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Growing up, Luke Dryden was dominated by all things military; he is a natural for the army. So it is no surprise that he becomes a member of Special Air Services, the pride of Britain's Army. The SAS involves action, adventure, individual accomplishment, and comradeship without equal to any army in the world. What more could a British soldier ask for? For years, Dryden serves his country well. But he soon becomes disillusioned by his country's leaders who seem to have no regard for the safety and well-being of its citizens, especially its armed forces. Twelve years of government by a gang of political revisionists headed by Tony Blair has reduced the United Kingdom to the status of a banana republic. High-placed leaders within the military are fed up, including Colonel Jock Wingate. He envisions a military takeover of the government to save the country from those who seek to destroy it. Wingate recruits the talented Major Dryden to join the movement and become a fifth columnist working underground. But the goal to topple the diabolical New Labor Party will not be an easy one.
This book illuminates two familiar phenomena – diplomacy and the Commonwealth – from a new and unfamiliar angle: the atypical way in which the Commonwealth’s members came to, and continue to, engage in official relations with each other. This innovative and wide-ranging study is based on archival material from four states, interviews and correspondence with diplomats, and a wide range of secondary sources. It shows how members of an empire found it necessary to engage in diplomacy and, in so doing, created a singular, and often remarkably intimate, diplomatic system. The result is a fascinating, multidisciplinary exploration of the evolving Commonwealth and the way in which its 53 members and Ireland conduct diplomacy with one another, and in so doing have contributed a distinctive terminology to the diplomatic lexicon.
This book offers a timely, and fresh historical perspective on the politics of independent Ireland. Interwar Ireland’s politics have been caricatured as an anomaly, with the distinction between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael bewildering political commentators and scholars alike. It is common for Ireland’s politics to be presented as an anomaly that compare unfavourably to the neat left/right cleavages evident in Britain and much of Europe. By offering an historical re-appraisal of the Irish Free State’s politics, anchored in the wider context of inter-war Europe, Mel Farrell argues that the Irish party system is not unique in having two dominant parties capable of adapting to changing circumstances, and suggests that this has been a key strength of Irish democracy. Moreover, the book challenges the tired cliché of ‘Civil War Politics’ by demonstrating that events subsequent to Civil War led the Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil cleavage dominant in the twentieth-century.
Vols. 1- include the sections: Writings on Irish history, 1936-1979; Research on Irish history in Irish, British and American universities, 1937/8-
Hockey lovers will be fascinated by the truth about how the National Hockey League was founded and how, through less than savory means, it captured permanent possession of the Stanley Cup. Deceptions and Doublecross begins with the 1917 conspiracy among a Montreal contingent of the National Hockey Association to oust Toronto owner Edward James Livingstone from the league. The result was the transformation of the NHA into the NHL, with Frank Calder as president, leaving Livingstone out in the cold. Under Calder’s iron-fisted direction, the NHL became the only major hockey league in North America, and gained exclusive claim to the Stanley Cup.
The population of Ireland is five million, but 70 million people worldwide call themselves Irish. Here, Tim Pat Coogan travels around the globe to tell their story. Irish emigration first began in the 12th century when the Normans invaded Ireland. Cromwell's terrorist campaign in the 17th century drove many Irish to France and Spain, while Cromwell deported many more to the West Indies and Virginia. Millions left due to the famine and its aftermath between 1845 and 1961. Where did they all go? From the memory of the wild San Patricios Brigade soldiers who deserted the American army during the Mexican War to fight on the side of their fellow Catholics to Australia's Irish Robin Hood: Ned Kelly, Coogan brings the vast reaches of the Irish diaspora to life in this collection of vivid and colourful tales. Rich in characterization and detail, not to mention the great Coogan wit, this is an invaluable volume that belongs on the bookshelf of every Celtophile.
This book addresses the topical question of Northern Ireland's peace process and the manner in which it was negotiated.
“The war to end all wars” rings out a bitter mockery of the First World War, often viewed as the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century, the crucible from which Soviet, Fascist, and Nazi dictatorships emerged. Today’s conventional wisdom is that the Great War attuned the world to large-scale slaughter, that post-war efforts directed by the Treaty at Versailles were botched, that unbridled new nationalisms made the Second World War inevitable. This provocative book refutes such interpretations, arguing instead that the first two decades of the twentieth century—and the First World War in particular—played an essential part in the construction of a peaceful new order on a globa...
In the months following his resignation as PM in late August 1941, Menzies swayed between relief at his release from the burdens of office as PM and despair that his life at the top had come to so little. Many followers of Australian political history, including Liberal party supporters, forget that Robert Menzies had many years in the political wilderness not knowing he would end up being Australia’s longest-serving prime minister. This book focuses on the period between 1941, when Menzies lost the prime-ministership, to 1949, when he regained it. In the interim he travelled around the world, spending an extended time in Britain during World War II, set up the Liberal Party and, the author argues, developed the leadership qualities that made him so successful. Anne Henderson refers to this time as his real political blooding.