Miss Dior is a wartime story of freedom and fascism, beauty and betrayal and 'a gripping story' (Antonia Fraser). 'Exceptional . . . Miss Dior is so much more than a biography. It's about how necessity can drive people to either terrible deeds or acts of great courage, and how beauty can grow from the worst kinds of horror.' DAILY TELEGRAPH Miss Dior explores the relationship between the visionary designer Christian Dior and his beloved younger sister Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie's journey takes her to wartime Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance and the battle against the Nazis, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbruck. Tracing the wartime paths of the Dior siblings leads Picardie deep into other hidden histories, and different forms of resistance and sisterhood. She discovers what it means to believe in beauty and hope, despite our knowledge of darkness and despair, and reveals the timeless solace of the natural world in the aftermath of devastation and destruction. *A beautiful, full colour package featuring over 200 archival images.* 'Extraordinary . . . Picardie uses her investigative reporting skills . . . the result is Netflix-worthy and the pace page-turning . . . Catherine's story shines - the quiet Dior who preferred flowers to fashion, the unsung heroine who survived the abuse of the Third Reich to help liberate France.' SUNDAY TIMES

The remarkable story of a championship college football team that achieved perfection in 1941 as America drew closer and closer to World War II and the sacrifices the young athletes made when Pearl Harbor turned their fears into reality. As the United States veered towards war during the fall of 1941, the University of Minnesota football team completed an undefeated national championship season just fifteen days before the strike on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, players left behind college football stardom to command PT boats in the South Pacific, sweep mines on the beaches of Normandy, and join the invasion of Iwo Jima along with so many others from the Greatest Generation. In From the Gridiron to the Battlefield, Danny Spewak shares the struggles and triumphs of the Golden Gophers' national championship season. He recounts how players from the University of Minnesota battled on the field even with the threat of war hanging over their heads, bringing to life the tensions Americans felt in their daily lives during a time when the country was bitterly divided about whether to aid the Allies. When the United States finally entered the war, every member of the team participated in the war effort in one way or another. Some, including team captain and Heisman Trophy winner Bruce Smith, remained stateside in the U.S. Navy. Others set sail for the Pacific Theater. Some saw more direct combat: reserve fullback Mike Welch earned a Purple Heart for saving five shipmates on the USS Tide at Normandy, halfback Gene Bierhaus fought with the Marines at Iwo Jima, and backfield mate Joe Lauterbach lost his left leg during the same invasion. In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, From the Gridiron to the Battlefield reveals the sacrifices and courage of the Greatest Generation through the eyes of the 1941 Golden Gophers.

"Few ships in American history have had as illustrious a history as the heavy cruiser USS Portland (CA-33), affectionately known by her crew as 'Sweet Pea.' With the destructionof most of the U.S. battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor, cruisers such as Sweet Pea carried the biggest guns the Navy possessed for nearly a year after the start of World War II. Sweet Pea at War describes in harrowing detail how Portland and her sisters protected the precious carriers and held the line against overwhelming Japanese naval strength. Portland was instrumental in the dramatic American victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the naval battle of Guadalcanal--conflicts that historians regard as turning points in the Pacific war. She rescued nearly three thousand sailors from sunken ships, some of them while she herself was badly damaged. Only a colossal hurricane ended her career, but she sailed home from that, too. Based on extensive research in official documents and interviews with members of the ship's crew, Sweet Pea at War recounts from launching to scrapping the history of USS Portland, demonstrating that she deserves to be remembered as one of the most important ships in U.S. naval history.

This independent study has already attracted controversy. Containing much fresh evidence, it vividly portrays the Islanders' day-to-day Occupation experiences, whilst exploring - and often refuting - what are today becoming received ideas of a mostly 'shameful' wartime past. Aspects discussed include: collaboration; resistance; starvation; the fate of missing forced workers; whether Island Officials knowingly sent three Jewish women to their deaths in Auschwitz; and whether the Islands' experiences were unique, or would simply have charted the course of Hitler's planned invasion of Britain.

The Munich Crisis of 1938 had major diplomatic as well as personal and psychological repercussions. As much as it was a climax in the clash between dictatorship and democracy, it was also a People's Crisis and an event that gripped and worried the people around the world. The traditional approach has been to examine the crisis from the vantage points of high politics and diplomacy. Traditional approaches have failed to acknowledge the profound social, cultural and psychological impacts of diplomatic events, an imbalance that is redressed in this volume. Taking a range of national examples and using a variety of methods, The Munich Crisis, Politics and the People recreates the experience of living through the crisis in Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, Britain, Hungary, the Soviet Union and the USA. -- .

