This gripping biography of Air Commodore Keith ' Grid' Caldwell CBE, MC, DFC & bar, Croix de guerre, tells the story of his remarkable exploits during the First World War. Flying single-seat fighters against the best of the German air force, including the Red Baron's Flying Circus and airmen such as Werner Voss, Caldwell accumulated 26 victories in aerial combat. Over his illustrious career he flew with numerous ' stars' of the British air service, including Albert Ball, William ' Billy' Bishop and Edward ' Mick' Mannock. In the last year of the war, aged only 22, he was given command of the new 74 Squadron. Under his leadership 74 ' Tiger' Sqaudron become one of the war's most feared and revered units. Written by a leading military historian, Grid details Caldwell's journey from early flight training in Auckland to his death-defying sorties over enemy lines on the Western Front. It also details his pivotal role in sustaining military aviation in interwar New Zealand, and his role in reinvigorating interest in the airmen of the First World War during the 1960s and 1970s.
At a time when we are faced with fundamental questions about the sustainability of the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of the now dominant system of global capitalism, from colonialism and the Industrial Revolution to the ecological crisis and artificial intelligence. John Cassidy adopts a bold new approach: he tells the story through the eyes of the system's critics. From eighteenth-century weavers who rebelled against early factory automation to Eric Williams's paradigm-changing work on slavery and capitalism, to the Latin American dependistas, the international Wages for Housework campaign of the 1970s, and the modern degrowth movement, this absorbing narrative traverses the globe. It looks at familiar figures - Smith, Marx, Luxemburg, Keynes, Polanyi - from a fresh perspective, but also focuses on many less-familiar, including William Thompson, the Irish proto-socialist whose work influenced Marx; Flora Tristan, the French proponent of a universal labour union; John Hobson, the original theorist of imperialism; and J. C. Kumarappa, the Indian exponent of Gandhian economics.Blending biography, panoramic history, and lively exploration of economic theories, Capitalism and Its Critics illuminates the deep roots of many of the most urgent issues of our time.
There have been many books on Theodore Roosevelt, but there are none that solely focus on the last years of his life. Racked by rheumatism, a ticking embolism, pathogens in his blood, a bad leg from an accident, and a bullet in his chest from an assassination attempt, in the last two years of his life from April 1917 to January 6, 1919, he went from the great disappointment of being denied his own regiment in World War I, leading a suicide mission of Rough Riders against the Germans, to the devastating news that his son Quentin had been shot down and killed over France. Suffering from grief and guilt, marginalized by world events, the great glow that had been his life was now but a dimming lantern. But TR's final years were productive ones as well: he churned out several "instant" books that promoted U.S. entry into the Great War, and he was making plans for another run at the Presidency in 1920 at the time of his death. Indeed, his political influence was so great that his opposition to the policies of Woodrow Wilson helped the Republican Party take back the Congress in 1918. However, as William Hazelgrove points out in this book, it was Roosevelt's quest for the "vigorous life" that, ironically, may have led to his early demise at the age of sixty. "The Old Lion is dead," TR's son Archie cabled his brother on January 6, 1919, and so, too, ended a historic era in American life and politics.
Although he has largely receded from the public consciousness, John Mitchell Jr., the editor and publisher of the Richmond Planet, was well known to many black, and not a few white, Americans in his day. A contemporary of Booker T. Washington, Mitchell contrasted sharply with Washington in temperament. In his career as an editor, politician, and businessman, Mitchell followed the trajectory of optimism, bitter disappointment, and retrenchment that characterized African American life in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow South. Best known for his crusade against lynching in the 1880s, Mitchell was also involved in a number of civil rights crusades that seem more contemporary to the 1950s and 1960s than the turn of that century. He led a boycott against segregated streetcars in 1904 and fought residential segregation in Richmond in 1911. His political career included eight years on the Richmond city council, which ended with disenfranchisement in 1896.As Jim Crow strengthened its hold on the South, Mitchell, like many African American leaders, turned to creating strong financial institutions within the black community. He became a bank president and urged Planet readers to comport themselves as gentlemen, but a year after he ran for governor in 1921, Mitchell's fortunes suffered a drastic reversal. His bank failed, and he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to three years in the state penitentiary. The conviction was overturned on technicalities, but the so-called reforms that allowed state regulation of black businesses had done their worst, and Mitchell died in poverty and some disgrace.Basing her portrait on thorough primary research conducted over several decades, Ann Field Alexander brings Mitchell to life in all his complexity and contradiction, a combative, resilient figure of protest and accommodation who epitomizes the African American experience in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
This lavishly illustrated history re-tells the story of the battle and Henry V's Normandy campaign from the perspective of the commander of the English archers, Sir Thomas Erpingham.
