The Turkestano-Siberian Railroad, or Turksib, was one of the great construction projects of the Soviet Union\u2019s First Five-Year Plan. As the major icon to ending the economic \u0022backwardness\u0022 of the USSR\u2019s minority republics, it stood apart from similar efforts as one of the most potent metaphors for the creation of a unified socialist nation. Built between December 1926 and January 1931 by nearly 50,000 workers and at a cost of more 161 million rubles, Turksib embodied the Bolsheviks\u2019 commitment to end ethnic inequality and promote cultural revolution in one the far-flung corners of the old Tsarist Empire, Kazakhstan. Trumpeted as the \u0022forge of the Kazakh proletariat,\u0022 the railroad was to create a native working class, bringing not only trains to the steppes, but also the Revolution. In the first in-depth study of this grand project, Matthew Payne explores the transformation of its builders in Turksib\u2019s crucible of class war, race riots, state purges, and the brutal struggle of everyday life. In the battle for the souls of the nation\u2019s engineers, as well as the racial and ethnic conflicts that swirled, far from Moscow, around Stalin\u2019s vast campaign of industrialization, he finds a microcosm of the early Soviet Union.

This gripping story of one of the great graphic satirists and watercolor artists of the British School is based upon a mass of new research. Rowlandson kept no diary, wrote few letters, and occurs only infrequently in the memoirs of others. Source material is not abundant. But in more than a decade's research, using church and official records, newspaper reports, contemporary accounts, sales catalogues and consideration of his pictures, the authors shed new light on Rowlandson's family background, his education and art training in London and Paris, his personal and professional associations, his travels in Britain and abroad, and the work itself.

Fully illustrated, this major contribution to scholarship will appeal to the general reader and specialist alike and is destined to become the standard work on this benchmark British artist.

In the South African town of Anga, William and his father live on a farm that is different to most others. Their farm is a maze of some of Africa's most iconic wildlife. When a rare lion cub is born on the farm, William and his father cannot believe their luck. However, it is not long before William discovers that the farm holds a terrible secret, and he is forced to try and save everything that he holds dear before it becomes too late. 'A Father's Pride' is suitable for anyone aged 8 and over. 10% of the profits from the sales of this book go to the lion conservation charity LionAid. Please visit the LionAid website at: http: //www.lionaid.org/