In 1866 Britain's foremost explorer, Dr David Livingstone, went in search of the answer to an age-old geographical riddle: where was the source of the Nile? Livingstone set out with a large team, on a course that would lead through unmapped, seemingly impenetrable terrain into areas populated by fearsome man-eating tribes. Within weeks his expedition began to fall apart - his entourage deserted him and Livingstone vanished without trace. He would not be heard from again for two years.

While debate raged in England over whether Livingstone could be found in the unmapped wilderness of the African interior, James Gordon Bennet, a brash young American newspaper tycoon, hatched a plan to capitalise on the world's fascination with the missing legend. He commissioned his star reporter, Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands in Wales!), to search for Livingstone. Stanley undertook his quest with gusto, filing reports that captivated readers and dominated the front page of the New York Herald for months.

INTO AFRICA traces the journeys of Livingstone and Stanley in alternating chapters. Livingstone's is one of trials and set-backs, that finds him alone and miles from civilisation. Stanley's is an awakening to the beauty of Africa, the grandeur of the landscape and the vivid diversity of its wildlife. It is also a journey that succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, clinching his place in history with the famous enquiry: 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'. In this, the first book to examine the extraordinary physical challenges, political intrigue and larger-

than-life personalities of this legendary story, Martin Dugard has opened a fascinating window on the golden age of exploration that will appeal to everyone's sense of adventure.

A story virtually unknown in the West, about two of the Middle East’s most remarkable figures—Oman’s Sultan Said and his rebellious daughter Princess Salme—comes to life in this narrative. From their capital on the sultry African island of Zanzibar, Sultan Said and his descendants were shadowed and all but shattered by the rise and fall of the nineteenth-century East African slave trade.

“As shrewd, liberal, and enlightened a prince as Arabia has ever produced.” That’s how explorer Richard Burton described Seyyid Said Al bin Sultan Busaid, who came to power in Oman in 1804 when he was fifteen years old. During his half-century reign, Said ruled with uncanny contradiction: as a believer in a tolerant Islam who gained power through bloodshed and perfidy, and as an open-minded, intellectually curious man who established relations with the West while building a vast commercial empire on the backs of tens of thousands of slaves. His daughter Salme, born to a concubine in a Zanzibar harem, scandalized her family and people by eloping to Europe with a German businessman in 1866, converting to Christianity, and writing the first-known autobiography of an Arab woman.

Christiane Bird paints a stunning portrait of violent family feuds, international intrigues, and charismatic characters—from Sultan Said and Princess Salme to the wildly wealthy slave trader Tippu Tip and the indefatigable British antislavery crusader Dr. David Livingstone. The

Sultan’s Shadow is a brilliantly researched and irresistibly readable foray into the stark brutality and decadent beauty of a vanished world.

John Kirk was the only companion of explorer David Livingstone to emerge untainted from the disastrous, tragic expedition up the Zambezi river between 1859 and 1863. Three years later, Kirk returned to Africa, to the notorious island of Zanzibar, ancient post of the slave trade between Africa and the Middle East. Half a century after the abolition of slavery in Britain, slave traffi cking persisted on Africa's east coast, apparently tolerated and even connived with by parts of the British Empire in the Indian Ocean. Kirk, appointed as medical officer to the British Consulate in Zanzibar, could do nothing. This extraordinary and controversial book brings Kirk's years in Zanzibar to life. The horrors of the overland passage from the interior, and the Zanzibar slave market itself, are vividly described, together with Kirk's final, bitter conflict with Livingstone, who blamed Kirk for his own failings. But it was Kirk's success in closing down the slave trade on the island which made him famous across the world. Using private diaries and papers, a long forgotten Victorian hero and an extraordinary chapter in British history are revived in detail.

Between 1856 and 1876, five explorers, all British, took on the seemingly impossible task of discovering the source of the White Nile. Showing exceptional courage and extraordinary resilience, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, Samuel Baker, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley risked their lives and their reputations in the name of this quest. They journeyed through East and Central Africa into unmapped territory, discovered the great lakesTanganyika and Victoria, navigated the upper Nile and the Congo, and suffered the ravages of flesh-eating ulcers, malaria and deep spear wounds. Using new research, Tim Jeal tells the story of these great expeditions, while also examining the tragic consequences which the Nile search has had on Uganda and Sudan to this day.

