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Listed as one of the Guardian's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All
Time. In September 1945 the fate of Adolf Hitler was a complete
mystery. He had simply disappeared, and had been missing for four
months. Hugh Trevor-Roper, an intelligence officer, was given the
task of solving the mystery. His brilliant piece of detective work
not only proved finally that Hitler had killed himself in Berlin,
but also produced one of the most fascinating history books ever
written. The Last Days of Hitler tells the extraordinary story of
those last days of the Thousand Year Reich in the Berlin Bunker.
Besieged in the shattered capital, but still dominating the remains
of his court, Hitler reiterated the original alternative of Nazism:
either total victory or annihilation. This book is the record of
that carefully prepared, ceremonious finale to a terrible chapter
of history. 'Brilliantly written and researched, The Last Days of
Hitler remains the most vivid account of the final Wagnerian
chapter of Hitler's tyranny' - Max Hastings 'This is an
incomparable book, by far the best written on any aspect of the
second German war: a book sound in scholarship, brilliant in its
presentation . . . No words of praise are too strong.' - A. J. P.
Taylor, New Statesman
These private journals, made available here for the first time,
record Hugh Trevor-Roper's visit to the People's Republic of China
in the autumn of 1965, shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural
Revolution, and describe the controversial aftermath of his journey
on his return to England. The visit was a catalogue of
frustrations, which he relates with the verve and irony of a master
narrator who relished the human comedy. His efforts to meet the
real life and mind of China, in whose history and politics he had
long been interested, were blocked at every turn by the resources
of state propaganda and the claustrophobic attention of sullen
Party guides. The visit was arranged by the London-based Society
for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, which was ostensibly committed to
the impartial interchange of culture and ideas. It proved to be run
by a Communist claque whose ruthless methods of control outwitted
the well-connected membership. Back in England, and with help from
MI5, he resolved to get to the bottom of the society's affairs. His
investigations provoked a tumultuous public row which Trevor-Roper,
no shirker of controversy, zestfully traces in these pages. Through
the book, which closes with an account of his visit to Taiwan and
South-East Asia in 1967, there runs the wisdom of historical
perspective that he brought to contemporary events and his lifelong
commitment to the defence of liberal values and practices against
their ideological adversaries.
These private journals, made available here for the first time,
record Hugh Trevor-Roper's visit to the People's Republic of China
in the autumn of 1965, shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural
Revolution, and describe the controversial aftermath of his journey
on his return to England. The visit was a catalogue of
frustrations, which he relates with the verve and irony of a master
narrator who relished the human comedy. His efforts to meet the
real life and mind of China, in whose history and politics he had
long been interested, were blocked at every turn by the resources
of state propaganda and the claustrophobic attention of sullen
Party guides. The visit was arranged by the London-based Society
for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, which was ostensibly committed to
the impartial interchange of culture and ideas. It proved to be run
by a Communist claque whose ruthless methods of control outwitted
the well-connected membership. Back in England, and with help from
MI5, he resolved to get to the bottom of the society's affairs. His
investigations provoked a tumultuous public row which Trevor-Roper,
no shirker of controversy, zestfully traces in these pages. Through
the book, which closes with an account of his visit to Taiwan and
South-East Asia in 1967, there run the wisdom of historical
perspective that he brought to contemporary events and his lifelong
commitment to the defence of liberal values and practices against
their ideological adversaries.
The Civil War, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution in
England laid the institutional and intellectual foundations of the
modern understanding of liberty, of which we are heirs and
beneficiaries. The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century uncovers new
pathways to understanding this seminal time. Neither Catholic nor
Protestant emerges unscathed from the examination to which
Trevor-Roper subjects the era in which, from political and
religious causes, the identification and extirpation of witches was
a central event. Trevor-Roper points out that "In England the most
active phase of witch-hunting coincided with times of Puritan
pressure -- the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the period of the
civil wars -- and some very fanciful theories have been built on
this coincidence. But...the persecution of witches in England was
trivial compared with the experience of the Continent and of
Scotland. Therefore...[one must examine] the craze as a whole,
throughout Europe, and [seek] to relate its rise, frequency, and
decline to the general intellectual and social movements of the
time...".
As a British Intelligence Officer during World War II, Hugh
Trevor-Roper was expressly forbidden from keeping a diary due to
the sensitive and confidential nature of his work. However, he
confided a record of his thoughts in a series of slender notebooks
inscribed OHMS (On His Majesty's Service). "The Secret War
Journals" reveal the voice and experiences of Trevor-Roper, a
war-time "backroom boy" who spent most of the war engaged in
highly-confidential intelligence work in England - including
breaking the cipher code of the German secret service, the Abwehr.
He became an expert in German resistance plots and after the war,
interrogated many of Hitler's immediate circle, investigated
Hitler's death in the Berlin bunker, and personally retrieved
Hitler's will from its secret hiding place. The posthumous
discovery of Trevor-Roper's secret journals - unknown even to his
family and closest confidants - is an exciting archival find and
provides an unusual and privileged view of the Allied war effort
against Nazi Germany. At the same time, they offer an engaging -
sometimes mischievous - and reflective study of both the human
comedy and personal tragedy of wartime.
During World War II, Britain enjoyed spectacular success in the
secret war between hostile intelligence services, enabling a
substantial and successful expansion of British counter-espionage.
