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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Second World War
Originally published in 1994, This Working-Day World is lively
collection of essays presenting a social, political and cultural
view of British women's lives in the period 1914-45. The volume
describes women's activities in many different areas, ranging from
the weekly wash to the rescue of child refugees. Each essay, from
an international list of contributors, is based on new research
which will complement existing studies in a range of disciplines by
adding information on, among other topics, women's teacher training
colleges, and women in the BBC, in medical laboratories and in Art
schools. The book does not, however, idealise women: the militarism
and racism of the period infected women too, and this is revealed
in the account of women in the British Union of Fascists, and the
analysis of the Pankhursts' merging of patriotism and gender
issues. Through studies and personal accounts, This Working-Day
World reveals past issues that are still pertinent to debates in
today's society. As we read the chapter on the recently discovered
Diary of Doreen Bates which outlines possibly the first female
civil servant campaign for rights as a single mother, we hear
echoes of issues being discussed today. Indeed, as we approach the
end of the century it is a good moment to look back and re-evaluate
areas and degrees of progress - or the reverse - in society, and in
British women's lives in particular. With its unusual photographs,
this accessible and informative collection provides a rich resource
for students in twentieth century social and cultural history, and
women's studies courses, and an enlightening volume for general
readers.
Based on detailed archival research and site visits, Scarred
Landscapes is the first environmental history of Vichy France. From
mountains and marshlands to foresters and resisters, it examines
the intricate and often surprising connections between war,
history, and the 'natural' environment during these turbulent
years.
THE SUNDAY TIMES NON FICTION BESTSELLER WHSmith NON-FICTION BOOK OF
THE YEAR 2018 'The best book you will ever read about Britain's
greatest warplane' Patrick Bishop, bestselling author of Fighter
Boys 'A rich and heartfelt tribute to this most iconic British
machine' Rowland White, bestselling author of Vulcan 607 'As the
RAF marks its centenary, Nichol has created a thrilling and often
moving tribute to some of its greatest heroes' Mail on Sunday
magazine The iconic Spitfire found fame during the darkest early
days of World War II. But what happened to the redoubtable fighter
and its crews beyond the Battle of Britain, and why is it still so
loved today? In late spring 1940, Nazi Germany's domination of
Europe had looked unstoppable. With the British Isles in easy reach
since the fall of France, Adolf Hitler was convinced that Great
Britain would be defeated in the skies over her southern coast,
confident his Messerschmitts and Heinkels would outclass anything
the Royal Air Force threw at them. What Hitler hadn't planned for
was the agility and resilience of a marvel of British engineering
that would quickly pass into legend - the Spitfire. Bestselling
author John Nichol's passionate portrait of this magnificent
fighter aircraft, its many innovations and updates, and the people
who flew and loved them, carries the reader beyond the dogfights
over Kent and Sussex. Spanning the full global reach of the
Spitfire's deployment during WWII, from Malta to North Africa and
the Far East, then over the D-Day beaches, it is always accessible,
effortlessly entertaining and full of extraordinary spirit. Here
are edge-of-the-seat stories and heart-stopping first-hand accounts
of battling pilots forced to bail out over occupied territory; of
sacrifice and wartime love; of aristocratic female flyers, and of
the mechanics who braved the Nazi onslaught to keep the aircraft in
battle-ready condition. Nichol takes the reader on a hair-raising,
nail-biting and moving wartime history of the iconic Spitfire
populated by a cast of redoubtable, heroic characters that make you
want to stand up and cheer.
This volume provides a historical narrative, historiographical
reviews, and scholarly analyses by leading scholars throughout the
world on the hitherto understudied topic of Shanghai Jewish
refugees. Few among the general public know that during the Second
World War, approximately 16,000 to 20,000 Jews fled the Nazis,
found unexpected refuge in Shanghai, and established a vibrant
community there. Though most of them left Shanghai soon after the
conclusion of the war in 1945, years of sojourning among the
Chinese and surviving under the Japanese occupation generated
unique memories about the Second World War, lasting goodwill
between the Chinese and Jews, and contested interpretations of this
complex past. The volume makes two major contributions to the
studies of Shanghai Jewish refugees. First, it reviews the present
state of the historiography on this subject and critically assesses
the ways in which the history is being researched and commemorated
in China. Second, it compiles scholarship produced by renowned
scholars, who aim to rescue the history from isolated perspectives
and look into the interaction between Jews, Chinese, and Japanese.
