When the harrowing Great War diaries of one of Britain's first black soldiers were unearthed in a dusty Scottish attic nearly 100 years after they were written, they posed a bit of a mystery. The diary entries - ranging from May 1917 to March 1918 - were written by one Arthur Roberts while he served initially with the King's Own Scottish Borderers before being transferred to Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1917. He details what life was like for him during the First World War, how he survived the Battle of Passchendaele, and how he escaped unscathed when a German shell killed a dozen men round him. Yet Arthur was an otherwise unknown man - what was the rest of his life like? Now, Morag Miller and Roy Laycock have painstakingly researched Roberts' life history, filling in the gaps. From his birth in Bristol, to his life in Glasgow and time at the front, they provide here much more than just a war memoir. This is a unique history of one man's remarkable life. Beautifully illustrated with Roberts' own accomplished photographs and artwork, As Good As Any Man is the remarkable biography of one of Britain's black Tommies.

Originally warriors mounted on horseback, knights became associated with the concept of chivalry as it was popularised in medieval European literature. Knights were expected to fight bravely and honourably and be loyal to their lord until death if necessary. Later chivalry came to encompass activities such as tournaments and hunting, and virtues including justice, charity and faith. The Crusades were instrumental in the development of the code of chivalry, and some crusading orders of knighthood, such as the Knights Templar, have become legend. Boys would begin their knightly training at the age of seven, learning to hunt and studying academic studies before becoming assistants to older knights, training in combat and learning how to care for a knight's essentials: arms, armour, and horses. After fourteen years of training, and when considered master of all the skills of knighthood, a squire was eligible to be knighted. In peacetime knights would take part in tournaments. Tournaments were a major spectator sport, but also an important way for knights to practice their skills - knights were often injured and sometimes killed in melees. Knights figured large in medieval warfare and literature. In the 15th century knights became obsolete due to advances in warfare, but the title of 'knight' has survived as an honorary title granted for services to a monarch or country, and knights remain a strong concept in popular culture. This short history will cover the rise and decline of the medieval knights, including the extensive training, specific arms and armour, tournaments and the important concept of chivalry.

The Second World War (1939-45) was not greeted with the same lavish outpouring of patriotic fervour that had attended August 1914. Any rags of glory had long since been drowned in the mud of Flanders. The Great War had been heralded as 'the war to end all wars'; veterans were promised 'a land fit for heroes'. Both of these vain boasts soon began to sound hollow as depression, unemployment, poverty and a rash of new wars followed. The sons and daughters of those who had embarked upon their own patriotic Calvary did so again in an altogether more sombre spirit. One significant difference between the two conflicts is that, whilst both were industrial wars, the Second World War was far nearer the concept of total war. The growth of strategic air power, in its infancy in 1918, had by 1939 become a reality. In this war, even more widespread and terrible than the last, there were to be no civilians. Death sought new victims everywhere; British citizens were now in the front line, there was to be no respite, no hiding place. This is the poetry and prose of those who were there, ordinary people caught in the terrible maelstrom of mass conflict on a scale hitherto unimagined; this is their testimony.

The Great War 1914 1918 was dubbed the 'war to end all wars' and introduced the full flowering of industrial warfare to the world. The huge enthusiasm which had greeted the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 soon gave way to a grim resignation and, as the Western Front became a long, agonising battle of dire attrition, revulsion. Never before had Britain's sons and daughters poured out their lifeblood in such prolonged and seemingly incessant slaughter. The conflict produced a large corpus of war poetry, though focus to date has rested with the 'big' names Brooke, Sassoon, Graves, Owen, Rosenberg and Blunden et al - with their descent from youthful enthusiasm to black cynicism held as a mirror of the nation's journey. Their fame is richly merited, but there are others that, until now, you would not expect to find in any Great War anthology. This is 'Tommy' verse, mainly written by other ranks and not, as is generally the case with the more famous war poets, by officers. It is, much of it, doggerel, loaded with lavatorial humour. Much of the earlier material is as patriotic and sentimental as the times, jingoistic and occasionally mawkish. However, the majority of the poems in this collection have never appeared in print before; they have been unearthed in archives, private collections and papers. Their authors had few pretences, did not see themselves as poets, nor were writing for fame and posterity. Nonetheless, these lost voices of the Great War have a raw immediacy, and an instant connection that the reader will find compelling.

On 3 September 1650 Oliver Cromwell won a decisive victory over the Scottish Covenanters at the Battle of Dunbar - a victory that is often regarded as his finest hour - but the aftermath, the forced march of 5,000 prisoners from the battlefield to Durham, was one of the cruellest episodes in his career. The march took them seven days, without food and with little water, no medical care, the property of a ruthless regime determined to eradicate any possibility of further threat. Those who survived long enough to reach Durham found no refuge, only pestilence and despair. Exhausted, starving and dreadfully weakened, perhaps as many as 1,700 died from typhus and dysentery. Those who survived were condemned to hard labour and enforced exile in conditions of virtual slavery in a harsh new world across the Atlantic. Cromwell's Convicts describes their ordeal in detail and, by using archaeological evidence, brings the story right up to date. John Sadler and Rosie Serdiville describe the battle at Dunbar, but their main focus is on the lethal week-long march of the captives that followed. They make extensive use of archive material, retrace the route taken by the prisoners and describe the recent archaeological excavations in Durham which have identified some of the victims and given us a graphic reminder of their fate.

The Battle of Flodden in 1513 was the largest battle ever to take place between England and Scotland. James IV himself led an army of 30,000 men over the border into England, ostensibly in revenge for the murder of a Scotsman, but in reality to assist their ally the French by diverting the forces of Henry VIII. Yet the Scots were hampered by old-fashioned weapons and tactics, whereas the English deployed more accurate artillery and their vaunted longbowmen. When King James IV was killed while leading a charge, and many of their officers died, the Scots were left in disarray and the English victory was decisive. As the first new history of the battle in a decade, this authoritative and eye-opening account marks the 500th anniversary and brings our knowledge of the conflict up to date. Expert knowledge and detailed maps look at the key events, the 1135 campaign and the minor battles of Millfield and Norham, and a full profile of the respective forces and deployments, and convey the battle's course concisely and clearly. A key read for those interested in military history or the period in general.

In the autumn of 1644 was fought one of the most sustained and desperate sieges of the First Civil War when Scottish Covenanter forces under the Earl of Leven finally stormed Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the King's greatest bastion in the north-east and the key to his power there. The city had been resolutely defended throughout the year by the Marquis of Newcastle, who had defied both the Covenanters and Northern Parliamentarians. Newcastle had held sway in the north-east since the outbreak of the war in 1642. He had defeated the Fairfaxes at Adwalton Moor and secured the City of Newcastle as the major coal exporter and port of entry for vital Royalist munitions and supply. Without this the north was lost, if anything Newcastle was more important, in strategic terms, than York and it was the City's fall in October which marked the final demise of Royalist domination of the north. The book tells the story of the people who fought there, what motivated them, and who led them there. It is also an account of what happened on the day, a minute-by-minute chronicle of Newcastle's bloodiest battle. The account draws heavily on contemporary source material, some of which has not received a full airing in the past. The siege is celebrated by the motto under the city coat of arms. It reads Fortiter Defendit Triumphans, which means "She bravely and triumphantly defends."