Hugh Trevor-Roper's experiences working for the Secret Intelligence
Service (MI6) during the war had a profound impact on him and he
later observed the world of intelligence with particular sharpness.
To him, the subjects of wartime espionage and the complex espionage
networks that developed in the Cold War period were as worthy of
profound investigation and reflection as events from the more
distant past. Expressing his observations through some of his most
ironic and entertaining correspondence, articles and reviews,
Trevor-Roper wrote vividly about some of the greatest intelligence
characters of the age - from Kim Philby and Michael Straight to the
Germans Admiral Canaris and Otto John. Including some previously
unpublished material, this book is a sharp, revealing and personal
first-hand account of the intelligence world in World War II and
the Cold War.
This revised and updated book argues that while Anglo-Saxon culture
has given rise to virtually no myths at all, myth has played a
central role in the historical development of Scottish identity.
Trevor-Roper explores three myths across 400 years of Scottish
history: the political myth of the 'ancient constitution' of
Scotland; the literary myth, including Walter Scott as well as
Ossian and ancient poetry; and the sartorial myth of tartan and the
kilt, invented - ironically by Englishmen - in quite modern times.
Trevor-Roper reveals myth to be an often deliberate cultural
construction used to enshrine a people's identity. While his
treatment of Scottish myth is highly critical, indeed debunking, he
shows how the ritualisation and domestication of Scotland's myths
as local colour diverted the Scottish intelligentsia from the path
that led German intellectuals to a dangerous myth of racial
supremacy. This compelling script was left unpublished on
Trevor-Roper's death in 2003 and is now made available for the
first time. Written with characteristic elegance, lucidity and wit,
and containing defiant and challenging opinions, it will absorb and
provoke Scottish readers and intrigue many others. "I believe that
the whole history of Scotland has been coloured by myth; and that
myth, in Scotland, is never driven out by reality, or by reason,
but lingers on until another myth has been discovered, or
elaborated, to replace it."-Hugh Trevor-Roper
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The History of England (Paperback)
Hugh Trevor-Roper; Thomas Macaulay; Edited by Hugh Trevor-Roper; Introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper
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R413
R339
Discovery Miles 3 390
Save R74 (18%)
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Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) won instantaneous and outstanding success in prose and poetry, in politics and oratory. His History, translated throughout Europe and achieving sales in America second only to the Bible, immediately became the canon of historical orthodoxy, replacing previous histories so completely that it is now difficult to see past its long and apparently effortless triumph. In the sweep and power of his writing Macaulay rivals the finest novelists. He was much influenced by Sir Walter Scott and relied heavily on literature to recapture the atmosphere of the past. Though the theme of his History is clearly defined - the 1688 Revolution and the reign of William III which effectively consolidated that Revolution - it succeeds in presenting Macaulay's interpretation of the whole course of English history. He possessed an unerring grasp of political reality and he firmly reasserted the primacy of politics in the historical process as the essential motor of social change.
Famously sceptical about Christianity, unexpectedly sympathetic to
the barbarian invaders and the Byzantine Empire, constantly aware
of how political leaders often achieve the exact opposite of what
they intend, Gibbon was both alert to the broad pattern of events
and the significant revealing detail. Attacked for its enlightened
views on politics, sexuality and religion, the first volume was
none the less soon to be found 'on every table' and was widely
acclaimed for the elegance of its prose. Gripping, powerfully
intelligent and wonderfully entertaining, THE HISTORY OF THE
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ranks as one of the literary
masterpieces of its age.
Late in 1945, Trevor-Roper was appointed by British Intelligence in
Germany to investigate conflicting evidence surrounding Hitler's
final days and to produce a definitive report on his death. The
author, who had access to American counterintelligence files and to
German prisoners, focuses on the last ten days of Hitler's life,
April 20-29, 1945, in the underground bunker in Berlin--a bizarre
and gripping episode punctuated by power play and competition among
Hitler's potential successors.
"From exhaustive research [Trevor-Roper] has put together a
carefully documented, irrefutable, and unforgettable reconstruction
of the last days in April, 1945."--"New Republic"
"A book sound in its scholarship, brilliant in its presentation, a
delight for historians and laymen alike."--A. J. P. Taylor, "New
Statesman"
Hugh Trevor-Roper's historical essays, published over many years in
many different forms, are now difficult to find. This volume
gathers together pieces on British and European history from the
fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, ending with the
Thirty Years War, which Trevor-Roper views as the great historical
and intellectual watershed that marked the end of the Renaissance.
Covering a wide range of topics, these writings reflect the many
facets of Trevor-Roper's interest in intellectual and cultural
history. Included are discussions of Renaissance Venice; the arts
as patronized by that "universal man," the Emperor Maximilian I;
the court of Henry VIII and the ideas of Sir Thomas More; the Lisle
Letters and the formidable Cromwellian revolution; the
historiography and the historical philosophy of the Elizabethans
John Stow and William Camden; religion and the "judicious Hooker,"
the great doctor of the Anglican Church; medicine and medical
philosophy, shaken out of its orthodoxy by Paracelsus and his
disciples; literature and Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; and the
ideology of the Renaissance courts.
Trevor-Roper sets his intellectual and cultural history in a
context of society and politics: in realization of ideas, the
patronage of the arts, the interpretation of history, the social
challenge of science, the social application of religion. This
volume of essays confirms his reputation as a spectacular writer of
history and master essayist.
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