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From Silvio Berlusconi's bed to Casanova's memoirs (the most expensive manuscript in history), via the Statue of Liberty's nose and an X-ray of Marilyn Monroe's chest, here is a remarkable record of some of the quirkiest, most unexpected and sometimes bizarre possessions that have changed hands in the last year - some costing millions, some only pennies (or even nothing at all). Ranging from rare historical artefacts (such as Marie-Antoinette's pearls) to the weirdly iconic (Elvis's medicine cabinet, anyone?), by turns ingenious, intriguing and witty, this is a brilliant and teasing insight into the culture of our time, packed with extraordinary things to amuse, inspire or amaze.
The first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the most devastating event of the First World War for the British army. In Zero Hour, 14 superlatively photographed panoramas (each one a four-page gatefold, opening to nearly 1 metre wide) show the Somme's major sites as they look today. Taken from the exact viewpoints of the front-line British troops as they began their advance towards the German trenches at 7.30 a.m., these hauntingly peaceful present-day views are annotated (in the handwritten military style of the time) to show the lethal German defensive positions at the moment of the attack. Jolyon Fenwick's eerily compelling photographs are accompanied by detailed maps and vivid descriptions of the day's events, detailing their awful human loss: out of 116,000 British and Empire troops committed to the assault, by nightfall 57,470 had become casualties, and 19,240 were dead. Zero Hour is simultaneously a celebration of the renewing power of nature, and a powerful and unconventional reminder of the horrors of the past.
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No British periodical or weekly magazine has a richer and more distinguished archive than The New Statesman, which has long been at the centre of British political and cultural life. Some astonishing things were first published in its pages: great poems such as W.B. Yeats' "Easter 1916"and Edward Thomas's "Adlestrop"; H.G. Wells' interview with Stalin in 1934; C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" essay; Christopher Hitchens' final interview, conducted by Richard Dawkins; and Hugh Grant's "The bugger bugged". Most of the great political and cultural writers of the recent past have written for The New Statesman. Many have been on its staff or were associates of it: George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keyn...
The unforgettable story behind the most destructive day in British military history... June, 1916: The Great War is locked in stalemate, deep lines of trenches and barbed wire carved into the French countryside. Sitting in an occupied chateau, General von Soden knows that something cataclysmic is coming. The British have been shelling for days and he is badly under-resourced and outnumbered. A frontal assault is surely imminent, but he has spent two years building an extraordinary series of defences for just that day... Amidst the bombardment the British troops are preparing for the attack. Geoffrey Malins, with his cinematograph, Noel Hodgson writing poetry in his hut, Siegfried Sassoon observing the enemy, Sir Douglas Haig at HQ, waiting for the chance of glory... As the battle lines muster, the full ferocity of war will be unleashed. For those on the Front, as for those in the wider world, nothing will ever be the same again. Based on true stories, cinematic in scope and built around a huge cast, this is a blistering, unforgettable novel that brings home the brutality of war, perfect for fans of Rory Clements, Ben Macintyre and Robert Harris.
A biography of the young, London-born, World War I pilot who was the first to be shot down by the legendary Red Baron. Nineteen-year-old Lionel Morris left the infantry for the wood and wires of the Royal Flying Corps on the Western Front in 1916, joining one of the world’s first fighter units alongside the great ace Albert Ball. Learning on the job, in dangerously unpredictable machines, Morris came of age as a combat pilot on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, as the R.F.C. was winning a bloody struggle for admiralty of the air. As summer faded to autumn and the skies over Bapaume filled with increasing numbers of enemy aircraft, the tide turned. On 17 September 1916, Morris’s s...
This book tackles cultural mobilization in the First World War as a plural process of identity formation and de-formation. It explores eight different settings in which individuals, communities and conceptual paradigms were mobilized. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it interrogates one of the most challenging facets of the history of the Great War, one that keeps raising key questions on the way cultures respond to times of crisis. Mobilization during the First World War was a major process of material and imaginative engagement unfolding on a military, economic, political and cultural level, and existing identities were dramatically challenged and questioned by the whirl of discourses and representations involved.
First published in 2001.The standard work on its subject, this resource includes every traceable British entertainment film from the inception of the "silent cinema" to the present day. Now, this new edition includes a wholly original second volume devoted to non-fiction and documentary film--an area in which the British film industry has particularly excelled. All entries throughout this third edition have been revised, and coverage has been extended through 1994.Together, these two volumes provide a unique, authoritative source of information for historians, archivists, librarians, and film scholars.