The Breaking of Bumbo was first published fifty years ago when the author was twenty-two. It was an immense success and caused something of stir. To quote from the original blurb, 'Bumbo Bailey is a coward and a bit of a hero; a martyr, an egoist, a clown, a debs' delight and a Suez mutineer; a non-conformist Old Etonian Guardee . Partly his own victim, and partly the victim of his own small world, he is Made, and has his Season; and is Broken. Bumbo pursues his career from Caterham to an Officers' Training School; from the Officers' Training School to Wellington Barracks; and from Wellington Barracks to any number of wildly assorted parties. He learns a lot about Sex and Love and Discipline - and a little about himself; in the end he behaves very oddly indeed; and faces, in his own way, the consequences.' This however is more than a period piece, the social milieu it describes may have vanished, but the novel's satirical brio lifts it above its immediate provenance; it continues to read freshly. 'This bitter, ironical and very clever first novel paints a devastating portrait of an upper-class misfit, half clown, half Hamlet . . .' Evening Standard 'Gruesomely funny . . . a violent virility that is infectious' Tatler

The prohibition of liquor in the United States from 1920 to 1933 created the myth of the flapper and gangster. Andrew Sinclair's account was the first comprehensive study and it shows how this extraordinary experiment was the product of the age-old conflict of country against city, of the God-fearing farmer against the corrupt urban rich and the new immigrants with their imported religions and beer. Prohibition represented the last attempt of rural America to stem the tide of history that was transforming the country from an agricultural to an industrial nations. It stood for tradition and the old American way of life. Its defeat was tragedy as well as a comedy. The lessons of such an attempt at social control are relevant to all societies, old and new. 'This is a definitive biography of an era; a social history, comprehensive, detailed, documented, and well written.' Arthur Weinberg, Chicago Tribune 'Here is a work of real social history, at once scholarly and entertaining, thoughtful, penetrating and analytical.' John A. Garraty, The New Leader

'I would rather have been in London under siege between 1940 and 1945 than anywhere else,' John Lehmann said, 'except perhaps Troy in the time that Homer celebrated.' Paradoxically perhaps the 1940s was a decade of cultural efflorescence. Writing, painting, theatre, cinema and dancing all thrived: Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, T. S. Eliot, George Orwell and Laurence Olivier all produced some of their best work in this period. In this sweeping and important book, Andrew Sinclair recreates the world of the 1940s with its encounters and characters, its conflicts and its discoveries, its hopes and its disillusions. It was a world of pubs and clubs, where scarce drink could be found and the war forgot. It was the time of the short piece, the poem, the story and the sketch. Anyone who knew anyone in the loose coterie of Fitzrovia could have anything published. Everything printed was read by a nation avid for learning and waiting for action. War Like a Wasp recreates a feverish and democratic time using the words of the period. In his original and witty account of the decade, Andrew Sinclair has made sure nobody will ever think of the 1940s in the same way again. 'Soho and the disease writers caught there, Sohoitis, are the main enthusiasm of War Like a Wasp. They make Sinclair's book a keen Remembrance of Times Pissed - Dylan Thomas brawling, brawling, getting the DTs, Dan Davin slugging or about to be slugged, the unsubsidised editor Tambimuttu (known to some as Tuttifrutti) cadging drinks and poems, louche painters clustered about Nina Hamnett's dying Parisian flame, huge Anna Wickham biting people in the head, all the rough traders, brief encounters and lost girls.' Valentine Cunningham, the Observer 'He has a talent for creating memorable phrases. He calls Dylan Thomas 'the poet with lips like Michelin tyres'. He describes the aftermath of a bombing raid in prose that is uncommonly vivid. He makes you see and smell the terrible damage.' Michael Sheldon, Washington Post

'We need London's mythical wolf almost as much as we need the wildernesses of the world, for without such ghost-animals from the depths of the human subconscious we are alone with ourselves' - from the introduction This volume of the best of Jack London's famed stories of the North includes The Call of the Wild, London's masterpiece about a dog learning to survive in the wilderness, along with 'Bâtard', 'Love of Life', and White Fang, the story of a wild dog's acclimation to the world of men, generally considered the companion piece to The Call of the Wild. In his introduction, James Dickey probes London's strong personal and literary identification with the wolf-dog symbol and totem. Andrew Sinclair, London's official biographer and the volume's editor, provides a brief account of London's life as sailor, desperado, socialist, adventurer and acclaimed author.