One of the most unfairly neglected figures in English history, who served three kings, opposed Richard III and enabled the Tudor dynasty.
An unflinching insight into the role of a government minister; sharing with searing honesty the personal and political cost when ambition and idealism clash with circumstances outside of your control. As Ireland's Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy took on one of the toughest briefs in government, one that continues to be a challenge today. Looking back at his life in the build-up to parliamentary office and at his time in the cabinet, Eoghan brings a self-lacerating and deeply personal view of the life of a modern politician trying - and ultimately failing - to make the positive change he hoped to deliver. Brutal and sometimes harrowing, Eoghan's tale is also surprisingly funny, though the humour is only ever at the author's expense. If, in the end, all political careers end in failure, why didn't anyone tell the author that? There are no heroes or villains here, just a person facing their own limitations as they navigate the unfamiliar world of campaigns, elected office and government responsibility. Bringing refreshing candour to the pressures and absurdity of politics, this book shows us who our politicians really are when there's nothing left to spin and no one there to spin it to.
Based on newly available information, the son of famed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers presents the facts and dispels misinformation about the Cold War espionage program that turned his father into a Cold War icon..One of the most talked-about events of the Cold War was the downing of the American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. The event was recently depicted in the Steven Spielberg movie Bridge of Spies. Powers was captured by the KGB, subjected to a televised show trial, and imprisoned, all of which created an international incident. Soviet authorities eventually released him in exchange for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. On his return to the United States, Powers was exonerated of any wrongdoing while imprisoned in Russia, yet, due to bad press and the government's unwillingness to heartily defend Powers, a cloud of controversy lingered until his untimely death in 1977. Now his son, Francis Gary Powers Jr. and acclaimed historian Keith Dunnavant have written this new account of Powers's life based on personal files that had never been previously available. Delving into old audio tapes, letters his father wrote and received while imprisoned in the Soviet Union, the transcript of his father's debriefing by the CIA, other recently declassified documents about the U-2 program, and interviews with the spy pilot's contemporaries, Powers and Dunnavant set the record straight. The result is a fascinating piece of Cold War history. This is also a book about a son's journey to understand his father, pursuing justice and a measure of peace.Almost sixty years after the fact, this will be the definitive account of one of the most important events of the Cold War.
Burlingame interprets Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd, the untimely death of his son Willie to disease in 1862, and his recurrent anguish over the enormous human costs of the war.
