative."

This is the second volume, but the last to be published of a trilogy - the other volumes being Smashing the Atlantic Wall and The Battle of the Bulge. Monty's Rhine Adventure begins immediately after the Normandy invasion with the euphoria surrounding the belief that the war would soon be won. However, it was not to be as easy Monty hoped. The book covers the difficult next few months as the Allies slogged through France and Belgium fighting stern and skilled Nazi resistance. However, the centrepiece of Monty's Rhine Adventure is Operation Market garden - Monty's bold plan to cut through the German defences via the eight bridges which spanned the Dutch/German border. The book deals with the plan, its execution and its aftermath in rigorous detail. Had Market Garden gone to plan, it might have led to the overall defeat of the Third Reich before the end of 1944. As it was, it was the Russians that entered Berlin first in May 1945. Nonetheless, this period remains one of the boldest and most exciting of the Second World War.

The dreadful global conflagration known as the Second World War was more than the clashing of great armies on bloody battlefields. A different kind of war was being waged in the secret laboratories on both sides of the conflict -- a war that would alter the course and determine the outcome of the bitter hostilities, forever changing our world and our future.

While it is a widely accepted fact that America's development and employment of the atomic bomb ended the Pacific struggle -- and that the failure of Hitler's scientists to develop their own A-bomb helped to doom Germany -- little has been made of the other remarkable scientific accomplishments of this dark and terrible epoch. Edifying, enthralling, startling, and sobering, Laboratory Warriors is a masterful work that sheds light on the technological achievements that swung the pendulum of victory in the Allies' direction.

Howard Hughes, the movie mogul, aviation pioneer and political hound dog, has always fascinated the public with his mixture of secrecy, dashing lifestyle and reclusiveness. Companies responsible for major technological leaps often become household names. An exception is Howard Hughes s pioneering helicopter company, Hughes Helicopters, a name that has fallen into oblivion. Yet most schoolboys in the world have heard of the company s prize-winning product: the Apache helicopter. Hughes popularized the light helicopter trainer, mass-produced the first turbine powered light observation helicopter, led the way in hot cycle rotor craft propulsion research and, finally, developed the world s most advanced attack helicopter that was purchased and saw service with the UK. Here s how some of the world s most innovative helicopters were developed. Covering the period from the Second World War until the mid-1980s, you will learn why Hughes military aircraft contracts came under close scrutiny by the US government. The story is rich with tales of technological breakthrough and test-flying bravado made possible by a small crew of engineers and daring pilots. Written by a technical expert and insider to the industry, Howard s Whirlybirds: Howard Hughes Amazing Pioneering Helicopter Exploits is a fascinating and alternative view on the phenomenal pioneer with unpublished photographs and material that will fascinate the aviation and military historian as well as the casual reader and cinema buff."