This is the first volume of a major two-volume biography of Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), which matches his ample collection of private papers against the public records, and brings in from other collections of papers letters written to or by Chamberlain. This first volume tells the story of the first sixty years of Chamberlain's life. As well as his role in national politics, it covers his endeavours to prove himself in a different sphere by building up his business concerns in Birmingham, and through service to the city. Chamberlain's family letters and diaries are freely drawn upon. There is much material about Chamberlain's personal relations with his half-brother Austen, Lloyd George, Baldwin and Churchill. Chamberlain is revealed as a figure of wide culture, many international connections, and much reserve in his personal dealings, but with astonishing energy and resourcefulness in administration and boldness in policy.

On 22 June 1941, German tanks rolled into the Soviet Union in an offensive which was to claim the lives of nearly 49 million people. Until the opening of Soviet archives, however, and the easing of their ideological grip, 'Operation Barbarossa' remained a mystery. Now, through the distinguished contributions of people like President Yeltsin's adviser, Colonel-General Dmitri Volkogonov, and the German historian Professor Klaus-Jurgen Muller, comes a book which for the first time challenges the official Soviet historiography and offers the first truly global picture of the war in Russia. From Nazi-Soviet relations at the start of the war, and the Soviet Union's response to the German attack, Barbarossa moves to the little examined subject of the invasion's aftermath. And offering dramatic new evidence on Hitler's objectives, Stalin's strategy and readiness for war, the Battle of Moscow, and Japan's wartime policy towards the Soviet Union, this book also deals with the previously taboo subjects of the personalities and politics of collaboration and the massive human toll of the invasion.