"Wickedly indiscreet and elegant"Mail on Sunday"He will join Chips Channon, Duff Cooper and Alan Clark in the pantheon of truly great diarists"Matthew d'Ancona, Evening Standard
E.D.E.N. Southworth (Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte) was one of the nineteenth century's most prolific and successful authors, with more novels to her credit than Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain combined. She was widely beloved by readers for her feisty heroines who rode horses, shot pistols or bows and arrows, captured notorious villains, became sea captains, and had other such grand adventures. Readers named their daughters, their boats, and their racehorses Capitola after their new favorite character in Emma's bestselling 1859 novel The Hidden Hand, which sold 10,000 copies in the first print run.In her fifty novels, Southworth wrote about unspeakable topics for the time: alcoholism, domestic violence, poverty, capital punishment, and other social issues-many of which readers still grapple with today-all nicely tucked away within the pages of her "domestic fiction." Despite being raised in a slave-owning family, her first works appeared in The National Era, a known abolitionist magazine. She supported emancipation and encouraged her longtime friend Harriet Beecher Stowe to publish Uncle Tom's Cabin. In a bold and daring life that spanned almost the entirety of the century, Emma advocated for better education for girls and better living conditions for the poor, nursed Union soldiers during the Civil War, and joined the early women's rights movement.Emma helped encourage generations of women readers to question and challenge the status quo. Yet although she achieved international fame in her lifetime, knowledge of Southworth and her novels virtually disappeared in the 1940s as readers were drawn to the new Modernism literary movement. For Emma, it was also partly because she had done so well at hiding her progressive ideas in the biographical pieces written during her life. This hidden-in-plain-sight approach worked for a single mother who needed to make money by her pen-her main means of providing for herself and her children after her husband abandoned them-but it helped incorrectly categorize Southworth well into the twentieth century as being against many of the causes she in fact supported in her novels.By meticulously combining details from Southworth's novels, partial biographies, newspapers, and hundreds of personal letters, Rose Neal has written the first-ever biography of E.D.E.N. and pieced together the fascinating life of a woman who was as determined as any of the heroines she created.
From Istanbul to Haifa This book is based on the true story of five siblings who played pivotal roles in the most significant political and historical events that unfolded in the Levant region between the years 1890 and 1948 CE. These events were instrumental in the emergence of entire nations in the Middle East, the collapse of others, and continue to be the primary influence on everything we have experienced and are living today. Within the pages of this book, we traverse a diverse geographical and historical landscape encompassing the Levant, Egypt, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, and Iran. We witness the Arabs' attempts to realize their dream of building an independent unified Arab state, the Western occupier's conspiracies against them to assassinate that dream, and the establishment of the Zionist entity in Palestine. The reader is taken through historical events starting from the Balkan Wars and the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the establishment of the Arab state, the correspondences of Hussein McMahon, the role of Lawrence of Arabia, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the onset of French and British mandates, culminating in the founding of the Zionist entity. It is worth noting that the information presented in this book is documented from the memoirs left by the five siblings, testimonies from many who lived through those times, and various historical sources. The information is presented in a captivating and dramatic narrative, bringing the characters to life in vivid detail, allowing you to experience history as if you are living it in all its intricacies.
On the occasion of the War''s twenty-fifth anniversary, Neha and Diksha Dwivedi, daughters of a Kargil War hero themselves, come together with Kenguruse''s brother, Neingutoulie, to tell us who Nimbu Saab was, about his life in uniform and beyond, and the act of bravery in which he lost his life.
A biography of Viktor Bout, a 'warlord's warlord' who may be the man to replace Putin.
After a chidhood that included several years spent in Europe, Peter Dewey participated in some of the most dramatic and importent episodes of World War II. As They Were is a compilation of Dewey's writings chronicling life in Paris in the months leading up to the Nazi attack of France in May, 1940.
Stories of bravery and resistance from forgotten Irish heroes of World War II.