The scene is Cambridge in the early 1960s. Ben Birt, an intellectual Brando from a grammar school, sees the University through proud, bawdy and anarchic eyes. Classless but deeply class-conscious. Brought up on Shakespeare and the classics, much influenced by contemporary French and American, he talks a vivid new language. Ben, above all, is alive. He does: and does not apologize for what he does. He gives to life without giving in; and takes from life without being taken in. He ends up on his own, beginning to see Cambridge has more to offer than a three years' muckabout in a festering fen. 'Very clever indeed . . . This portrait of la vie de boheme universitaire should raise squeals of outraged delight . . . all along the line from Belgravia to Budleigh Salterton.' Daily Telegraph

The semiautobiographical Martin Eden is the most vital and original character Jack London ever created. Set in San Francisco, this is the story of Martin Eden, an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame. London, dissatisfied with the rewards of his own success, intended Martin Eden as an attack on individualism and a criticism of ambition; however, much of its status as a classic has been conferred by admirers of its ambitious protagonist. Andrew Sinclair's wide-ranging introduction discusses the conflict between London's support of socialism and his powerful self-will. Sinclair also explores the parallels and divergences between the life of Martin Eden and that of his creator, focusing on London's mental depressions and how they affected his depiction of Eden.

'The book is a bravura performance, exhibiting the virtuosity that has lit up all Sinclair's work.' - C.P. Snow, "Financial Times"
'This is a rich and satisfying hybrid work - part fiction and part biography. Its hold on the reader stems, at least in part, from its use of one of the most successful of literary formulae: the quest. It was this structure which gave A.J.A. Symons's "The Quest for Corvo" such hypnotic appeal.... Mr Sinclair's insights, credited to Pons, are those of a distinguished novelist. He intuitively perceives the relationship between Poe's life and work, anatomising it in witty and sometimes brilliant prose.' - Paul Ableman, "Spectator"
'Clever, macabre, spellbinding, "The Facts in the Case of E. A. Poe" is Andrew Sinclair's brilliant combination of biography and fiction, taken to the limits of the united genre.... T]he result is a strangely disturbing and powerfully revealing piece of literature, one Poe himself - if sober - might have genuinely approved.' - "Houston Post"
' E]xtremely clever and enjoyable, and one that Poe might himself have appreciated. Mr. Sinclair's dovetailing of Poe's life and Pons's reflections is so smoothly done, and his narrative touch so delicate, that those who know nothing of Poe's sad story are likely to be held as firmly as those familiar with it.... The ghost of Poe can have inspired few more entertaining or ingenious books.' - Julian Symons, "New York Times"
'Sinclair is one of our most intelligent novelists, and "The Facts in the Case of E. A. Poe" is a book full of wit, thought and perception - an ingeniousness of composition which the author of "The Raven" might have himself approved.' - "The Scotsman"
'The book (bionovel? autofictography? madnessscript?) turns out to be a thoroughly absorbing read. The use of an eccentric fictional biographer like Pons gives the "real" biographer, Sinclair, the freedom to indulge in amusingly wild flights of speculative fancy which he would no doubt have suppressed in a more conventional work.' - "The Listener"
Ernest Albert Pons is a Holocaust survivor with an unusual coping mechanism: he lives in the delusion that he is, in fact, Edgar Allan Poe. His psychiatrist Dupin (chosen because he shares a name with Poe's fictional detective) has a radical idea for treatment: Pons must see for himself that he is not Poe by retracing the poet's steps and writing an analysis of his life. As Pons pursues Poe from his childhood and university years in Virginia to his adult life in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, we gradually learn the secrets of both men's pasts. But when Pons begins to suspect Dupin may be engineering an elaborate scheme to kill him, is it just another part of his delusion, or is Dupin plotting a macabre twist worthy of Poe?
A wholly unique book that manages to blend seamlessly a page-turning mystery with an important work of Poe criticism and biography, "The Facts in the Case of E. A. Poe" (1979) was widely acclaimed on its initial publication and returns to print in this new edition, which includes a new introduction by Andrew Sinclair.