Explorers of the Nile is a gripping adventure story with an arresting analysis of Britain's imperial past and the Scramble for Africa.

In 1870 barely one tenth of Africa was under European control. By 1914 only about one tenth – Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Liberia – was not. This book offers a clear and concise account of the ‘scramble’ or ‘race’ for Africa, the period of around 20 years during which European powers carved up the continent with little or no consultation of its inhabitants.

In her classic overview, M.E. Chamberlain:

Contrasts the Victorian image of Africa with what we now know of African civilisation and history

Examines in detail case histories from Egypt to Zimbabwe Argues that the history and background of Africa are as important as European

politics and diplomacy in understanding the 'scramble' Considers the historiography of the topic, taking into account Marxist and anti-

Marxist, financial, economic, political and strategic theories of European imperialism

This indispensible introduction, now in a fully updated third edition, provides the most accessible survey of the ‘scramble for Africa’ currently available. The new edition includes primary source material unpublished elsewhere, new illustrations and additional pedagogical features. It is the perfect starting point for any study of this period in African history.

M.E. CHAMBERLAIN is Professor Emeritus at Swansea University.

Hailed as an explorer unrivalled since the Elizabethan era, Livingstone was also revered by the Victorians as a near saint - a myth in his own lifetime. This biography attempts to show that this myth of Livingstone was, in actual fact, a distortion of the truth and that the real man was far more remarkable - a man capable of ruthless cruelty as well as self-sacrifice, and dogged all his life by contradiction and failure; for Livingstone failed as a missionary, failed as a parent and failed on his search for the Nile's source.

This astoundingly successful, superbly reviewed book vividly recreates the excitement, brutality and adventure of the British Empire. Ferguson's most revolutionary and popular work, EMPIRE is a major reinterpretation of the British Empire as one of the world's greatest modernising forces. It shows on a vast canvas how the British Empire in the 19th Century spearheaded real globalisation with steampower, telegraphs, guns, engineers, missionaries and millions of settlers.

No empire has been larger or more diverse than the British Empire. At its apogee in the 1930s, 42 million Britons governed 500 million foreign subjects. Britannia ruled the waves and a quarter of the earth's surface was painted red on the map. Yet no empire (except the Russian) disappeared more swiftly.

Within a generation this mighty structure collapsed, often amid bloodshed, leaving behind a scatter of sea-girt dependencies and a ghost of an empire, the Commonwealth, overshadowed by Imperial America. It left a contested legacy: at best a sporting spirit, a legal code and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife.

Full of vivid particulars, brief lives, telling anecdotes, comic episodes, symbolic moments and illustrative vignettes, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire is popular history at its scholarly best.

Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980 after a long civil war in Rhodesia. The white minority government had become an international outcast in refusing to give in to the inevitability of black majority rule. Finally the defiant white prime minister Ian Smith was forced to step down and Mugabe was elected president. Initially he promised reconciliation between white and blacks, encouraged Zimbabwe's economic and social development, and was admired throughout the world as one of the leaders of the emerging nations and as a model for a transition from colonial leadership. But as Martin Meredith shows in this history of Mugabe's rule, Mugabe from the beginning was sacrificing his purported ideals—and Zimbabwe's potential—to the goal of extending and cementing his autocratic leadership. Over time, Mugabe has become ever more dictatorial, and seemingly less and less interested in the welfare of his people, treating Zimbabwe's wealth and resources as spoils of war for his inner circle. In recent years he has unleashed a reign of terror and corruption in his country. Like the Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Zimbabwe has been on a steady slide to disaster. Now for the first time the whole story is told in detail by an expert. It is a riveting and tragic political story, a morality tale, and an essential text for understanding today's Africa.

The Cold War shaped the world we live in today - its politics, economics, and military affairs. This book shows how the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created the foundations for most of the key conflicts we see today, including the War on Terror. It focuses on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - gave rise to resentments and resistance that in the end helped topple one superpower and still seriously challenge the other. Ranging from China to Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, Angola, Cuba, and Nicaragua, it provides a truly global perspective on the Cold War. And by exploring both the development of interventionist ideologies and the revolutionary movements that confronted interventions, the book links the past with the present in ways that no other major work on the Cold War era has succeeded in doing.

Based on unprecedented research in Cuban, American and European archives, this is an account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with US policy towards the continent. Piero Gleijeses aims to shed new light on US foreign policy and CIA covert operations, revolutionize the view of Cuba's international role and provide the first look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War.

