Historiska & politiska biografier

From multi-award-winning writer Helen Ennis comes the first ever biography of the photographer Max Dupain, the most influential Australian photographer of the 20th century and creator of many iconic images that have passed into our national imagination. Max Dupain (1911-1992) was a major cultural figure in Australia, and at the forefront of the visual arts in a career spanning more than fifty years. During this time he produced a number of images now regarded as iconically Australian. He championed modern photography and a distinctive Australian approach. To date, Dupain has been seen mostly in one-dimensional, limited and limiting terms - as exceptional, as super masculine, as an Australian hero. But this landmark biography approaches him as a complex and contradictory figure who, despite the apparent certitude of his photographic style, was filled with self-doubt and anxiety. Dupain was a Romantic and a rationalist and struggled with the intensity of his emotions and reactions. He wanted simplicity in his art and life, but found it difficult to attain. He never wanted to be ordinary. Examining the sources of his creativity - literature, art, music - alongside his approaches to masculinity, love, the body, war, and nature, Max Dupain: A Portrait reveals a driven artist, one whose relationship to his work has been described as 'ferocious' and 'painful to watch'. Photographer David Moore, a long-term friend, said he 'needed to photograph like he needed to breathe. It was part of him. It gave him his drive and force in life.'

A timely, magisterial new history of Churchill's life and politics, focusing on his dealings with Russia and the Soviet Union.

David II (1329-1371), son of the hero King of Scots, Robert Bruce (1306-1329), has suffered a harsh historical press, condemned as a disastrous general, a womaniser and a sympathiser with Scotland's 'auld enemy', England. Bringing together evidence from Scotland, England and France, Michael Penman offers a different view.

Margaret Thatcher is a British icon. There is no denying her place in history as Britain's greatest peacetime Prime Minister. The reaction to her death confirms that twenty-three years after leaving office she still bestrides the political scene, both in Britain and around the world, like a colossus. Margaret Thatcher was elected to Parliament in 1959. Twenty years later she became Britain's first woman Prime Minister. She achieved two further landslide election victories, making her the longest-serving British Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool. She resigned in November 1990 after eleven-and-a-half years at the pinnacle of British politics. Memories of Margaret Thatcher brings together over 200 personal reminiscences and anecdotes from those who - whether political friends or opponents, observing her from the press gallery or toiling to keep her flame alight in the constituencies - experienced close encounters with the Iron Lady. They include, among others, Ronald Reagan, Helmut Kohl, Norman Tebbit, Cecil Parkinson, Matthew Parris, Michael Howard, Paddy Ashdown, Adam Boulton, Lord Ashcroft, Sebastian Coe, Boris Johnson, Ann Widdecombe, William Hague, Sir Bernard Ingham, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Esther Rantzen, Dame Ann Leslie, David Davis, Liam Fox and many more. Amusing, revealing, sympathetic and occasionally antagonistic, these observations combine to give a unique portrait of the political and personal life of a remarkable woman. They show the deeply private and compassionate nature of a woman who will forever be known as the Iron Lady.

The End of An Era charts the ups and numerous downs of the last twenty yearsof British politics from the closest quarters.

"From underground soldiers to intrepid spies, Women of War unearths the hidden history of the brave women who risked their lives to overthrow the Nazi occupation and liberate Italy. Using primary sources and brand new scholarship, historian Suzanne Cope illuminates the roles played by women while Italians struggled under dual foes: Nazi invaders and Italian fascist loyalists. Cope's research and storytelling introduces four brave and resourceful women who risked everything to overthrow the Nazi occupation and pry their future from the fascist grasp. We meet Carla Capponi in Rome, where she made bombs in an underground bunker then ferried them to their deadly destination wearing lipstick and a trenchcoat; and Bianca Guidetti Serra who rode her bicycle up switchbacks in the Alps, dodging bullets while delivering bags of clandestine newspapers and munitions to the anti-fascist armies hidden in the mountains. In Florence, the young future author of Italy's new constitution, Teresa Mattei, carried secret messages and hid bombs; while Anita Malavasi led troops across the Apennine Mountains. Women of War brings their experiences as underground resistance fighters, partisan combatants, spies, and saboteurs to life. Essential and original, Women of War offers not only a reexamination of the elision of women from vital WWII history but also a valuable perspective on the ongoing fight for gender equality and social justice. After all, these were the women who launched a feminist movement as they fought for the future of their country, and what that could mean for its women, all while under Nazi and fascist fire"--

