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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations
Simon Norfolk's book Afghanistan; chronotopia is now recognised as
a classic of photography. It establised Norfolk's reputation as one
of the leading photographers in the world and has been exhibited in
more than 30 venues worldwide. For the first time since 2001, Simon
Norfolk has returned to the country. This time he follows in the
footsteps of the Irish photographer John Burke, a superb, yet
virtually unknown, war photographer whose eloquent and beautiful
photographs of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) form a most
extraordinary record. Using unwieldy wet-plate collodion negatives
and huge wooden cameras Burke shot landscapes, battlefields,
archaeological sites, street scenes, portraits of British officers
and ethnological group portraits of Afghans in what amounts to a
record of an Imperial encounter. The range of work is tremendously
broad and yet suffused with a delicate humanism. These are also the
first ever pictures made in Afghanistan. With this book, one
hundred and thirty years too late, John Burke's time has at last
come. Norfolk's new work looks at what happens when you add half a
trillion US war dollars to an impoverished and broken country such
as Afghanistan. Very loosely re-photographic in nature, the work is
more of an 'Improvisation on a theme' by John Burke, and is
presented as an artistic collaboration between Burke and Norfolk.
It features photographs by Burke never before published as well as
Norfolk's new pictures from Kabul and Helmand.
Key title in the new Uniform Legends series. Up close and personal
accounts of pilots who were there, first written in the 1960's when
many of the surviving British and German airmen were in or entering
their middle years
What are you willing to do to survive? What are you willing to
endure if it means you might live? 'Achingly moving, gives
much-needed hope . . . Deserves the status both as a valuable
historical source and as a stand-out memoir' Daily Express 'A story
that needs to be heard' 5***** Reader Review Entering Terezin, a
Nazi concentration camp, Franci was expected to die. She refused.
In the summer of 1942, twenty-two-year-old Franci Rabinek -
designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a
concentration camp and ghetto forty miles north of her home in
Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from
Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the
slave labour camps in Hamburg, and finally to Bergen Belsen.
Franci, a spirited and glamorous young woman, was known among her
fellow inmates as the Prague dress designer. Having endured the
transportation of her parents, she never forgot her mother's
parting words: 'Your only duty to us is to stay alive'. During an
Auschwitz selection, Franci would spontaneously lie to Nazi officer
Dr Josef Mengele, and claim to be an electrician. A split-second
decision that would go on to endanger - and save - her life.
Unpublished for 50 years, Franci's War is an astonishing account of
one woman's attempt to survive. Heartbreaking and candid, Franci
finds the light in her darkest years and the horrors she faces
instill in her, strength and resilience to survive and to live
again. She gives a voice to the women prisoners in her tight-knit
circle of friends. Her testimony sheds new light on the alliances,
love affairs, and sexual barter that took place during the
Holocaust, offering a compelling insight into the resilience and
courage of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. Above
all, Franci's War asks us to explore what it takes to survive, and
what it means to truly live. 'A candid account of shocking events.
Franci is someone many women today will be able to identify with'
5***** Reader Review 'First-hand accounts of life in Nazi death
camps never lose their terrible power but few are as extraordinary
as Franci's War' Mail on Sunday 'Fascinating and traumatic. Well
worth a read' 5***** Reader Review
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.
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