The changing role and status of women in America from colonial times to the present, and the American woman's unrelenting struggle for complete equality with men are the major themes of this work. The works of leading feminists, suffragists, abolitionists, unionists, and temperance workers are explored.

Shattered by tropical disease and a gruelling voyage across the Pacific, Jack London spent many of the last months of his life writing in Hawaii. His search for untouched civilizations had revealed cruelty and ignorance beside startling beauty, a flawed paradise. Tales of the Pacific is the fruit of this quest. The stories embody the power and harshness of Hemingway and demonstrate a mastery of the short-story form equal to that of Conrad or Kipling. They spring from London's desire to reconcile the dream of an unfallen world with the harsh reality of twentieth-century materialism.

Over the years, observers of American politics have noted the deleterious effects of party polarization in both the national and state legislatures. Reformers have tried to address this problem by changing primary election laws. A theory underlies these legal changes: the reformers tend to believe that 'more open' primary laws will produce more centrist, moderate, or pragmatic candidates. The 'top-two' primary, just implemented in California, represents the future of these antiparty efforts. Nonpartisan Primary Election Reform examines California's first use of the top-two primary system in 2012. R. Michael Alvarez and J. Andrew Sinclair evaluate the primary from a variety of perspectives and using several different methodologies. Although the first use of this primary system in California did not immediately reshape the state's politics, it also did not have many of the deleterious consequences that some observers had feared. This study provides the foundation for future studies of state primary systems.

The political use of terror has always been with us, whether in the murderous seizing of power by the ancients, through the outlawed campaigns of guerrillas, or via the state sanctioned terror of war. From Homer to Al Qaeda, terrorism has flourished in one form or another, bloodily shaping our history. Andrew Sinclair's unique book brilliantly explores the methods and thinking behind terrorism and shows how the nature of terror has not changed since the days of the Assassins and the Mongol hordes. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, An Anatomy of Terror dissects the uses of atrocity from the Roman destruction of Carthage to the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center. Bold, incisive and compelling, An Anatomy Of Terror is an essential history for our times.

Over the years, observers of American politics have noted the deleterious effects of party polarization in both the national and state legislatures. Reformers have tried to address this problem by changing primary election laws. A theory underlies these legal changes: the reformers tend to believe that 'more open' primary laws will produce more centrist, moderate, or pragmatic candidates. The 'top-two' primary, just implemented in California, represents the future of these antiparty efforts. Nonpartisan Primary Election Reform examines California's first use of the top-two primary system in 2012. R. Michael Alvarez and J. Andrew Sinclair evaluate the primary from a variety of perspectives and using several different methodologies. Although the first use of this primary system in California did not immediately reshape the state's politics, it also did not have many of the deleterious consequences that some observers had feared. This study provides the foundation for future studies of state primary systems.

Man and Horse is a magisterial history of the mounted warrior and the relationship with his steed. Andrew Sinclair takes as his inspiration Walter Prescott Webb's seminal work, The Great Plains. The horse until very recently has been the decisive factor in determining military success. Great exponents of the art of equestrian warfare include, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, King Arthur, Saladin, the Knights of the Templar, the Reivers of the Scottish Borders, the Mongols, North American Indians, the Confederate forces during the American Civil War and the Boers. Sinclair also explores the uses of the horse by highwaymen and figures such as Ned Kelly. Andrew Sinclair brilliantly shows that the art of warfare from horseback with its culture of mobility has always been at conflict with the urban domesticated culture. This tension has created much of the great art and culture of humankind. This is a hugely ambitious and exhilarating book that cannot fail to enthral and stimulate.