This book analyses the causes of armed conflicts in Southern Africa during the Cold War. It examines the influence of the various external forces in the region during this period and their relationship to local movements and governments.

The book focuses on states experiencing violent internal conflict and foreign intervention, that is Angola, Mozambique, Namibia , South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The author provides an unique history of the key part that the Soviet Union played in these developments. Spanning 30 years, the book explores how each country struggled for genuine independence against colonialism and apartheid and their place in the wider conflicts encompassed by the Cold War.

This 2009 book details the devastating Mau Mau civil war fought in Kenya during the 1950s and the legacies of that conflict for the post-colonial state. As many Kikuyu fought with the colonial government as loyalists joined the Mau Mau rebellion. Focusing on the role of those loyalists, the book examines the ways in which residents of the country's Central Highlands sought to navigate a path through the bloodshed and uncertainty of civil war. It explores the instrumental use of violence, changes to allegiances, and the ways in which cleavages created by the war informed local politics for decades after the conflict's conclusion. Moreover, the book moves toward a more nuanced understanding of the realities and effects of counterinsurgency warfare. Based on archival research in Kenya and the United Kingdom and insights from literature from across the social sciences, the book reconstructs the dilemmas facing members of society at war with itself and its colonial ruler.

This book depicts the military history of Southern Rhodesia from the first resistance to colonial rule, through the period of UDI (unilateral declaration of independence) by the Smith government to the Lancaster House agreement that transferred power. There are vivid accounts of the operations against the 'guerillas' by the security forces and the intensity of the fighting will surprise readers. Atrocities were undoubtedly committed by both sides but equally the protagonists were playing for very high stakes.rnrnBut this is more than just a book on military operations. It provides expert analysis of the historical situation and examines events up to the present day, including Mugabe's operations against rival tribes and white farmers.rnrnFor a thorough work on its subject this book cannot be bettered. Essential reading for those wishing to learn more about a counter-insurgency campaign. The ingenuity of the Rhodesian military fighting against overwhelming odds and restricted by sanctions is impressive but the outcome culminating in the Lancaster House Agreement was inevitable.

In 1879, armed only with their spears, their rawhide shields, and their incredible courage, the Zulus challenged the might of Victorian England and, initially, inflicted on the British the worst defeat a modern army has ever suffered at the hands of men without guns. This definitive account of the rise of the Zulu nation under the great ruler Shaka and its fall under Cetshwayo has been acclaimed for its scholarship, its monumental range, and its spellbinding readability. The story is studded with tales of drama and heroism: the Battle of Isandhlwana, where the Zulu army wiped out the major British column; and Rorke's Drift, where a handful of British troops beat off thousands of Zulu warriors and won eleven Victoria Crosses.

The prize was great -- not just land, but the riches it held, in the form of diamonds and gold. What became a country called South Africa was, until 1910, a vast and untamed land where great fortunes could be made (and lost); where great battles were fought (and lost); and where great men had their reputations forged, or dashed, or sometimes both. Martin Meredith's follow-up to his magisterial The State of Africa is an equally epic new history of the making of South Africa. Covering the extraordinarily eventful four decades leading up to the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, it covers some of the most iconic tales of imperial history. The Zulus at Rorke's Drift; the Jameson Raid; the diamond and gold rushes at Kimberley and Witwatersrand; the Boer wars; the titanic struggle between the arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes and his Boer rival, Paul Kruger -- DIAMONDS, GOLD AND WAR brings all of these and more together in a stunningly coherent and compelling narrative. History, somehow, just isn't as colourful any more.

In 1880 the continent of Africa was largely unexplored by Europeans. Less than thirty years later, only Liberia and Ethiopia remained unconquered by them. The rest - 10 million square miles with 110 million bewildered new subjects - had been carved up by five European powers (and one extraordinary individual) in the name of Commerce, Christianity, 'Civilization' and Conquest. The Scramble for Africa is the first full-scale study of that extraordinary episode in history.

The war declared by the Boers on 11 October 1899 gave the British, as Kipling said, 'no end of a lesson'. It proved to be the longest, the costliest, the bloodiest and the most humiliating campaign that Britain fought between 1815 and 1914.