By the end of 1941, having suffered significant setbacks in its
offensive to take Moscow, the German Army and its armoured forces
began to lose their aura of invincibility, both to the Allies and
the German home front. This book, part of the Third Reich's attempt
to bolster morale, showcases the actions of the 3rd Panzer
Division. The division performed well in the early phases of
Operation Barbarossa but experienced grave hardship in the drive on
Moscow. Written by war correspondents who watched the battles
unfold firsthand, Panzer Wedge has a unique"you-are-there"
perspective that captures the heady spirit of the offensive's
beginning as well as the dogged fighting that brought it to a halt.
The book will appeal to anyone who enjoys accounts of World War II
combat, especially tank warfare, and to historians researching how
the war effort was reported on the German home front. It offers
significant insight into the conflict that has so long captured the
imagination of history enthusiasts everywhere. About the Author Lt.
Fritz Lucke served with the German Army during World War II. Robert
Edwards, a retired U.S. Army armour officer, has taught at West
Point. He lives in Navarre, Florida. Michael Olive has been
researching military history for decades, with a focus on tanks and
aircraft. He lives in British Columbia.
"This book adds to this growing body of scholarship on the Italian
Resistance by analysing, for the first time, how the 'three wars'
are represented over the broad spectrum of Resistance culture from
1945 to the present day. Furthermore, it makes this contribution to
scholarship by bridging the gap between historical and cultural
analysis. Whereas historians frequently use literary texts in their
writings, they are often flawed by an insufficiently nuanced
understanding of what a literary text is. Likewise, literary
critics who have discussed writers such as Calvino and Vittorini,
or films such Pais and La notte di San Lorenzo, only refer in
passing to the historical context in which these works were
produced. By fusing historical and cultural analysis, author Philip
Cooke makes a unique contribution to our understanding of a key
period of Italian history and culture"--
This is the epic story of those tens of thousands of communists
exiled from Spain after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War.
With their iron discipline and fervent dedication to Stalin's
cause, they did not hesitate, when the moment came in the Second
World War, to throw themselves again into the struggle against
fascism. In the Service of Stalin is the first full scholarly study
of their experiences. David Wingeate Pike examines the contribution
of the Spanish communists to the resistance in France and recounts
their sufferings in Mauthausen, the concentration camp in Austria
to which most who were captured were consigned. He also traces the
experiences of those thousands who were admitted into the Soviet
Union, where they fought in the Red Army or languished and perished
in the prisons and slave camps of the Gulag. Professor Pike's
unparalleled access to the archives, many previously unexplored,
and the information derived from his interviews with survivors
combine to make this both an important addition to our knowledge of
the Second World War and an enthralling, often moving account of
the experiences of some of its participants.
In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President. Over the next
twelve years, he instilled confidence in a nation once mired in
fear. The Jews of America revered Roosevelt, and from an early age,
Robert Beir regarded him as a hero. In mid-life, however, Beir
undertook a historian's quest regarding Roosevelt's record during
the Holocaust. How much did Roosevelt know about the Holocaust and
what could he have done?
Dachau and the SS studies the concentration camp guards at Dachau,
the first SS concentration camp and a national 'school' of violence
for its concentration camp personnel. Set up in the first months of
Adolf Hitler's rule, Dachau was a bastion of the Nazi 'revolution'
and a key springboard for the ascent of Heinrich Himmler and the SS
to control of the Third Reich's terror and policing apparatus.
Throughout the pre-war era of Nazi Germany, Dachau functioned as an
academy of violence where concentration camp personnel were
schooled in steely resolution and the techniques of terror. An
international symbol of Nazi depredation, Dachau was the cradle of
a new and terrible spirit of destruction. Combining extensive new
research into the pre-war history of Dachau with theoretical
insights from studies of perpetrator violence, this book offers the
first systematic study of the 'Dachau School'. It explores the
backgrounds and socialization of thousands of often very young SS
men in the camp and critiques the assumption that violence was an
outcome of personal or ideological pathologies. Christopher Dillon
analyses recruitment to the Dachau SS and evaluates the
contribution of ideology, training, social psychology and masculine
ideals to the conduct and subsequent careers of concentration camp
guards. Graduates of the Dachau School would go on to play a
central role in the wartime criminality of the Third Reich,
particularly at Auschwitz. Dachau and the SS makes an original
contribution to scholarship on the pre-history of the Holocaust and
the institutional organisation of violence.