An extraordinary and unique document: Hoess was in charge of the huge extermination camp in Poland where the Nazis murdered some three million Jews, from the time of its creation (he was responsible for building it) in 1940 until late in 1943, by which time the mass exterminations were half completed. Before this he had worked in other concentration camps, and afterwards he was at the Inspectorate in Berlin. He thus knew more, both at first-hand and as an administrator, about Nazi Germany's greatest crime than did any save two or three other men. Taken prisoner by the British, he was handed over to the Poles, tried, sentenced to death, and taken back to Auschwitz and there hanged. During the period between his trial and his execution, he was ordered to write his autobiography. This is it. Hoess repeatedly says he was glad to write the book. He enjoyed the work. And finally the most careful checking has shown that he took great pains to tell the truth. Here we have, painted by his own hand, a vivid and unforgettable self-portrait of one of the great monsters of all time. To this are added portraits of some of his more spectacular fellow-criminals. The royalties from this macabre but historically important book go to the fund set up to help the few survivors from the Auschwitz camps.

Between Resistance and Collaboration is a study of the impact of the changes to the structure of authority and economy brought upon the population of northern France by the Nazi occupation. The book explores the various means by which the local population both protested hardships, forcing the authorities to do something about them, and evaded the plethora of political and economic regulations when the authorities were unable and unwilling to act.

Of the three categories that Raul Hilberg developed in his analysis of the Holocaust-perpetrators, victims, and bystanders-it is the last that is the broadest and most difficult to pinpoint. Described by Hilberg as those who were "once a part of this history," bystanders present unique challenges for those seeking to understand the decisions, attitudes, and self-understanding of historical actors who were neither obviously the instigators nor the targets of Nazi crimes. Combining historiographical, conceptual, and empirical perspectives on the bystander, the case studies in this book provide powerful insights into the complex social processes that accompany state-sponsored genocidal violence.

The Towns of Death deals with the pogroms of Jews in Eastern Poland in 1941-1942 perpetrated by their Polish neighbors. The book relies on witness reports from survivors, bystanders, and the murderers themselves as found in court testimonies to describe the eerily similar, horrific events that occurred in some dozen towns throughout the region. It Importantly, the author demonstrates the pivotal role of the Catholic clergy and individual priests, the intellectual classes, and political circles in sowing the seeds that allowed anti-Semitism to grow and express itself in the pogroms in which tens of thousands of Polish Jews were slaughtered individually and en masse by their Polish neighbors.

This is a book that will change the American perception of the Pacific War. One important question is: Who actually started the Pacific War? By examining recently discovered facts revealed through the declassification of official documents, the decoding of secret communications between the Soviet Union and its operatives, and findings from American and Japanese writers in recent decades, the author clarifies the role played by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and members of his cabinet in pushing Japan to the brink of war. Another notable analysis concerns the U.S. occupation of Japan immediately after the war. The author finds it as a spectacular success in politically castrating Japan. The impact is still clearly observable. Many Japanese have lost the sense of nationhood as a result. The author examines the historical background of U.S.-Japan relations from the visit of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 to the present day. Utilized a wealth of Japanese as well as American materials, he presents a view of the history of the two countries. He finds that Japan was not very skillful in utilizing code-breaking or information-warfare, but tried to liberate colonies in Asia and Africa, and indeed her effort was successful and ultimately resulted in the loss of Western Colonies including India, Indonesia, Burma, and Malaysia. After reviewing nearly two hundred years of history, the author urges contemporary Japanese to be free from the self-incriminating view of history and to be confident that the nation is on a right track.

This is Operation Barbarossa as experienced by the soldiers of the 3rd Panzer Division and reported on the German homefront. After smashing its way deep into Soviet territory during the summer of 1941, the tanks of the division encountered difficulties as they got closer to Moscow, eventually being halted not far from the Soviet capital. Written by eyewitnesses to the invasion, these accounts chronicle the Division's exploits as the pace of advance slowed and the ravages of winter began to be felt. Two panzer experts have provided commentary, placing these events in their historical context and providing details about commanders, vehicles, and more.

In the 1930s and 1940s - amid the crises of totalitarianism, war and a perceived cultural collapse in the democratic West - a high-profile group of mostly Christian intellectuals met to map out 'middle ways' through the 'age of extremes'. Led by the missionary and ecumenist Joseph H. Oldham, the group included prominent writers, thinkers and activists such as T. S. Eliot, John Middleton Murry, Karl Mannheim, John Baillie, Alec Vidler, H. A. Hodges, Christopher Dawson, Kathleen Bliss and Michael Polanyi. The 'Oldham group' saw faith as a uniquely powerful resource for social and cultural renewal, and it represents a fascinating case study of efforts to renew freedom in a dramatic confrontation with totalitarianism. The group's story will appeal to those interested in the cultural history of the Second World War and the issue of applying faith to the 'modern' social order. -- .

