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No building has been more intimately involved in the story of Britain than the Tower of London - a mighty, brooding stronghold in the very heart of the capital. Castle, prison, torture chamber, execution site, zoo, mint, treasure house, armoury, observatory: the Tower has been all these things and more, standing at the epicentre of dramatic, bloody and frequently cruel events for almost a thousand years. Setting this dramatic story firmly in the context of national - and international - events, Nigel Jones's superb history portrays the Tower of London not just as an ancient structure but as a living symbol of the nation.
A tourist guide, a history and a personal story of the Western Front 1914-18 Nigel Jones's uncle was killed in action near Ypres in 1915, aged just eighteen, and his father served on Field Marshal Haig's staff: no wonder then, that he has always been fascinated by the First World War. THE WAR WALK describes his pilgrimage to the Western Front battlefields: it is a compelling blend of history, travel and personal anecdotes from some of the last surviving veterans of the First World War. He follows the old trench networks from the Belgian coast to the Swiss frontier, bringing each battlefield to life with vivid eyewitness testimony and investigating how the sites are preserved today for modern visitors.
John Leake presents the astonishing real-life Jekyll and Hyde story of the Vienna Woods killer who deceived an entire nation.
The birth pangs of Nazism grew out of the death agony of the Kaiser's Germany. Defeat in World War I and a narrow escape from Communist revolution brought not peace but five chaotic years (1918-1923) of civil war, assassination, plots, putsches and murderous mayhem to Germany. The savage world of the trenches came home with the men who refused to admit defeat and 'who could not get the war out of their system'. It was an atmosphere in which civilised values withered, and violent extremism flourished. In this chronicle of the paramilitary Freikorps - the freebooting armies that crushed the Red revolution, then themselves attempted to take over by armed force - historian and biographer Nigel Jones draws on little-known archives in Germany and Britain to paint a portrait of a state torn between revolution and counter revolution. Astonishingly, this is the first in-depth study of the Freikorps to appear in English for 50 years. Yet the figures who flit through its shadowy world - men like Röhm, Goering and Hitler himself - were to become frighteningly familiar just ten years after the turmoil that gave Nazism its fatal chance.
There were over forty plots to assassinate Hitler— This is the “compelling, fast-paced account” of the one that came closest to succeeding (Publishers Weekly). The July Plot of 1944 was masterminded by Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a member of the German General Staff, who had been rushed back from Africa after losing his left eye and right hand. For his injuries, he had been decorated as a war hero. However, he’d never been a supporter of Nazi ideology—and he was increasingly attracted by the approaches of the German resistance movement. After an attempt to assassinate Hitler in November 1943 failed, Stauffenberg developed a new plot to kill him at the Wolf’s Lair, fortified und...
Penetrating biography of a fascinatingly contradictory writer who, despite a privileged background and early and sustained success, became increasingly embittered with the world. Doris Lessing calls him 'a marvellous novelist', Keith Waterhouse 'A riveting dissector of English life' and Nigel Jones makes excellent use of Hamilton's own letters and notes as well as his own highly perceptive insights. The Literary Review called Through a Glass Darkly 'One of the most stimulating biographies for years'.
Edwardian Britain is the quintessential age of nostalgia, often seen as the last long summer afternoon before the cataclysmic changes of the twentieth century began to take form. The class system remained rigidly in place and thousands were employed in domestic service. The habits and sports of the aristocracy were an everyday indulgence. But it was an age of invention as well as tradition. It saw the first widespread use of the motor car, the first aeroplane and the first use of the telegraph. It was also a time of vastly improved education and the public appetite for authors such as Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and E. M. Forster was increased by greater literacy. There were signs too, of the corner history was soon to turn, with the problematic Boer War hinting at a new British weakness overseas and the drive for Votes for Women and Home Rule for Ireland pushing the boundaries of the social and political landscape. In this major work of history, Roy Hattersley has been given exclusive access to many new documents to produce this magisterial new appraisal of a legendary age.
The first comprehensive study of its kind, this fully illustrated book establishes Paganism as a persistent force in European history with a profound influence on modern thinking. From the serpent goddesses of ancient Crete to modern nature-worship and the restoration of the indigenous religions of eastern Europe, this wide-ranging book offers a rewarding new perspective of European history. In this definitive study, Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick draw together the fragmented sources of Europe's native religions and establish the coherence and continuity of the Pagan world vision. Exploring Paganism as it developed from the ancient world through the Celtic and Germanic periods, the authors finally appraise modern Paganism and its apparent causes as well as addressing feminist spirituality, the heritage movement, nature-worship and `deep' ecology This innovative and comprehensive history of European Paganism will provide a stimulating, reliable guide to this popular dimension of religious culture for the academic and the general reader alike.
1914 dawned with Britain at peace, albeit troubled by faultlines within and threats without: Ireland trembled on the brink of civil war; suffragette agitation was assuming an ever more violent hue; and suspicions of Germany's ambitions bred a paranoia that was expressed in a rash of 'invasion scare' literature. Then when shots rang out in Sara-jevo on 28 June, they set in train a tumble of diplomatic dominos that led to Britain declaring war on Germany. Nigel Jones depicts every facet of a year that changed Britain for ever. From gun-running in Ulster to an attack by suffragettes on a Velasquez painting in the National Gallery; from the launch of HMHS Britannic to cricketer J.T. Hearne's 3000th first-class wicket; from the opening of London's first nightclub to the embarking for Belgium of the BEF, he traces the events of a momentous year from its benign domestic beginnings to its descent into the nightmare of European war. Please note: This ebook is hand-crafted. Well not quite, but it is certainly a cut above the rest; great care has been taken to make sure it is both beautiful and highly functional.
Paragon of youthful beauty, romantic symbol of a lost England, and precociously gifted poet, Rupert Chawner Brooke died in a hospital ship off the Aegean island of Skyros in April 1915, aged just 27. All England mourned his passing. But behind the glow of myth lies a darker reality. At the height of his promise a disappointment in love triggered a mental and physical collapse that brought his inner complexities to the surface. Letters reveal a man who was sexually ambivalent, misogynistic, anti-Semitic – and sometimes alarmingly unstable. This revised edition of Nigel Jones's admired biography, including an account of a previously unknown affair of Brooke's, reveals a more conflicted and troubled individual than the gilded Adonis of English literary myth.