Thomas Pakenham has written the first full-scale history of the war since 1910. His narrative is based on first-hand and largely unpublished sources ranging from the private papers of the leading protagonists to the recollections of survivors from both sides. Out of this historical gold-mine, the author has constructed a narrative as vivid and fast-moving as a novel, and a history that in scholarship, breadth and impact will endure for many years.

Apartheid was an oppressive and brutal system of racial discrimination that captured and appalled world opinion during the latter half of the twentieth century. South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid examines the history of South Africa during this period of apartheid: from 1948 when the Nationalists came to power, through to the collapse of the system in the 1990s.

Written in a clear and accessible manner, the book:

charts the history of the apartheid regime, starting with the institution of the policy, through the mounting opposition in the 1970’s and 1980’s, to its eventual collapse in the 1990’s

highlights the internal contradictions of white supremacy demonstrates how black opposition, from that of Nelson Mandela to that of

thousands of ordinary people, finally brought an end to white minority rule provides an extensive set of documents to give insight into the minds of those who

fashioned and those who opposed apartheid discusses the subsequent legacy of apartheid

Also containing a Chronology, Glossary, Who’s Who of leading figures and Guide to Further Reading, this book provides students with the most up-to-date and succinct introduction to the ideology and practice of apartheid in South Africa.

The riveting memoirs of the outstanding moral and political leader of our time, A LONG WALK TO FREEDOM brilliantly re-creates the drama of the experiences that helped shape Nelson Mandela's destiny. Emotive, compelling and uplifting, A LONG WALK TO FREEDOM is the exhilarating story of an epic life; a story of hardship, resilience and ultimate triumph told with the clarity and eloquence of a born leader.

'Burns with the luminosity of faith in the invincible nature of human hope and dignity ... Unforgettable' Andre Brink

'Enthralling ... Mandela emulates the few great political leaders such as Lincoln and Gandhi, who go beyond mere consensus and move out ahead of their followers to break new ground'

"Hutus kill Tutsis, then Tutsis kill Hutus--if that's really all there is to it, then no wonder we can't be bothered with it," Philip Gourevitch writes, imagining the response of somebody in a country far from the ethnic strife and mass killings of Rwanda. But the situation is not so simple, and in this complex and wrenching book, he explains why the Rwandan genocide should not be written off as just another tribal dispute.

The "stories" in this book's subtitle are both the author's, as he repeatedly visits this tiny country in an attempt to make sense of what has happened, and those of the people he interviews. These include a Tutsi doctor who has seen much of her family killed over decades of Tutsi oppression, a Schindleresque hotel manager who hid hundreds of refugees from certain death, and a Rwandan bishop who has been accused of supporting the slaughter of Tutsi schoolchildren, and can only answer these charges by saying, "What could I do?" Gourevitch, a staff writer for the New Yorker, describes Rwanda's history with remarkable clarity and documents the experience of tragedy with a sober grace. The reader will ask along with the author: Why does this happen? And why don't we bother to stop it? --Maria Dolan, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

When President Habyarimana’s jet was shot down in April 1994, Rwanda erupted into a hundred-day orgy of killing – which left up to a million dead. Fergal Keane travelled through the country as the genocide was continuing, and his powerful analysis reveals the terrible truth behind the headlines.

‘A tender, angry account … As well as being a scathing indictment – Keane says the genocide inflicted on the Tutsis was planned well in advance by Hutu leaders – this is a graphic view of news-gathering in extremis. It deserves to become a classic’ Independent.

A riveting and highly readable account of the Congo massacre, peopled by callous monarchs, corrupt adventurers and a handful of genuine heroes.

On 12 May 1883, the German flag was raised on the coast of South-West Africa, modern Namibia - the beginnings of Germany's African Empire. As colonial forces moved in , their ruthless punitive raids became an open war of extermination. Thousands of the indigenous people were killed or driven out into the desert to die. By 1905, the survivors were interned in concentration camps, and systematically starved and worked to death.

Years later, the people and ideas that drove the ethnic cleansing of German South West Africa would influence the formation of the Nazi party. The Kaiser's Holocaust uncovers extraordinary links between the two regimes: their ideologies, personnel, even symbols and uniform.

The Herero and Nama genocide was deliberately concealed for almost a century. Today, as the graves of the victims are uncovered, its re-emergence challenges the belief that Nazism was an aberration in European history. The Kaiser's Holocaust passionately narrates this harrowing story and explores one of the defining episodes of the twentieth century from a new angle. Moving, powerful and unforgettable, it is a story that needs to be told.