This book analyzes how Second World War heritage is being reframed in the memorial museums of the post-socialist, post-conflict states of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. It argues that in all three countries, a reluctance to confront undesirable parts of their national histories is the root cause explaining why the state-funded Second World War memorial museums remain stuck in the postsocialist transition. In most cases, Second World War museums, exhibitions, and displays conceived in the Yugoslav period have been left unchanged. However, there are also examples where new sections were added to the old ones and there are a small number of completely reconceptualized permanent exhibitions. The transitional position of the Second World War museums has made it possible to view these institutions as historical formations in their own right. The book will appeal to students and academics working in the fields of heritage and museums studies, memory studies, and cultural history of Southeast-Europe.

This book, first published in 1980, is an invaluable assessment of SOE's contribution to the Allied victory. From both first-hand knowledge (Howarth served with SOE for 4 years) and in-depth research, this book traces the development of the organisation and its successes and failures. By bringing to life some of the outstanding men and women who served in SOE, this book pays tribute to their bravery and examines their role in fomenting and supporting clandestine resistance against the Nazi regime.

This book, first published in 1963, is an early biography of Winston Churchill, examining his personality and character that was woven so closely through the texture of Britain's story in the first half of the twentieth century. In attempting to discover a complete and complex Churchill, in his character, ambitions and personal experiences, the book seeks to present a clearer insight into the events of Churchill's life.

This book, first published in 1986, examines the wartime evacuation of children in Britain from their homes in cities to safety in the countryside. It analyses the social impact of the separation on parents and children, and teases out of the official records the origins and assumptions of evacuation planning. It examines the aims, implementation and evolution of the evacuation policy, its success or failure and its effect upon post-war social planning in Britain.

This book, first published in 1986, examines the American economic aid that was a vital factor in enabling Britain's success in the Second World War. Whilst Lend-Lease did keep the British war effort alive, the agreement was always a source of great friction between the two countries. This book argues that although Lend-Lease solved Britain's wartime supply problems, the price was the acceptance of a series of burdens that seriously aggravated the country's long-term economic decline.

This new approach to the history of the Second World War, first published in 1990, examines the events of this period through the cartoons of the day. Roy Douglas explains the messages behind the humour and reveals that the perception of war differed radically from country to country. This collection highlights the importance of the media in this global war. 'An authoritative narrative about what inspired the artists to take to their pens and papers... By putting it all into perspective, the poignancy, and often the brilliance of the political cartoonist is shown to the reader... Douglas's historical narrative adds to the enjoyment.' West Coast Review of Books 'Douglas's valuable book uses the political cartoon as historical mirror... The book is very important for its attempt to correlate visual media with national policy at a crucial period in recent history.' Choice

This book, first published in 1942, examines the economic necessities, defensive and offensive, basic and strategic, involved in waging war. Written with total global war raging, it analyses the unprecedented demands placed on the economic system of a nation, and looks at the great shifts of productive effort and limits on consumption that were needed.

This book, first published in 1946, analyses the state of the world at the close of the Second World War. Global power was passing from Britain to the United States and the Soviet Union, with the US being involved in every part of the world, Russia dominant in eastern Europe and the world looked a very uncertain place. This survey of the main three powers examines their changing conditions and foreign policies.

This book, first published in 1942, covers the whole field of wartime life and organization. Is the private ownership and control of industry holding up production? Are the burdens of war being shared equally by the whole community? How can individual liberty be reconciled with maximum efficiency? Are women taking their rightful share in the national effort? Does our literature and art reflect the spirit of an aroused and determined people? Have we a message which will win the oppressed peoples of Europe to our side? These questions are frankly discussed and positive suggestions are made.

This book, first published in 1969, discusses objectively the tragic wartime position of Poland, having both the Nazis and Soviets as enemies - the war opened with the country being invaded by both. The book examines the work of the Polish underground army (Home Army) and its cooperation with SOE in providing intelligence of German movements - plans for attacking the Soviet Union, and experiments with V2 rockets. It also gives special attention to the Warsaw Rising and the political and military problems connected with it.

This book, first published in 1946, collects documents illustrating the foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. They show how the fighting alliance of the USSR, Britain and the USA came into being and grew stronger, how relations were restored with other anti-Nazi countries, and how diplomatic relations were extended between the USSR and hitherto un-connected countries. The collection of three parts of translated documents: statements and speeches made by Stalin; documents, treaties, agreements; appendices including press statements and telegrams.

This book, first published in 1946, collects documents illustrating the foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. They show how the fighting alliance of the USSR, Britain and the USA came into being and grew stronger, how relations were restored with other anti-Nazi countries, and how diplomatic relations were extended between the USSR and hitherto un-connected countries. The collection of three parts of translated documents: statements and speeches made by Stalin; documents, treaties, agreements; appendices including press statements and telegrams.

This book, first published in 1985, examines various aspects of the intellectual achievements of writers and artists in the Vichy period; a strong emphasis on the ambiguity of much of their work emerges from the research. It goes a long way in answering the question of what it was like living under the fascist Vichy regime, and what the collaborators and resistance thought about their purpose and patriotism.