A New York Times bestseller, The Conquerors reveals how Franklin Roosevelt's and Harry Truman's private struggles with their aides and Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin affected the unfolding of the Holocaust and the fate of vanquished Nazi Germany. With monumental fairness and balance, The Conquerors shows how Roosevelt privately refused desperate pleas to speak out directly against the Holocaust, to save Jewish refugees and to explore the possible bombing of Auschwitz to stop the killing. The book also shows FDR's fierce will to ensure that Germany would never threaten the world again. Near the end of World War II, he abruptly endorsed the secret plan of his friend, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, to reduce the Germans to a primitive existence -- despite Churchill's fear that crushing postwar Germany would let the Soviets conquer the continent. The book finally shows how, after FDR's death, President Truman rebelled against Roosevelt's tough approach and adopted the Marshall Plan and other more conciliatory policies that culminated in today's democratic, united Europe.
Margarete Susman was among the great Jewish women philosophers of
the twentieth century, and largely unknown to many today. This book
presents, for the first time in English, six of her important
essays along with an introduction about her life and work.
Carefully selected and edited by Elisa Klapheck, these essays give
the English-speaking reader a taste of Susman's religious-political
mode of thought, her originality, and her importance as Jewish
thinker. Susman's writing on exile, return, and the revolutionary
impact of Judaism on humanity, illuminate enhance our understanding
of other Jewish philosophers of her time: Martin Buber, Franz
Rosenzweig, and Ernst Bloch (all of them her friends). Her work is
in particularly fitting company when read alongside Jewish
religious-political and political thinkers such as Bertha
Pappenheim, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Gertrud Stein.
Initially a poet, Susman became a follower of the Jewish
Renaissance movement, secular Messianism, and the German Revolution
of 1918. This collection of essays shows how Susman's work speaks
not only to her own time between the two World Wars but to the
present day.
One man could have enabled the most audacious terrorist threat
against America prior to 9/11 and helped the Nazis win World War
II-the Nazi spy pastor, Carl Krepper. His riveting story brings to
light a forgotten chapter in the history of the Second World War.
As America continues to wrestle with issues surrounding the threat
of sabotage and terrorism, this eye-opening work details a very
real threat faced by our country in the Second World War, and the
key aspects of the underground war that was fought in this country
by Nazi agents. The Nazi Spy Pastor: Carl Krepper and the War in
America presents the fascinating true story of a secret plot to be
executed on American soil-a German sabotage operation with intended
targets in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and
Illinois. This book chronicles, for the first time, the remarkable
life of Carl Krepper-naturalized American citizen, Lutheran pastor,
and the Nazi deep-cover operative who could have made possible the
greatest terrorist threat on American soil prior to the attacks on
September 11th. Historian J. Francis Watson draws on newly
declassified archival and documentary materials to tell the full
story of how a devoted clergyman lost his way and betrayed his
calling, instead advocating an ideology that supported genocide and
the deaths of innocent victims in America, and how he came to play
a key role in the Pastorius sabotage plot. The book covers
fascinating cloak-and-dagger details of submarine infiltrations,
safe houses, and secret codes, detailing Krepper's life, his work
as a Nazi agent, and the FBI sting operation that finally brought
about his arrest in December of 1944. This little-known, real-life
espionage story will serve students of World War II history and
appeal to readers interested in immigration and the integration of
immigrant populations as well as the histories of New York and New
Jersey. Offers a compelling view into "the mind of a spy,"
identifying the elements and events that motivated Carl Krepper and
led him to his treasonous work Utilizes newly declassified material
from the FBI as well as other archival materials from the United
States and Germany to provide a more accurate and complete
portrayal of Krepper's actions and intentions than previously
possible Draws connections between what happened to America during
World War II and current national security challenges and threats
of terrorism facing the United States in the modern context
Documents how Krepper's arrest and trial were used as a basis for
the arrest and trial of some of the prisoners at Guantanamo
following the events of September 11, 2001
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY
BESTSELLER "As exciting as any spy novel" (Daily News, New York),
The Princess Spy follows the hidden history of an ordinary American
girl who became one of the OSS's most daring World War II spies
before marrying into European nobility. Perfect for fans of A Woman
of No Importance and Code Girls. When Aline Griffith was born in a
quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would
go on to live "a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman
only played at in Notorious" (Time). As the United States enters
the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to
aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed
young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes.