Brian Slade, RAF's youngest bomber pilot of WW2, embarked on a remarkable career at 17, pioneering pathfinder tactics until his tragic loss over Berlin.Having left his grammar school just before his 16th birthday, Brian Slade falsified his age to pursue his dream of becoming a pilot. Within a few days of his 17th birthday, he was awarded his 'wings'. It was the start of this teenager's remarkable wartime career.Soon after being awarded his pilot's brevet, Brian was posted to his first squadron. Flying the venerable Vickers Wellington, he found himself experimenting with early target marking techniques. It was also there that Brian gained the nickname 'The Boy Slade'.Though Brian's journey through the wartime RAF mirrored the experiences of tens of thousands of young men, what was different, if not unique, was the fact before he had turned 18, which was the minimum age to begin aircrew training, Brian had already completed thirty-four operations - more than was needed for a tour. This tally included the three 1,000 bomber raids against Cologne, Essen and Bremen. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for nursing his badly damaged Wellington, which sustained flak and night-fighter damage, home after a raid on Bremen.Undaunted, Brian soon after volunteered for his second tour of operations. It was at this stage that he joined the Lancaster-equipped 83 Squadron in the newly formed 8 Group, becoming an experienced Pathfinder skipper. It was a role in which he marked targets in the Battle of the Ruhr, the bombing of Hamburg (Operation Gomorrah) and the Peenemünde raid.The RAF's Youngest Bomber Pilot of WW2, told by his nephew, a former officer in the British Army, details all of Brian's fifty-nine missions, and captures his compelling progress with Bomber Command, alongside the technological advances in aircraft, pathfinder strategy and tactics. Sadly, Brian's Lancaster was shot down over Berlin in August 1943. The details of its loss remained shrouded in mystery until the puzzle of his aircraft's demise was eventually solved by tracing the family of the only survivor.The relent-less dangers, not just in operations but also in training, and the continuous loss of life, are drawn into sharp focus. But, on account of his age, Brian's story is unique. There may have never been, nor will ever be, an RAF pilot of 19 years old with his flying and operational experience.Complemented with a collection of previously unpublished photographs, The RAF's Youngest Bomber Pilot of WW2 is one of the Second World War's most amazing tales.
A journey back in time through objects and locations into the life of one of Britain's most enigmatic and celebrated individuals.A twentieth century icon, Lawrence of Arabia, as Thomas Edward Lawrence is more commonly known, spent thirteen out of his forty-six years in the region from which he drew his name. This was as a scholar researching his university thesis, a spy surveying Sinai for the British Army before the First World War, an intelligence officer in Cairo, a liaison officer to the Arabs, and as a diplomat who galvanised and united the Arab tribes into an effective fighting force. He became an explosives expert and a guerrilla fighter who influenced Arab leaders in defeating their Ottoman occupiers.The story of his achievements in Arabia, derailing Turkish trains and attacking enemy strongholds, has become the stuff of legend. But his life after the disappointment of witnessing the Arabs being denied independence at the end of the First World War is as intriguing as his more famous escapades in the desert.Uncomfortable with the fame and celebrity status that Lowell Thomas's lectures brought upon him, after a brief tenure as a civil servant working for Winston Churchill in an attempt to address the failure of achieving Arab independence at the Cairo Conference, Lawrence, the former Lieutenant-Colonel, remarkably sought a life in obscurity. In the years after the war, for example, he served in the Royal Air Force as an aircraftsman and spent a brief period as a private in the Royal Tank Corps under the alias John Hume Ross or Thomas Edward Shaw. He became a competent marine motor mechanic, and was personally involved in the development of the fast RAF 200 Seaplane tender and an armoured target boat. He also became a renowned author and could claim literary giants such as Thomas Hardy, E.M. Forster and George Bernhard Shaw as his friends.In this highly illustrated book, the story of Lawrence's fascinating life is explored through many of the places and objects associated with him, from his birthplace in Wales through to his grave at Moreton in Dorset. Lawrence of Arabia features his places of education in Oxford, sites where he served as a British Army intelligence officer in Cairo, as liaison officer and adviser to the Arabs, even where he fought alongside his Arab brothers against the Ottomans.It also follows his life in the years after Arabia. Some of the fascinating locations Paul Kendall visits include RAF stations at Calshot and Bridlington, or the Tank Depot at Bovington Camp where he served in the ranks, his cottage at Clouds Hill and the homes of his famous friends that he frequently visited. The objects examined include Arab robes that he wore, his Khanjar, his service rifle, and even the Brough motorcycle which he enjoyed and valued.This book is not just a journey across Arabia, Britain and Europe, but also a journey back in time through objects and locations into the life of one of Britain's most enigmatic and celebrated individuals.
An absorbing and innovative biography of Ireland's national poet by a new literary talent.
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