This book unites the latest research in diversity, inclusion, and positive organizational scholarship (POS), to investigate diversity and inclusion dynamics in social systems. Comprised of succinct chapters from thought leaders in the field, this book covers both micro- and macro-levels of analysis, covering topics such as authenticity, mentorship, intersectional identity work, positive deviance, resilience, resource cultivation and utilization, boundary-spanning leadership, strengths-based development, positive workplace interventions to promote well-being, inclusive strategic planning, and the role of diversity in innovation.

This book unites the latest research in diversity, inclusion, and positive organizational scholarship (POS), to investigate diversity and inclusion dynamics in social systems. Comprised of succinct chapters from thought leaders in the field, this book covers both micro- and macro-levels of analysis, covering topics such as authenticity, mentorship, intersectional identity work, positive deviance, resilience, resource cultivation and utilization, boundary-spanning leadership, strengths-based development, positive workplace interventions to promote well-being, inclusive strategic planning, and the role of diversity in innovation.

BOMBER CREW tells the vivid stories of the young men sent on perilous raids during World War II through the voices of those who survived. Long after the Battle of Britain, the aircrews of RAF Bomber Command risked their lives night after night during the Second World War. Over 55,000 of the airmen never returned from these missions; a further 10,000 became prisoners of war. And yet Bomber Command has been mired in controversy and its veterans - all volunteers - have never been awarded a campaign medal. Their crucial contribution to the outcome of the war has all too often been overlooked. BOMBER CREW exposes the bravery of these men using gripping first-person testimony from the surviving pilots and crew. For them this was a time of incredible hardship and adrenaline, courage and friendship, and their stories bear witness to the strength of the human spirit in times of incredible danger. Never before has their story been so vividly told. This is also a revealing look at the history of Bomber Command itself, from the early days through to eventual victory in 1945. accounts of heroism, tragedy and triumph, this is the ultimate account of these brave men and their contribution to the Allied victory.

Praise for The Perfect Nazi: 'Absorbing, highly readable and painstakingly researched' NIALL FERGUSON 'Unforgettable, haunting reading' SIMON SCHAMA 'A fascinating and extraordinary journey into the banality of evil at the heart of Nazism' BEN MACINTYRE 'Riveting' THE TIMES 'Fascinating, scrupulously researched, compelling' SUNDAY TIMES In this radical new perspective on the Holocaust, Davidson challenges popular understanding and existing histories of the Holocaust. He does this in three main ways. Firstly, he describes the way in which German policy developed and was enacted in new and compelling detail, providing a road map to the 'long and twisting road to Auschwitz', skilfully dramatising those twists and turns, many of which are not generally included in conventional narratives. Secondly, he allows us to hear from new voices, notably female perpetrators, resisters and victims. These provide individual human perspectives on the unfolding events, without which true understanding is impossible; from planning and implementation, to knowledge - and its opposite, denial - all the way to its final reckoning, then and now. And finally, he provides a reappraisal of the moral perspective that drove the Holocaust, getting beyond the conventional notion of 'evil' as a catch-all rationale, to examine why anti-Jewish vitriol was such a powerful motivator for so many Germans, who used arguments and self-justifications that are more resonant today than they have been for decades. Never more so than in the use of the idea of suffering - how 'our' supposed suffering justifies 'theirs'. His focus is very much on the mindset that brought about the Holocaust, the desire to 'make Germany great again' and to make Germany's perceived enemies suffer. Again, this story of dreams of national greatness, and racially-targeted redemptive malevolence could not be more resonant today. Davidson foregrounds the stories of women, in part to illustrate the mindset of Nazi true believers - the German wife stationed in Poland, for example, who found a group of Jewish children who had escaped a mass execution, and shot them herself. He also describes the particular horror experienced by female inmates of the camps, who, as mothers, were the first to be killed alongside their children, and who were among the bravest of German resisters to the crimes being committed in their name - like twenty-one-year-old Sophie Scholl, whose leaflets listing and denouncing Nazi crimes resulted in her execution, in October 1943. The Holocaust forces us to understand that it wasn't the power of a single malevolent leader who made it happen; it was something altogether more alarming. A system of a thousand moving parts, the genocidal logic of which was willed into being, before being planned, mobilised - and submitted to - by millions of different people, acting via different agencies, under different jurisdictions, like iron filings held in the pull of a particular magnetic field which they were happy to replicate and reinforce. The resulting feedback loop would help shape-shift the Final Solution throughout the years of its existence, its direction of travel only ever from bad to worse. That is why the story has to be understood not just in the form of a fast-moving narrative - step after step after step, taken by myriad different people acting out their very different roles - but in the round, held up to the light and rotated through 360 degrees, drawing in not just war and politics, ideology and delusion, geography and economics, but accident, contingency, intention, sadism, innocence, self-justification, resistance, denial and ultimately, meaninglessness too.

What if you found out that your grandfather had been a Nazi SS officer?

This is the confession that Martin Davidson received from his mother upon the death of demanding, magnetic grandfather Bruno Langbehn. "The Perfect Nazi" is Davidson's exploration of his family's darkest secret.