'Half-man, half-snake' was how the Emperor Haile Selassie was described by one of his most ferocious rivals, the eunuch Balcha, who had commanded the artillery at the battle of Adowa where the first Italian invasion of Ethiopia was bloodily repulsed. Forty years later the old Galla warrior was to die, machine-gun in hand, once again attempting-this time without success-to halt the Italian intruders. Anthony Mocker's immensely readable epic history is divided into three parts. First the scene is set in Ethiopia, still feudal, and in Italy, newly fascist. The second part describes in compelling detail the Italian invasion and the battles in the north: it ends with the invaders in undisputed control of their new Roman Empire and with Haile Selassie living in apparently hopeless exile near Bath. The final section recounts how, following Italy's entry into World War II, British Somaliland was invaded and conquered and fears of a British debacle spread all over East Africa. But then the tide of battle turned. As Mussolini's dreams crumbled into dust and his armies into defeat, the ex-Emperor, supported by the bold but amateurish troops of Orde Wingate's Gideon Force, fought his way step by step back into full control of his Empire, despite all the attempts to stop him by Italians, Ethiopians, and even by his allies the British. First published in 1984, this new edition of Anthony Mockler's acclaimed history contains a new foreword by the author. Praised as 'a memorable book' by John Keegan in the Sunday Times, Haile Selassie's War remains an epic tale of colonial ambition, warfare and heroism.

Haile Selassie, King of Kings, Elect of God, Lion of Judah, His Most Puissant Majesty and Distinguished Highness the Emperor of Ethiopia, reigned from 1930 until he was overthrown by the army in 1974. While the fighting still raged, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's leading foreign correspondent, traveled to Ethiopia to seek out and interview Selassie's servants and closest associates on how the Emperor had ruled and why he fell. This "sensitive, powerful. . .history" (The New York Review of Books) is Kapuscinski's rendition of their accounts—humorous, frightening, sad, groteque—of a man living amidst nearly unimaginable pomp and luxury while his people teetered netween hunger and starvation.

A collection of case studies of nine African countries, "Civil Wars in Africa" provides a comparative perspective on the causes of civil war and the processes by which internal conflict may be resolved or averted. The book focuses on the wars in Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda as well as the experiences of Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where civil war was averted, to underline conditions under which conflict can most successfully be managed. John Kiyaga-Nsubuga focuses on Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement regime's attempt to bring peace to Uganda. John Prendergast and Mark Duffield look at Ethiopia's long civil war and the role of liberation politics and external engagement. Bruce Jones studies the ethnic roots of the civil war in Rwanda. Elwood Dunn explores political manipulation and ethnic differences as causes of civil strife in Liberia. John Saul examines the role of Western powers in establishing peace in Mozambique. Hussein Adam describes the collapse of the authoritarian regime in Somalia and the subsequent rise of inter-clan and sub-clan rivalry. Taisier Ali and Robert Matthews argue that the forty-year conflict in Sudan is much more complex than the usual view that it results from the pitting of the Arab, Islamic North against the African, Christian South. Shifting the focus to how internal unrest may be managed, Hevina Dashwood examines government initiatives undertaken to maintain stability in Zimbabwe and Cranford Pratt describes the policies and institutions developed by Nyerere that enabled Tanzania to avoid ethnic, regional, and religious factionalism andintra-elite rivalries. James Busumtwi-Sam explores multilateral third-party intervention, highlighting the changing role of the OAU and the United Nations and their effectiveness in averting war. The concluding chapter draws together findings from the individual case studies and incorporates them into the larger corpus of the literature. Taisier M. Ali, formerly professor of political economy at the University of Khartoum, is presently a visiting scholar in the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto. Robert O. Matthews is professor of political science, University of Toronto.

