In this definitive account of the Peninsular War (1808-14), Napoleon's six-year war against Spain, Ronald Fraser examines what led to the emperor's devastating defeat against the popular opposition - the guerrillas - and their British and Portuguese allies. As well as relating the histories of the great political and military figures of the war, Fraser brings to life the anonymous masses - the artisans, peasants and women who fought, suffered and died - and restores their role in this barbaric war to its rightful place while overturning the view that this was a straightforward military campaign. This vivid, meticulously researched book offers a distinct and profound vision of "Napoleon's Vietnam" and shows the reality of the disasters of war: the suffering, discontents and social upheaval that accompanied the fighting. With a new Introduction by Perry Anderson.

Epic adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel. During World War Two, Charles Rider (Jeremy Irons) is stationed at the now deserted stately home, Brideshead Manor, formerly the residence of the Flyte family. He recalls how, as a Cambridge undergraduate, he first visited Brideshead after befriending Lord Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews). Charles then became caught up with the Flytes and their problems, most notably Sebastian's burgeoning alcoholism.

"He turned his back on the old man to mourn in silence this unnecessary death and his part in it; but the sight of the coffin brought anger instead ..." In 1957, a burned-out British journalist leaves London to recuperate in the idyllic Andalusian village of Benalamar, a place little changed since the tumult of Spain's civil war. But when a foreign businessman arrives with plans to develop the area, the community is thrown into turmoil. During a time of drought, the promise of a reservoir is meant to allay the fears of the local populace, but the developer has little idea what he is playing with. A local farmer commits suicide, and the investigation that follows leads back into recent history, lost love and civil war - all a far cry from the tranquil retreat that once promised respite from a world of lurid headlines and backroom shenanigans. Drought is a keenly felt novel about memory, love and the clash between the old world and the new.

The true story of Derek Bentley (Christopher Eccleston), hanged, aged 19, in the 1950s after a controversial decision holding him responsible for the murder of a police officer. Despite a history of mental illness, and with the court accepting that he did not actually pull the trigger, Bentley was still sentenced to death - on the basis that his ambiguous cry of 'let him have it!' caused his young accomplice to fire the fatal shot. The release of this film focused attention on the case once more, and Bentley eventually received a posthumous pardon.

Jean-Paul Sartre was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most popular philosophers of the 20th Century. Also a prominent novelist, playwright and biographer, Sartre was, above all, the embodiment of the engaged intellectual, active in a variety of political causes, as well as an individual who attempted to live his life in accordance with the philosophy he professed. It was this that gave his lifelong preoccupation with freedom, choice and what he came to refer to as social conditioning, its cutting edge. Sartre's life was in many ways an illustration of his brand of existentialism in action. In these two interviews, the Marxist historian and scholar Perry Anderson takes Sartre on a wide-ranging tour of his philosophy and politics. The skilful and part chronological interrogation of various fundamental Satrean concepts, and the detailed and complex elucidations of them by the philosopher, make these interviews a must for anyone interested in Sartre's philosophical, political and ethical development. The wide range of topics discussed also includes 'freedom of choice', his uneasy relationship with Freudian concepts, his debates with Marx, and his acute observations on drama, the Cultural Revolution, Stalinism, the May 'Events' and of course, the US war on Vietnam. Their breadth remains a testimony to one man's attempt to make philosophical sense of the tumultuous world around him.

A children's classic double bill. An adaptation of E. Nesbit's children's classic, 'The Railway Children' follows the fortunes of a group of Edwardian children whose father is wrongly jailed for treason. Exiled with their mother to a life of genteel poverty on the Yorkshire Moors, they are soon drawn to the railway at the bottom of the garden, and all kinds of adventures. 'Swallows and Amazons' is a classic children's adventure yarn based on the Arthur Ransome book. The story recounts the adventures of a group of children who call themselves the Swallows, after their boat, as they holiday in the Lake District during the 1920s. There, they meet two piratical sisters, known as the Amazons, who have already claimed the waters for themselves.