England Wars

The justification for the atomic bomb was simple: it would defeat Hitler and end the Second World War faster, saving lives. The reality was different. Fallout dismantles the conventional story of why the atom bomb was built. Peter Watson has found documents showing that long before the Allied bomb was operational, it was clear that Germany had no atomic weapons of its own and was not likely to. The British knew this, but didn't share their knowledge with the Americans, who in turn deceived the British about the extent to which the Soviets had penetrated their plans for the bomb.

When Lucien Tremaine rides off to war, it’s with the promise he’ll return to the life he leaves behind … to his loving parents, to his beloved fiancée. It is that promise, that dream of reunion, which brings him back to Tremaine Court, only to be plunged into a living nightmare. Wounded, sick and disillusioned, he flees his family home with only one thought clear in his mind. Revenge. That single thought — and one image, that of the infuriating grey-eyed woman who has witnessed his disgrace, seen him vulnerable, at the very nadir of his existence. Kate Harvey has lived her own ...

Sir Maurice Oldfield was one of the most important British spies of the Cold War era. A farmer's son from a provincial grammar school, Sir Maurice was the first Chief of MI6 who didn't come to the role via the traditional route. Oldfield was the voice of British Intelligence in Washington at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and was largely responsible for keeping the UK out of the Vietnam War. Working his way to the top, he took on the job of rebuilding confidence in the British Secret Service in the wake of the Cambridge spies scandal.

In the age of vikings and dragons, two warriors are shaped by fire and fate, one born to protect, the other snatched away as a youth. Leofric, a boy torn from his homeland by Viking raiders, is beaten, broken, and reforged in the crucible of battle. Under the brutal hand of his captor, Farfel, and the reluctant guidance of a seasoned Spaniard, Leofric becomes a warrior. As the Northmen’s conquests stretch across seas and seasons, Leofric must decide if his loyalty lies with the savage men who raised him, or with the distant memory of the life they stole. Godwulf, marked by something ...

Tens of millions died during World War II as the warring powers raced to create the best fighter planes, tanks, and guns, and eventually that race extended to bombs which carried enough power to destroy civilization itself. While the war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a dream team of Nobel Laureates was working on the Manhattan Project, a program kept so secret that Vice President Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he took the presidency after FDR’s death in April 1945.

The Song of Simon de Montfort is the story of this extraordinary man: heir to a great warrior, devoted husband and father, fearless crusader knight and charismatic leader. It is the story of a man whose passion for good governance was so fierce that, in 1258, frustrated by the king’s refusal to take the advice of his nobles and the increasing injustice meted out to his subjects, he marched on Henry III’s hall at Westminster and seized the reins of power.

After his surrender to the Royal Navy, Napoleon became the object of massive English public interest. He would live out his last years on the island of St. Helena without ever admitting to being a prisoner. This close study of Napoleon in captivity attempts to reconstruct an authentic portrait of the fallen emperor by examining contemporary documents and records of public opinion.

Published in time for Remembrance Day 2008, the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, We Will Remember Them commemorates the veterans who are no longer among us. With an introduction by Henry Allingham, 110, only survivor of the Battle of the Somme and Britain's oldest living man, Max Arthur's new book expands the circle of contributors by interviewing the families of First World War veterans.

He was born Michael Warnick, a native of Duluth, Minnesota. A high school linebacker. An all-American kid. But the world would come to know him as Umar ibn Hassan. An eloquent and charismatic cleric, the American-born Hassan has made a name for himself with the Islamic State in the Egyptian Sinai. A powerful symbol in the fight against the West. For months, the CIA, working in coordination with Egyptian Special Forces, has been trying to capture Hassan. They've failed. So now, their mission has been "simplified": kill him.

The cloak and dagger world of spy vs spy suits Madison okay, that is until Admiral Cutter has Madison arrested for murder. Now she is in a race to recover the very heart of Naval Intelligence information and her life against ruthless new advesary who plays by very different rules.

I still dream, every night, of Polneath on fire. Smoke unravelling from an upper window, and the terrace bathed in a hectic orange light.... Now I see that the decision I made at Polneath was the only decision of my life. Everything marred in that one dark minute.

During the 15th century England was split in a bloody conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster over who should claim the crown. The civil wars consumed the whole nation in a series of battles that eventually saw the Tudor dynasty take power. In A Brief History of the Wars of the Roses, Desmond Seward tells the story of this complex and dangerous period of history through the lives of five men and women who experienced the conflict firsthand.

Sir Philip Sidney was an Elizabethan courtier, statesman, soldier, poet, and patron of scholars and poets. He was famous as the ideal gentleman of his day and a model for subsequent generations until the twentieth century replaced classical education with industrial age expedience. He represents something of what we have lost in modern self-interest. For three centuries, he was considered the most extraordinary man of the English Renaissance. But unfortunately, his legacy has faded from modern prominence. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to peer into the past and discover a singular person ...

With its proven pedigree as a fighter, the Spitfire ranks among the greatest aircraft ever built - remembered with affection by those who flew or maintained it, and revered by the British people who regarded it as the "defender of our skies" against Nazi invasion. Featuring vivid narrative, this publication reveals the full extent of the Spitfire's impact on the outcome of the war and the heroic efforts of the pilots who defended Britain at all costs.

The year 1916 was one of the great turning-points in British history: as the youthful hopes of a generation were crushed in a desperate struggle to survive and traditional attitudes to authority were destroyed for ever. On paper, few battles have ever been so meticulously planned. Yet while there were good political reasons to launch a joint offensive with a French Army demoralised by huge casualties at Verdun, the raw troops on the ground knew nothing of that.

At the beginning of 1941, it was unclear whether the Allies would be able to remain in the war for much longer. The potential of a German invasion of Britain loomed. The Battle of Britain, fought throughout the summer and early autumn of 1940, was unquestionably epic in scope. The largest air campaign in history at the time, the vaunted Nazi Luftwaffe sought to smash the Royal Air Force, but thankfully, the RAF stood toe to toe with the Luftwaffe and ensured Hitler’s planned invasion was permanently put on hold.

Dear Mr Bigelow is an enchanting selection of weekly 'pen-pal' letters written between 1949 and 1961 from an unmarried woman working at the Pier Approach Baths in Bournemouth, to a wealthy American widower, living on Long Island, New York. Frances Woodsford and Commodore Paul Bigelow never met, and there was no romance - she was in her forties when he died aged ninety-seven - yet their epistolary friendship was her lifeline.

Cultural and familial fireworks flare when the headstrong teenage daughter of a wealthy New Yorker falls passionately in love with a young man from New Orleans, and from a very different background indeed. What makes this story sizzle and soar are its time and place - the United States during the Civil War and Victorian England - and a couple of key facts about the protagonists.

A fascinating foray into British military history revealing the life of the British soldier at war. From the Roman invasion of Britain to the retreat from Dunkirk, from the horrors of Culloden to the courage of Rourke’s Drift, we experience first-hand the stories behind the triumphs and tragedies that make up the history of the British Army. Told entirely in the words of those who were there.

The monarchs of the Tudor period are among some of the most well-known figures in British history. John Guy presents a compelling and fascinating exploration of the Tudors in the new edition of this Very Short Introduction audiobook.