Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Politics & Social Sciences

The Mountains Are High is a beautifully written, candid memoir about how reevaluating what is really important and taking a leap of faith to reach it can genuinely transform your life. As one of the ‘new migrants' tells Alec when he arrives: it is easy to change your environment, far more difficult to change your mind.

On New Year's Eve 2019, Rafael Behr had what is clinically known as a massive bloody heart attack. In part, it was the result of his compulsive relationship with politics, working as a journalist in Westminster, on the front line of bitter information wars. When he was discharged from hospital, he asked himself how he would ever re-engage with politics—how would he care enough to write about it—without the stress? Something had to change. In 2021, Rafael published an essay about that experience and some of the lessons he had learned.

General Stanley McChrystal, commander of international and US forces in Afghanistan, was living large, with staff calling him a rock star. Journalist Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration. When Hastings' piece appeared a few months later, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was ordered to Washington, where he was unceremoniously fired.

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.

Instantly acquire all the knowledge you need to pass as an expert in the world of etiquette and high society. Know what to say, what not to say, where to be seen and what and what not to wear. Never again be found wanting when asked if someone is a PLU or a NQOCD, why port should be passed to the left, or how many air kisses you should aim at the proffered cheek of someone you barely know. Arm yourself with the essential words or phrases which have entered the etiquette lexicon from prerevolutionary France, and know not to mix up your droit du seigneur with your noblesse oblige.

After years of watching Kenyan athletes win the world's biggest races, Adharanand Finn set out to discover just what it was that made them so fast - and to see if he could keep up. Packing up his life he moved from Devon to Iten, in Kenya, to eat with, interview, sleep beside and - most importantly – run with, some of the greatest runners in the world. In the distance rests his dream, to join the best of the Kenyan athletes in an epic first marathon across the Kenyan plains.

A meditation on the importance of atheism in the modern world - and its inadequacies and contradictions - by one of Britain's leading philosophers. 'When you explore older atheisms, you will find some of your firmest convictions - secular or religious - are highly questionable. If this prospect disturbs you, what you are looking for may be freedom from thought.' For a generation now, public debate has been corroded by a narrow derision of religion in the name of an often very vaguely understood 'science'.

Psychopath. No sooner is the word out than images of murderers, suicide bombers and gangsters flash across our minds. But unlike their box-office counterparts, not all psychopaths are violent or even criminal. In fact they are fearless, confident, ruthless and focused - qualities tailor-made for success in twenty-first-century society. In this groundbreaking adventure into the world of psychopaths, renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals a shocking truth: psychopaths have something to teach us.

A wide-ranging and compelling account of the historical and current causes of wealth inequality, offering prescriptions for lasting solutions to an intractable problem, and for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.

Until very recently, scientists believed our brains were fully developed in childhood. Now, thanks to imaging technology, we know that the brain goes on developing and changing right through adolescence into adulthood. So, what makes the adolescent brain different? Why does an easy child become a challenging teenager? And why is it that many mental illnesses begin during these formative years? Drawing upon her cutting-edge research, award-winning neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains how adolescence is fundamental to how we invent ourselves.

We like to think we know the story of how Britain went to war with Germany in 1939, but there is one part of the story that has never been told. It features a group of MPs who repeatedly spoke out against their party and their government's policy of appeasing Hitler and Mussolini. Remarkably, nearly all of them were gay or bisexual. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain hated them. He had them followed, harassed, spied upon and derided in the press and called them 'the glamour boys' in reference to their sexuality.

From the outset, Caroline Lamb had a rebellious nature. From childhood she grew increasingly troublesome, experimenting with sedatives like laudanum, and she had a special governess to control her. She also had a merciless wit and talent for mimicry. In 1812 Caroline embarked on a well-publicized affair with the poet Lord Byron—he was 24, she 26. Her phrase 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' became his lasting epitaph. Antonia Fraser's biography animates the life of 'a free spirit' who was far more than mad, bad and dangerous to know.

Once a more sedate affair, since 2016, British politics has witnessed a barrage of crises, resignations and general elections. As Brexit became logjammed, Theresa May's premiership was the most turbulent of all. In her darkest hour, following the disastrous 2017 election, she turned to Gavin Barwell to restore her battered authority. He would become her chief of staff for the next two years - a period punctuated by strained negotiations, domestic tragedy and intense political drama.

In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon's stunning journey, which has all the twists of a Cold War-era thriller, and offers a dramatic reconstruction of Fanon's extraordinary life—and a guide to the books that underlie today's most vital efforts to challenge white supremacy and racial capitalism.

Have you heard that Bill Gates is running a secret genocidal plot? That the war in Ukraine isn't real? Or that people are paid to act out some of the worst attacks imaginable? In Among the Trolls, BBC journalist Marianna Spring meets the people spreading online conspiracy theories—and their victims. Far from a few lone wolves, she uncovers a staggering network of true believers and conspiracy influencers engaged in an international information war.

21st-Century Yokel explores the way we can be tied inescapably to landscape, whether we like it or not, often through our family and our past. It's not quite a nature book, not quite a humour book, not quite a family memoir, not quite folklore, not quite social history, not quite a collection of essays, but a bit of all six. It contains owls, badgers, ponies, beavers, otters, bats, bees, scarecrows, dogs, ghosts and yes, even a few cats. What emerges from this are themes that are broader, bigger and more definitive.

It is the depths of the second world war. The Germans like to boast that there is 'no escape' from the infamous fortress that is Colditz. The elite British officers imprisoned there are determined to prove the Nazis wrong and get back into the war. As the war heats up and the stakes are raised, the Gestapo plant a double-agent inside the prison in a bid to uncover the secrets of the British prisoners.

Was Harold Wilson a bigger figure than Denis Healey? Was John Major more ‘prime ministerial’ than Michael Heseltine? Would David Miliband have become prime minister if it were not for his brother, Ed? Would Ed have become prime minister if it were not for David? How close did Jeremy Corbyn come to being prime minister? In this piercing and original study, journalist and commentator Steve Richards looks at 11 prime ministers we never had, examining what made each of these illustrious figures unique and why they failed to make the final leap to the very top.

In Everything Is Going to be K.O. Kaiya Stone writes about her own experiences of living with specific learning difficulties: from struggling at school to being diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia while at university, to performing her own one-woman stand up show inspired by her journey. Always funny and unfailingly honest, Kaiya outlines the frustrations of having SPLDS but also the ways in which they have fuelled her creativity.

When the First World War broke out, the suffragettes suspended their campaigning and joined the war effort. For pioneering suffragette doctors (and life partners) Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson that meant moving to France, where they set up two small military hospitals amidst fierce opposition. Yet their medical and organisational skills were so impressive that in 1915 Flora and Louisa were asked by the War Ministry to return to London and establish a new military hospital in a vast and derelict old workhouse in Covent Garden's Endell Street.