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Books > History > World history
An amusing, fascinating and intriguing description of the origins
of everyday phrases, the titles in the 'Well I Never Knew That '
series reveals how many of our common expressions and sayings came
to be.
Welcome to another round of history's most absurd stories and the
timeless lessons that come with them. In More Lessons from History,
Alex Deane has unearthed yet more bizarre tales that you certainly
haven't heard before. If you're wondering how large, flightless
birds might organise themselves against a military regiment, how
you should respond to the glare of an international rugby player
whose glass eye you just knocked out, exactly why carrots are
orange, or whether the world's worst-run battleship ever ceased
firing upon her comrades-in-arms, then look no further. In this
second volume of his acclaimed series, Alex Deane reminds us that,
throughout history, human nature has remained exactly the same, and
the way that people responded to the most amusing, horrifying and
convoluted of circumstances in the past can teach us everything we
need to know about who we are today.
'A perfect mirror to its subject... should be compulsory reading'
Observer Vladimir Putin is a pariah to the West. He has the power
to reduce the West to nuclear ashes. He invades his neighbours,
meddles in western elections and orders assassinations. Yet many
Russians continue to support him. Under Putin's leadership, Russia
has once again become a force to be reckoned with. Philip Short's
magisterial biography explores in unprecedented depth the
personality of Russia's leader and demolishes many of our
preconceptions about Putin's Russia. To explain is not to justify.
Putin's regime is dark. But on closer examination, much of what we
think we know about him turns out to rest on half-truths. This book
is as close as we will come to understanding Russia's ruler.
'Exhaustively researched... as a chronicle of Putin's public
doings, the book is near faultless' The Times 'Timely... a
comprehensive, extensively researched account of Putin's life' New
Statesman 'Extensively covers the dark moments of Putin's
career.... The Putin of Short's book is not someone you would
invite to dinner' New York Times
An Auschwitz escape thriller, following the life mission of one man - whose survival will have implications for hundreds of thousands of lives.
In April 1944 a teenager named Rudolf Vrba was planning a daring and unprecedented escape from Auschwitz. After hiding in a pile of timber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their bloodhounds searched for him, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler would eventually cross Nazi-occupied Poland on foot, as penniless fugitives. Their mission: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solution.
Vrba would produce from memory a breathtaking report of more than thirty pages revealing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz - a report that would find its way to Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope, eventually saving over 200,000 Jewish lives.
A thrilling history with enormous historical implications, THE ESCAPE ARTIST is the extraordinary story of a complex man who would seek escape again and again: first from Auschwitz, then from his past, even from his own name. In telling his story, Jonathan Freedland - the journalist, broadcaster and acclaimed, multi-million copy selling author of the Sam Bourne novels - ensures that Rudolf Vrba's heroic mission will also escape oblivion.
The Spitfire a " there have been many hundreds, maybe even
thousands, of books written about this beautiful R.J Mitchell
designed, elliptically winged areoplane. But there has yet to be a
book published, which has focused solely on the lesser-known
two-seat variant of graceful Spitfirea |Until now! In two-seater
spitfires, Greg Davis, John Sanderson and Peter Arnold trace the
history of this iconic aircraft a " from its initial design through
to those still taking to the skies today.
In this account of the origins of World War II, Taylor provides a narrative of the years and events preceding Hitler's invasion of Poland on 1st of September 1939.
'Lucid and damning ... an absorbing - and infuriating - tale of
complicity, coverup and denial' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of
EMPIRE OF PAIN A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis
helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third
Reich and World War II - and how the world allowed them to get away
with it. In 1946, Gunther Quandt - patriarch of Germany's most
iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW - was
arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he
had been forced to join the party by his arch-rival, propaganda
minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt
lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have
only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their
reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of
them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic
brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the
dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz and still
control Porsche, Volkswagen and BMW has remained hidden in plain
sight - until now. In this landmark work, investigative journalist
David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany's wealthiest
business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the
atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources,
de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured
slave labourers and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler's
army as Europe burnt around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong
exposes how the wider world's political expediency enabled these
billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a
bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day.
* BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK * 'Anybody who loves the printed
word will be bowled over by this amusing, erudite, beautiful book
about books. It is in every way a triumph. One of the loveliest
books to have been published for many, many years' Alexander McCall
Smith 'Quite simply the best gift for any book lover this year, or
perhaps ever' Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times Literary Book of the Year
'An utterly joyous journey into the deepest eccentricities of the
human mind... The most cheering, fascinating book I've read for
ages' Guardian From the author of the critically acclaimed and
globally successful The Phantom Atlas, The Golden Atlas and The Sky
Atlas comes a stunning new work. The Madman's Library is a unique,
beautifully illustrated journey through the entire history of
literature, delving into its darkest territories to hunt down the
very strangest books ever written, and uncover the fascinating
stories behind their creation. This is a madman's library of
eccentric and extraordinary volumes from around the world, many of
which have been completely forgotten. Books written in blood and
books that kill, books of the insane and books that hoaxed the
globe, books invisible to the naked eye and books so long they
could destroy the Universe, books worn into battle, books of code
and cypher whose secrets remain undiscovered... and a few others
that are just plain weird. From the 605-page Qur'an written in the
blood of Saddam Hussein, through the gorgeously decorated
15th-century lawsuit filed by the Devil against Jesus, to the lost
art of binding books with human skin, every strand of strangeness
imaginable (and many inconceivable) has been unearthed and bound
together for a unique and richly illustrated collection ideal for
every book-lover.
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