As Davidson dove into his research, drawing on an astonishing cache of personal documents as well as eyewitness accounts of this historical period, he learned that Bruno's story moved lock-step in time with the rise and fall of the Nazi party: from his upbringing in a fiercely military environment amid the aftermath of World War I, to his joining the Nazi party in 1926 at the age of nineteen, more than six years before Hitler came to power, to his postwar involvement with the Werewolves, the gang of SS stalwarts who vowed to keep on after the defeat of Nazism.

Davidson realized that his grandfather was in many ways the "perfect Nazi," his individual experiences emblematic of the generation of Germans who would plunge the world into such darkness. But he also realized that every fact he uncovered was a terrible truth he himself would have to come to terms with...

In 1926, at the age of twenty, a trainee dentist called Bruno Langbehn joined the Nazi party. Growing up in a Germany that was impoverished and humiliated by the defeat of the First World War, and surrounded by a fiercely military environment, Bruno was one of the first young men to sign up. And as the party rose to power, he was there every step of the way. Eventually his loyalty was rewarded with a high-ranking position in Hitler's dreaded SS, the elite security service charged with sending Germany's 'racially impure' to the death camps. For fifty years after the end of the Second World War, his family kept this horrifying secret until his British grandson, Martin Davidson, uncovered the truth. Drawing on an astonishing cache of personal documents, Davidson retraces Bruno's journey from disillusioned adolescent to SS Officer to mysterious grandfather. In this extraordinary account he tries to understand how Langbehn and millions of others like him were seduced by Hitler's regime, and attempts to come to terms with this devastating revelation.

THE STARS AND THE MIND A Study of the Impact of Astronomical Development on Human Thought BY MARTIN DAVIDSON, D. Sc., F. R. A. S. LONDON WATTS CO., 5 6 JOHNSONS COURT, FLEET STREET, E. C. 4 PREFACE IN this book I have given a rtsumd of the development of astro nomical science from the earliest periods of mans history up to recent times, and also of its impact on human thought and action. It has been impossible to separate such a rsum6 from the influence of astrology a superstition which has been very closely associated with astronomy and which has so often exercised a pernicious effect on the lives of people. Among some of the early races astrology had a profound influence, and official astrologers at the Royal Courts frequently advised the rulers on policies connected with both the internal and external affairs of the State. In some respects this astral fatalism, which naturally resulted from the belief that a mans character and also his future were decided by the ruling constellation at the time of his birth, was detrimental to social progress, but on the whole it does not always appear to have been so baneful as we might expect. We cannot help admiring the wonderful strides that were made in the social life of the Babylonians, among whom astrology had an important influence, but to what extent the lives of the ordinary people were affected by astrology is a matter of doubt and conjecture. An archaeologist thousands of years hence, who chanced to unearth some of our twentieth-century books and Press publications of a certain type, might imagine that most people had regulated their lives in accordance with the predictions of astrologers, but his conclusions would be far from the truth.It is possible that a large portion of the people in early civilizations was unaffected by astrology, which was reserved for those who could afford to pay liberally for indulging in this cult. The present survey shows how the conception of a continuous interference and control of the universe by some external power gave way to a nobler and higher conception of an inherent natural order. A mechanical view of the universe replaced the old and cruder view, which was quite consistent with arbitrary and vindictive acts on the part of a petty-minded ruler. The modern astronomer pursues his research on the assumption that such acts VI PREFACE do not occur, and without this assumption he could not with any degree of confidence continue his investigations. Within recent times a remarkable development has occurred, which seems to leave a loop-hole for a belief in a non-mechanical universe. Progress in atomic physics has, in the opinion of some physicists, dealt a severe blow to the view that the universe is a closed system. In the opinion of the writer this view is not very easy to defend, but the controversy still continues, and probably will continue for a long time. Towards the end of the work the influence of astronomical development on the Christian faith is considered, and its far reaching effects are dealt with. While restatement of a number of doctrines has been made from time to time, it is questionable whether any of them have gone far enough, and it is certain that in many cases there has not been sufficient candour in the new presentation. More honest admissions are essential at present, when problems arising out of the complexities of modern civiliza tion are baffling the best minds.Our conception of the universe is so utterly different from that of our forefathers that readjust ment of our views on moral, social, and international problems is necessary. It must be admitted, however, that it is not easy to prescribe the exact lines along which such readjustments should be conducted, and for a long time many of the problems which vex the souls of men rtiust inevitably prove intractable...

The Battle of Britain, 1940, was one of the most famous air battles in the history of warfare and it is a story of ruthless organisation, brilliant control and command. But at its heart is one particular figure, a legend ever since - the RAF fighter pilot. And one particular plane - a piece of machinery that has almost mythic historical glamour - the Supermarine Spitfire. Spitfire Ace reintroduces the few that flew in the Battle of Britain and includes interviews with many of the surviving veteran Spitfire pilots. Combined with a historical narrative of the events surrounding the Battle of Britain, you will learn for the first time what it was really like to fly a Spitfire and to experience combat flying at its most visceral. Fully illustrated with 16 pages of photographs and contemporary archive material, Spitfire Ace provides a vivid portrait of the fighter boys and their finest hour, their planes (including Spitfires, Hurricanes and Messerchmitts) and Fighter Command - RAF versus the Luftwaffe.