Based on previously unpublished documents, this book traces the life in Paris of Countess Olga von Hohenfelsen, later known as Princess Paley, the morganatic wife of Grand Duke Paul of Russia, uncle of the last emperor Nicholas II.While immersing the reader in the world of Marcel Proust (most of Princess Paley's social contacts had fed the writer's imagination), the book explores the couple's day-to-day life, highlighting their relationships with leading suppliers such as couturiers Worth and Paquin and the jeweler Cartier. It also provides an overview of the Parisian art market, and studies the development of the couple's successive residences from Paris to St. Petersburg. For a time in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the significant collection and the palace built to house it were shown to the public as the Museum of French Art and History. Dispersed during the 1920s by the Soviet authorities, the collection is studied as a whole here for the first time.First published in French in 2018, this updated English version includes an additional chapter on Princess Natalie Paley, the couple's youngest child. She continued her family's legacy of contributing to culture and the arts well into the twentieth century while living in Paris and the United States, where she was a muse to writers, designers, photographers, and artists.

Over two centuries have passed since his death on 4 May 1799, yet Tipu Sultan's contested legacy continues to perplex India and her contemporary politics. A fascinating and enigmatic figure in India's military past, he remains a modern historian's biggest puzzle as he simultaneously means different things to different people, depending on how one chooses to look at his life and its events. Tipu's ascent to power was accidental. His father Haidar Ali was a beneficiary of the benevolence of the Maharaja of Mysore. But in a series of fascinating events, the Machiavellian Haidar ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds; he ended up overthrowing his own benefactor and usurping the throne of Mysore from the Wodeyars in 1761. In a war-scarred life, father and son led Mysore through four momentous battles against the British, termed the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The first two, led by Haidar, brought the English East India Company to its knees. Chasing the enemy to the very gates of Madras, Haidar made the British sign such humiliating terms of treaties that sent shockwaves back in London. In the hubris of this success, Tipu obtained the kingdom on a platter, unlike his father, who worked up the ranks to achieve glory. In a diabolical war thirst, Tipu launched lethal attacks on Malabar, Mangalore, Travancore, Coorg, and left behind a trail of death, destruction and worse, mass-conversions and the desecration of religious places of worship. While he was an astute administrator and a brave soldier, the strategic tact with opponents and the diplomatic balance that Haidar had sought to maintain with the Hindu majority were both dangerously upset by Tipu's foolhardiness on matters of faith. The social report card of this eighteenth-century ruler was anything but clean. And yet, one simply cannot deny his position as a renowned military warrior and one of the most powerful rulers of Southern India. Meticulously researched, authoritative and unputdownable, Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore's Interregnum (1760-1799) opens a window to the life and times of one of the most debated figures from India's history.

A chronological account of the life and career of Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler, who rose to be British India's Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh and of Burma. The work also serves as a means to assess British intentions towards India at a critical time with the brewing of Indian nationalism.

A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEARWhen everyday life becomes a state of emergency, how can yesterday's words suffice?'We were so happy and didn't know it...'A thirty-three-year-old writer lives in a quiet European suburb with his wife and his dog. His parents have bought an apartment nearby. On weekends they go out for brunch, cook and see friends. Life is good; it is normal. Then the invaders come.The Language of War is about what happens when your world changes overnight. When you wake up to the sound of helicopters and the smell of gunpowder. When your home is hit by shells or broken into by gunmen, and you spend another night in a basement-turned-bomb shelter. When, even though you've never held a weapon before, you realise the only choice is to fight back. It is about things one can never forget, or forgive.Bringing together Oleksandr Mykhed's vivid day-by-day chronicles of the invasion of Ukraine with a chorus of other voices - his family, friends in exile, those who have fought and have witnessed unimaginable atrocities - this book is both a record, and a reckoning. Haunting and timeless, it asks how it is possible to find the words to describe a new reality; how you can still make sense of the world when the only language you can speak is the language of war.

The brilliant new memoir by one of the last great statesmen, aman who has towered over British politics for more than fifty years.