Showing results for "James" in Europe

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on. Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return.

It should have been an easy victory. After the triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of Sicily, and with Italy finally knocked out of the war, the Allies were quietly confident that Rome would be theirs before Christmas 1943. And yet it didn't happen. Hitler decided not to give ground, and the stage was set for one of the grimmest and most attritional phases of the war. Even though they were short of supplies and support, German forces, even in retreat, made the Allies fight for every bitter yard.

Renowned World War Two historian James Holland presents an entirely new perspective on one of the most important moments in recent history. Unflinchingly examining the brutality and violence that characterised the campaign, it's time to draw some radically different conclusions. D-Day and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed have come to be seen as a defining episode in the Second World War. Its story has been endlessly retold, and yet it remains a narrative burdened by both myth and assumed knowledge.

There are no such thing as an easy victory in war but after triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion, and with the Italian surrender, the Allies were confident that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943. And yet it didn't happen. Hitler ordered his forces to dig in and fight for every yard, thus setting the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional campaigns of the Second World War. By the start of 1944, the Allies found themselves coming up against the Gustav Line.

Few outside the security services have heard of 14 Company. As deadly as the SAS yet more secret, the operators of 14 Company are Britain's most effective weapon against international terrorism. For every bomb that goes off, 14 Company prevent 12. The selection process is the most physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding anywhere in the world. This is the true story of one operator and of some of the most hair-raising military operations ever conducted on the streets of Britain.

Are you ready for the truth about World War Two? In the first of an extraordinary three-volume account of the war on land, in the air and at sea, James Holland not only reveals the truth behind the familiar legends of the Second World War but he also unveils those lesser known events which were to have the greatest significance. The first book to consider the economic, political and social as well as the military aspects of World War Two, this is a unique retelling of a monumental event in all its terrible and majestic glory.

'If Hitler fails to invade or destroy Britain, he has lost the war,' Churchill said in the summer of 1940. He was right. The Battle of Britain was a crucial turning point in the history of the Second World War. Had Britain's defences collapsed, Hitler would have dominated all of Europe and been able to turn his full attention east to the Soviet Union. The German invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940 was unlike any the world had ever seen. It hit with a force and aggression that no-one could counter and in just a few short weeks, all in their way crumbled.

King Henry IV survived at least eight plots to dethrone or kill him in the first six years of his reign. However, he had not always been so unpopular. In his youth he had been a great chivalric champion and crusader. In 1399, at the age of 32, he was greeted as the saviour of the realm when he ousted from power the tyrannical King Richard II. But Henry had to contend with men who supported him only as long as they could control him; when they failed, they plotted to kill him. Adversaries also tried to take advantage of his questionable right to the crown.

A year has passed since the end of the Gallic rebellion of Sacrovir and Florus. Retribution has been exacted, and the province is at peace once more. And yet, there are some who escaped Rome's justice. They are led by a man whose heart burns with hate; an heir to rebellion. Knowing that there can be no victory against the legions, his vengeance can only be wrought through terror and murder. The Gallic city of Lugdunum will be the first to taste his wrath.

When Alexander the Great died at the age of 32, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea in the west all the way to modern-day India in the east. In an unusual compromise, his two heirs - a mentally damaged half brother, Philip III, and an infant son, Alexander IV, born after his death - were jointly granted the kingship. But six of Alexander's Macedonian generals, spurred by their own thirst for power and the legend that Alexander bequeathed his rule "to the strongest," fought to gain supremacy.

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the juggernaut they expected when and if a war began. The plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission, should hostilities commence, was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city.

Revised and updated to reflect recent Russian and Western scholarship on the subject, this new edition maintains the 1995 original's distinction as a crucial volume in the history of World War II and of the Soviet Union and the most informed and compelling perspective on one of the greatest military confrontations of all time.

When Queen Mary died in 1953, James Pope-Hennessy was commissioned to write an official biography of her - unusual for a Queen Consort. Queen Mary's life, contrary to popular belief, was essentially dramatic, and she played a far more important and influential role in the affairs of the British monarchy than her public image might have otherwise suggested. Using material from the Royal Archives, private papers and Queen Mary's personal diaries and letters, Pope-Hennessy's biography was a remarkable portrait of a remarkable woman and received rave reviews across the press.

When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.

The United Kingdom accrued considerable financial debts to the United States during and immediately after the First World War. In 1934, the British government unilaterally suspended payment on these debts. This book examines why the United Kingdom was one of the last major powers to default on its war debts to the United States and how these outstanding obligations affected political and economic relations between both governments.

A Black porter publicly whips a White English gentleman in a Gloucestershire manor house. A heavily pregnant African woman is abandoned on an Indonesian island by Sir Francis Drake. A Mauritanian diver is dispatched to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose.... Miranda Kaufmann reveals the absorbing stories of some of the Africans who lived free in Tudor England.

Through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, A Line in the Sand vividly tells the story of the short but crucial era when Britain and France ruled the Middle East. It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs and the Jews and ultimately led to war between the British and the French in 1941 and between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948.

A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind - our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions - and how mind and brain relate to art.

Using his famed on-the-nose commentary, Twitter legend James Felton has dissected 99 of the most outlandish stories The Sun (for a long time the biggest-selling British newspaper) has run since it became a tabloid in 1969, hoping to answer once and for all whether the press has reflected - or manipulated - the British people over the last 50 years.