The legendary German general of the bush war in Africa

For many the Great War means the Western Front, that gruelling, slogging stalemate of attrition that was the mud and blood of trench warfare. Yet this was truly a 'world war' fought between nations, many of whom were imperial powers with footholds, interests or colonies across the globe which were often in close proximity to those who were now their enemies. Conflicts took place on land, sea and in the air; the battlegrounds could be tropical jungle or bleached desert. For many of those interested in the war of 1914-18 these so called 'side-show' campaigns are, liberated from the standstill of the European theatre, of special interest. These were mobile wars where the talents of good commanders found the potential for expression and where often exotic terrain and colonial troops brought unique colour and singular events into being. Never was this more applicable than in East Africa where British and German territories lay 'cheek by jowl'. The men who fought these campaigns included Africans, both black and white, who knew the bush well and were equal to its challenges. The author of this book was one of the most remarkable commanders in the entire war not only in the East African Campaign, for he was never truly beaten in battle though quite often the odds were decidedly against him. This was a German with a genius for guerrilla warfare whose achievements could rival the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia. Inevitably, his account of his experiences during the First World War, originally published shortly thereafter, make essential and riveting reading for all those interested in the subject. Available in softcover and hardcover with dustjacket.

In the aftermath of the Great War the East Africa campaign was destined to be dismissed by many in Britain as a remote 'sideshow' in which only a handful of names and episodes - the Königsberg, von Lettow-Vorbeck, the 'Naval Expedition to Lake Tanganyika' - achieved any lasting notoriety. But to the other combatant powers - Germany, South Africa, India, Belgium and Portugal - it was, and would remain, a campaign of huge importance.

A 'small war', consisting of a few 'local affairs', was all that was expected in August 1914 as Britain moved to eliminate the threat to the high seas of German naval bases in Africa. But two weeks after the Armistice was signed in Europe British and German troops were still fighting in Africa after four years of what one campaign historian described as 'a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times'.

The expense of the campaign to the British Empire was immense, the Allied and German 'butchers bills' even greater. But the most tragic consequence of the two sides' deadly game of 'tip and run' was the devastation of an area five times the size of Germany, and civilian suffering on a scale unimaginable in

Europe. Such was the cost of 'The White Man's Palaver', the final phase of the European conquest of Africa.

Unmatched as the historian of the British imperial military experience, Byron Farwell has written a lively, dependable account of World War I's most exotic campaign. The book is an impressive blend of action and analysis. --Allan R. Millett, Ohio State University

About the Author

During the Second World War, Byron Farwell (1921 1999) served as a captain of engineers attached to the Mediterranean Allied Air Force in the British Eighth Army area.

Imperial Reckoning- This unforgettable account of the unraveling of the British colonial empire in Kenya is a major work of history detailing the prisons, work camps, and terror that the British imposed on millions just after World War II. It has chilling parallels to America's own imperial project.

This book tells for the first time the story of the dirty war the British fought in Kenya, in the run-up to the country's independence in 1964. In 1952, after years of tension and bitterness, the grievances of the Gikuyu people of central Kenya exploded into open rebellion. Only 32 European settlers died in the subsequent fighting, but more than 1,800 African civilians, over 3,000 African police and soldiers, and 12,000 Mau Mau rebels were killed. Between 1953 and 1956 Britain sent over a thousand Kenyans to the gallows, often on trumped up or non-existent charges. Meanwhile 70,000 people were imprisoned in camps without trial for between two and six years.

David Anderson provides a full and convincing account of a war in which all sides behaved badly, and therefore few of the combatants can be either fully excused, or blamed. These events are still within living memory, and eye-witness testimonies provide the backbone of this controversial story.

Since independence from Great Britain in 1963, Kenya has survived five decades as a functioning nation-state, holding regular elections; its borders and political system intact and avoiding open war with its neighbours and military rule internally. It has been a favoured site for Western aid, trade, investment and tourism and has remained a close security partner for Western governments. However, Kenya's successive governments have failed to achieve adequate living conditions for most of its citizens; violence, corruption and tribalism have been ever-present,and its politics have failed to transcend its history. The decisions of the early years of independence and the acts of its leaders in the decades since have changed the country's path in unpredictable ways, but key themes of conflicts remain: over land, money, power,economic policy, national autonomy and the distribution of resources between classes and communities. While the country's political institutions have remained stable, the nation has changed, its population increasing nearly five-fold in five decades. But the economic and political elite's struggle for state resources and the exploitation of ethnicity for political purposes still threaten the country's existence. Today, Kenyans are arguing over many of the issues that divided them 50 years ago. The new constitution promulgated in 2010 provides an opportunity for national renewal, but it must confront a heavy legacy of history. This book reveals that history.