Aline's life changes when, at a dinner party, she meets a man named
Frank Ryan and reveals how desperately she wants to do her part for
her country. Within a few weeks, he helps her join the Office of
Strategic Services--forerunner of the CIA. With a code name and
expert training under her belt, she is sent to Spain to be a coder,
but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the
upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials,
diplomats, and titled Europeans. Against this glamorous backdrop of
galas and dinner parties, she recruits sub-agents and engages in
deep-cover espionage. Even after marrying the Count of Romanones,
one of the wealthiest men in Spain, Aline secretly continues her
covert activities, being given special assignments when abroad that
would benefit from her impeccable pedigree and social connections.
"[A] meticulously researched, beautifully crafted work of
nonfiction that reads like a James Bond thriller" (Bookreporter),
The Princess Spy brings to vivid life the dazzling adventures of a
spirited American woman who risked everything to serve her country.
This book presents a selection of the newest research on themes
amplified by the sixth annual Beyond Camps and Forced Labour
conference on the post-Holocaust period, including 'displaced
persons', reception and resettlement, exiles and refugees, trials
and justice, reparation and restitution, and memory and testimony.
The chapters highlight new, transnational approaches and findings
based on underused and newly opened archives, including
compensation files of the British government; on historical actors
often on the periphery within English-language historiography,
including Romanian and Hungarian survivors; and new approaches such
as the spatial history of Drancy, as well as geographies that have
undergone less scrutiny, for example, Tehran, Chile, Mexico and
Cyprus. This volume represents the vibrant and varied state of
research on the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Few stories from the "greatest generation" are as unforgettable --
or as little known -- as that of the 10th Mountain Division. Today
a versatile light infantry unit deployed around the world, the 10th
began in 1941 as a crew of civilian athletes with a passion for
mountains and snow. In this vivid history, adventure writer Peter
Shelton follows the unique division from its conception on a
Vermont ski hill, through its dramatic World War II coming-of-age,
to the ultimate revolution it inspired in American outdoor life.
In the late-1930s United States, rock climbing and downhill skiing
were relatively new sports. But World War II brought a need for men
who could handle extreme mountainous conditions -- and the elite
10th Mountain Division was born. Everything about it was
unprecedented: It was the sole U.S. Army division trained on snow
and rock, the only division ever to grow out of a sport. It had an
un-matched number of professional athletes, college scholars, and
potential officer candidates, and as the last U.S. division to
enter the war in Europe, it suffered the highest number of
casualties per combat day. This is the 10th's surprising,
suspenseful, and often touching story.
Drawing on years of interviews and research, Shelton re-creates the
ski troops' lively, extensive, and sometimes experimental training
and their journey from boot camp to the Italian Apennines. There,
scaling a 1,500-foot "unclimbable" cliff face in the dead of night,
they stunned their enemy and began the eventual rout of the German
armies from northern Italy.
It was a self-selecting elite, a brotherhood in sport and spirit.
And those who survived (including the Sierra Club's David Brower,
Aspen Skiing Corporation founder Friedl Pfeifer, and Nike cofounder
Bill Bowerman, who developed the waffle-sole running shoe) turned
their love of mountains into the thriving outdoor industry that has
transformed the way Americans see (and play in) the natural world.
Published in association with the Imperial War Museums, this book
will provide the ultimate challenge to even the most knowledgeable
military historian. You might think you know a great deal about
World War II but have you ever really tested your knowledge? This
compelling book, published in association with Imperial War
Museums, contains over 1,000 questions (and answers, if you need
them) that cover every aspect of the Second World War, from its
beginnings, though the widening of the conflict, the leaders and
their strategies, armies, battles, weapons, bombing raids -
everything to provide a real challenge to even the most committed
history lover. With multiple-choice questions, truth or fiction
sections to baffle and intrigue, picture quizzes from the Imperial
War Museums' archive - one of the largest military photographic
archives in the world - and much more, you will find there is still
something new to learn about this compelling conflict, and your
answers will be ranked accordingly.
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