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This biography of soldier, statesman, and journalist Oliver Risdale Baldwin, second Earl Baldwin, examines Baldwin's life from his privileged days at Eton as the son of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to his dangerous assignment as correspondent for the Daily Mail covering the Spanish Civil War. Also covered are his contentious years in politics as a Socialist in the House of Commons, opposing his conservative father; his experiences in World War I and its aftermath in war-torn Armenia; and his years as a journalist, including his influential article "No Fascism for British Youth." Baldwin's private papers and archival research also reveal Baldwin's domestic life with lover John Boyle.
As Conservative party leader from 1923 to 1937 and three times prime minister, Stanley Baldwin was one of the pre-eminent public figures of interwar Britain. This edition of his letters, reports of his private conversations and related documents and illustrations, has two purposes. It publishes sources giving considerable insight into the nature and conduct of Conservative politics and government, with inside accounts of such national events as the destruction of the Lloyd George coalition, the protectionist election, and the Abdication. It also provides a documentary life and portrait of an intriguing, much-liked but controversial statesman. The personal qualities of few modern politicians have aroused so much puzzlement and criticism as Baldwin's. This volume will therefore be indispensable for understanding his character and career and for future studies of British politics and public life in the 1920s and 1930s.
A full account of the tragic life of John “Jack” Kipling, son of Rudyard Kipling, lost in battle during World War I. On September 27, 1915, John Kipling, the only son of Britain’s best loved poet, disappeared during the Battle of Loos. His body lay undiscovered for 77 years. Then, in a most unusual move, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) re-marked the grave of an unknown Lieutenant of the Irish Guards, as that of John Kipling. There is considerable evidence that John’s grave has been wrongly identified and for the first time in this book, the authors’ name the soldier they believe is buried in “John’s grave.” This is the first biography of John’s short life, analyzing the devastating effect it had on his famous father’s work.
Here in the pages of this compact little book are thousands of years history about a county which has many stories to tell, all laid out in an informative but easy-to-read way. From Roman times when three roads traversed its landscape, to its involvement in the Civil War, Worcestershire has seen it all. The county's people, who were employed in the coal mines and iron foundries of the north, in the salt works of Droitwich, who made nails in Bromsgrove, needles in Redditch and carpets in Kidderminster, all have tales to share. Some played a part in historic events: two brothers travelled to a new life on the Mayflower and three brothers were involved in the Gunpowder Plot. Worcestershire is also home to well-known politicians, musicians and poets. They all contributed to the story of Worcestershire and can be found in the pages of this 'little history'.
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John Beckett was a rising political star. Elected as Labour's youngest M.P. in 1924, he was constantly in the news and tipped for greatness. But ten years later he was propaganda chief for Mosley’s fascists, and one of Britain’s three best known anti-Semites. Yet his mother, whom he loved, was a Jew. Her ancestors were Solomons, Isaacs and Jacobsons, originally from Prussia. He successfully hid his Jewish ancestry all his life – he said his mother’s family were "fisher folk from the east coast." His son, the author of this book, acclaimed political biographer and journalist Francis Beckett, did not discover the truth until John Beckett had been dead for years. He left Mosley and founded the National Socialist League with William Joyce, later Lord Haw Haw, and spent the war years in prison, considered a danger to the war effort. For the rest of his life, and all of Francis Beckett’s childhood, John Beckett and his family were closely watched by the security services. Their devious machinations, traced in records only recently released, damaged chiefly his young family. This is a fascinating and brutally honest account of a troubled man in turbulent times.
The most popular author of his day and a paradox who was both an assertive British imperialist and a man of sensitivity and wide reading, Rudyard Kipling is best remembered now as the author of The Jungle Book, the Just-So Stories, and Kim. Fully annotated, volumes 5 and 6 conclude the publication of Kipling's letters, a heroic effort that began with the publication of volume 1 in 1990.