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The astonishing drama of Cold War nuclear poker that divided
humanity - reissued with a new Postscript to commemorate the
thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the wall. During the night of
12-13 August 1961, a barbed-wire entanglement was hastily
constructed through the heart of Berlin. It metamorphosed into a
structure that would come to symbolise the insanity of the Cold
War: the Berlin Wall. Frederick Taylor tells the story of the
post-war political conflict that led to a divided Berlin and
unleashed an East-West crisis, which lasted until the very people
the Wall had been built to imprison breached it on 9 November 1989.
Weaving together history, original archive research and personal
stories, The Berlin Wall, now published in fifteen languages, is
the definitive account of a divided city and its people in a time
when humanity seemed to stand permanently on the edge of
destruction.
‘Taylor has done us a great service in making the personal stories of what it was actually like to live through the most crucial year of the twentieth century vivid, compelling and salutary.’ - Roland Philipps, author of A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean
In the autumn of 1938, Europe believed in the promise of peace. Still reeling from the ravages of the Great War, its people were desperate to rebuild their lives in a newly safe and stable era. But only a year later, the fateful decisions of just a few men had again led Europe to war, a war that would have a profound and lasting impact on millions.
Bestselling historian Frederick Taylor focuses on the day-to-day experiences of British and German people trapped in this disastrous chain of events and not, as is so often the case, the elite. Drawn from original sources, their voices, concerns and experiences reveal a marked disconnect between government and people; few ordinary citizens in either country wanted war.
1939: A People’s History is not only a vivid account of that turbulent year but also an interrogation of our capacity to go to war again. In many ways it serves as a warning; an opportunity for us to learn from our history and a reminder that we must never take peace for granted.
At 9.51 p.m. on Tuesday 13 February 1945, Dresden's air-raid sirens
sounded as they had done many times during the Second World War.
But this time was different. By the next morning, more than 4,500
tons of high explosives and incendiary devices had been dropped on
the unprotected city. At least 25,000 inhabitants died in the
terrifying firestorm and thirteen square miles of the city's
historic centre, including incalculable quantities of treasure and
works of art, lay in ruins. In this portrait of the city, its
people, and its still-controversial destruction, Frederick Taylor
has drawn on archives and sources only accessible since the fall of
the East German regime, and talked to Allied aircrew and survivors,
from members of the German armed services and refugees fleeing the
Russian advance to ordinary citizens of Dresden.
The appearance of a hastily-constructed barbed wire entanglement
through the heart of Berlin during the night of 12-13 August 1961
was both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had started to
metamorphose into a structure that would come to symbolise the
brutal insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. A city of almost
four million was cut ruthlessly in two, unleashing a potentially
catastrophic East-West crisis and plunging the entire world for the
first time into the fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse. This
threat would vanish only when the very people the Wall had been
built to imprison, breached it on the historic night of 9 November
1989. The Berlin Wall reveals the strange and chilling story of how
the initial barrier system was conceived, then systematically
extended, adapted and strengthened over almost thirty years.
Patrolled by vicious dogs and by guards on shoot-to-kill orders,
the Wall, with its more than 300 towers, became a wired and
lethally booby-trapped monument to a world torn apart by fiercely
antagonistic ideologies. The Wall had tragic consequences in
personal and political terms, affecting the lives of Germans and
non-Germans alike in a myriad of cruel, inhuman and occasionally
absurd ways. The Berlin Wall is the definitive account of a divided
city and its people.
The first major history of what happened in Germany immediately
after the Second World War 'Frederick Taylor is one of the
brightest historians writing today.' Newsweek 'Taylor's book is
popular history at its best, essential reading for anyone who is
interested in the Nazis and wants to know what happened next.' New
Statesman Germany had entered the twentieth century united,
prosperous, and strong, admired by almost all humanity for its
remarkable achievements. By 1945 it was a broken shell: its great
cities lay in ruins and its shattered industries and cultural
heritage seemed utterly beyond saving. The Germans themselves had
come to be regarded as evil monsters. After six years of warfare
how were the exhausted victors to handle the end of a horror that
to most people seemed without precedent? In Exorcising Hitler,
Frederick Taylor tells the story of Germany's year zero and what
came after. As he describes the final Allied campaign, the hunting
down of the Nazi resistance, the vast displacement of peoples in
central and eastern Europe, the attitudes of the conquerors, the
competition between Soviet Russia and the West, the hunger and near
starvation of a once proud people, the initially naive attempt at
expunging Nazism from all aspects of German life and the later more
pragmatic approach, we begin to understand that despite almost
total destruction, a combination of conservatism, enterprise and
pragmatism in relation to former Nazis enabled the economic miracle
of the 1950s. And we see how it was only when the '60s generation
(the children of the Nazi era) began to question their parents with
increasing violence that Germany began to awake from its 'sleep
cure'.
Read the American classic that inspired Shigeo Shingo! Frederick W.
Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Managementwas a mental
revolution that spawned the very ideas of process improvement,
equity and efficiency between workers and management, and the
attainability of high production with low labor costs. Taylor
discusses eliminating waste by using the system he developed over
the course of his career and how it applies to individual, as well
as collective, improvement initiatives. As the basis of modern
organizational efficiency, this instrumental book has motivated
managers and engineers for almost 100 years.
A timely narrative account of the biggest financial crisis in
modern history and its human consequences by the author of Dresden
and The Berlin Wall. 'Excellent ... This is a dramatic story, well
told' Wall Street Journal Many theorists believed a hundred years
ago, just as they did at the beginning of our twenty-first century,
that the world had reached a state of economic perfection, a never
before seen condition of beneficial human interdependence that
would lead to universal growth and prosperity. And yet the early
years of the Weimar Republic in Germany witnessed the most complete
and terrifying unravelling of a major country's financial system to
have occurred in modern times. The story of the Weimar Republic's
financial crisis has a clear resonance in the second decade of the
twenty-first century, when the world is anxious once more about
what money is, what it means and how we can judge if its value is
true. The Downfall of Money will tell anew the dramatic story of
the hyperinflation that saw the once-solid German mark, worth 4.2
to the dollar in 1914, trading at over four trillion by the autumn
of 1923. It is a trajectory of events uncomfortably relevant for
today's uncertain world. The Downfall of Money will reveal the real
causes of the crisis, what this collapse meant to ordinary people,
and also trace its connection to Germany's subsequent catastrophic
political history. By drawing on a wide range of sources and making
sense for the general reader of the vast amount of specialist
research that has become available in recent decades, it will
provide a timely, fresh and surprising look at this chilling period
in history.
For decades it has been assumed that the Allied bombing of
Dresden -- a cultured city famous for its china, chocolate, and
fine watches -- was militarily unjustifiable, an act of retribution
for Germany's ceaseless bombing of London and other parts of
England.
Now, Frederick Taylor's groundbreaking research offers a
completely new examination of the facts and reveals that Dresden
was a highly militarized city actively involved in the production
of military armaments and communications. Incorporating first-hand
accounts, contemporaneous press material and memoirs, and
never-before-seen government records, Taylor proves unequivocally
the very real military threat Dresden posed -- and how a legacy of
propaganda shrouded the truth for sixty years.
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The Fungi - 1 (Paperback)
Frederick Taylor Wolf, Frederick A. B. 1885 Wolf
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R803
Discovery Miles 8 030
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The Fungi - 2 (Paperback)
Frederick Taylor Wolf, Frederick A. B. 1885 Wolf
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R901
Discovery Miles 9 010
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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