This review of the Suez Crisis gives a chapter each to such key players as General Sir Gerald Templar, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Norman Brook, the Secretary to the Cabinet and Patrick Dean, the head of the Permanent Under Secretary's department of the Foreign Office. The book incorporates 1956 releases from the Public Record under the Open Government Initiative, to reassess the role of officials and the process of policymaking, through the analysis of the activities and role of a range of players.

This review of the Suez Crisis gives a chapter each to such key players as General Sir Gerald Templar, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Norman Brook, the Secretary to the Cabinet and Patrick Dean, the head of the Permanent Under Secretary's department of the Foreign Office. The book incorporates 1956 releases from the Public Record under the Open Government Initiative, to reassess the role of officials and the process of policymaking, through the analysis of the activities and role of a range of players.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the "War in the Desert", that epic struggle of the Second World War between Axis (Italian and German) and Allied (principally British Commonwealth) forces for control of North Africa, from 1940 to 1943. The current literature concentrates on the military battles, but war cannot be separated from politics: War and Politics sets out to fill this void by chronicling and analyzing the key political debates. For the first time, Kelly describes the political background to the future of the Italian colony of Libya, and the tribes, sects and factions dwelling in Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and the Fezzan, and their fundamental importance in the development of Libya towards independence in 1951. A prologue and an epilogue excellently summarise the preceding and following periods to place the story firmly within its historical context. The extensive bibliography is invaluable for those wishing to further their knowledge. With newly drawn maps taken from WWII sources and many black and white and colour photographs, some not previously published, this is not only a compelling and intellectually stimulating read but also a vivid one. The twists and turns of the politics of the war in the desert in War and Politics will be fascinating not only to the participants at the time but to historians and all readers interested in this period or geographical area.

At an auction in Edinburgh in 2010, the sale of an old walking stick belonging to a British officer, Captain Gill, shed new light on one of the mysterious crimes of the Victorian era. Captain William Gill and his companions, the noted Arabist Professor Edward Palmer of Cambridge University and a young naval lieutenant, Harold Charrington, were killed in an ambush by Bedouin in the Sinai Desert in 1883. The trio had been tasked with informal diplomacy in the region, specifically to prevent the Arab sheikhs from joining the Egyptian rebels and to secure their non-interference with the Suez Canal. The gruesome murders shocked late-Victorian Britain, and led to pressure from the Queen, Parliament and the Press for the British government to launch a manhunt for the killers in a vast desert area with mountainous terrain. This book traces the story behind the murder of the three men, uncovering the reason for their journey to the desert, the story of the murder itself and the backlash home in England. It shines light on a fascinating, forgotten crime, as well as on early intelligence operations in the Middle East.

"The Lost Oasis" tells the true story behind "The English Patient," An extraordinary episode in World War II, it describes the Zerzura Club, a group of desert explorers and adventurers who indulged in desert travel by early-model-motor cars and airplanes, and who searched for lost desert oases and ancient cities of vanished civilizations. In reality, they were mapping the desert for military reasons and espionage. The club's members came from countries that soon would be enemies: England and the Allied Forces v. Italy and Germany. When war erupted in 1939, Ralph Bagnold founded the British Long Range Desert Group to spy on and disrupt Rommel's advance on Cairo, while a fellow club member, Hungarian Count Almasy, succeeded in placing German spies there. Ultimately, the British prevailed. Saul Kelly's riveting history draws on interviews with survivors and previously unknown documentary material in England, Italy, Germany, Hungary, and Egypt. His book reads like a thriller - with one key difference: it's all true.