On December 12, 1963, people across Kenya joyfully celebrated independence from British colonial rule, anticipating a bright future of prosperity and social justice. As the nation approaches the fiftieth anniversary of its independence, however, the people's dream remains elusive. During its first five decades Kenya has experienced assassinations, riots, coup attempts, ethnic violence and political corruption. The ranks of the disaffected, the unemployed and the poor have multiplied. In this authoritative and insightful account of Kenya's history from 1963 to the present day, Daniel Branch sheds new light on the nation's struggles and the complicated causes behind them. Branch describes how Kenya constructed itself as a state and how ethnicity has proved a powerful force in national politics from the start, as have disorder and violence. He explores such divisive political issues as the needs of the landless poor, international relations with Britain and with the Cold War superpowers, and the direction of economic development. Tracing an escalation of government corruption over time, the author brings his discussion to the present, paying particular attention to the rigged election of 2007, the subsequent compromise government, and Kenya's prospects as a still-evolving independent state.

Frederick Cooper's latest book on the history of decolonization and independence in Africa initiates a new textbook series: New Approaches to African History. This text will help students understand the historical process out of which Africa's current position in the world has emerged. Bridging the divide between colonial and post-colonial history, it allows readers to see just what political independence did and did not signify and how men and women, peasants and workers, religious leaders and local leaders sought to refashion the way they lived, worked, and interacted with each other.

Richard Dowden is perhaps our leading journalist of African affairs. Since first arriving in Idi Amin's Uganda in 1971 he has never stopped learning about and reporting on real Africans and the realities of life in Africa's many and varied lands. Like many young Westerners, he first went to Africa to 'save' it, but he stayed to learn from it. Africans taught him how to laugh and dance, how to tease but not command, how not to expect the truth and never to blurt it out, how to avoid danger, and how to be patient. Very, very patient. Such patience has served Dowden well, for he returns now from his decades-long journey among Africans with a report on their various ways and dreams, their priorities and pressures, that is far more revealing about the past, present and future of this fascinating and bewildering continent than any number of war stories or economic reports. Dowden combines a novelist's gift for atmosphere with the unblinking scholar's grasp of historical change to produce one of the most compelling and revealing accounts of modern sub-Saharan Africa yet. His experiences there required him to re-evaluate all he had been taught to believe, his landmark book enables its readers to see and understand this miraculous continent in a new light too.

Africa is forever on our TV screens, but the bad-news stories (famine, genocide, corruption) massively outweigh the good (South Africa). Ever since the process of decolonialisation began in the mid-1950s, and arguably before, the continent has appeared to be stuck in a process of irreversible decline. Constant war, improper use of natural resources and misappropriation of revenues and aid monies contribute to an impression of a continent beyond hope. How did we get here? What, if anything, is to be done? Weaving together the key stories and characters of the last fifty years into a stunningly compelling and coherent narrative, Martin Meredith has produced the definitive history of how European ideas of how to organise 10,000 different ethnic groups has led to what Tony Blair described as the 'scar on the conscience of the world'. Authoritative, provocative and consistently fascinating, this is a major book on one of the most important issues facing the West today.

This penetrating, timely portrait of Robert Mugabe is the psychobiography of a man whose once brilliant career has ruined Zimbabwe and cast shame on the African continent. Heidi Holland's tireless investigation begins with her having dinner with Mugabe, the freedom fighter, and ends in a searching interview with Zimbabwe's president more than 30 years later. The author charts Mugabe's gradual self-destruction, and uncovers some of the most respectable international players in the Zimbabwe tragedy. Probing the mystery of Africa's loyalty to one of its worst dictators, Holland explores the contradictions that cloud the life of the man who had embodied a continent's promise.

The ghosts of the British Empire continue to haunt today's international scene and many of the problems faced by the Empire have still not been resolved. In Iraq, Kashmir, Burma, Sudan, Nigeria and Hong Kong, new difficulties, resulting from British imperialism, have arisen and continue to baffle politicians and diplomats. This powerful new book addresses the realities of the British Empire from its inception to its demise, skewering fantasies of its glory and cataloguing both the inadequacies of its ideals and the short-termism of its actions.

George Bush's 'War on Terror' has inspired a forest of books about the new American Empire. But what about Britain's role in the world? "A People's History of the British Empire" challenges the claim that the British Empire was a kinder, gentler empire and suggests that the description of 'Rogue State' is more fitting. How many people today know about Britain's deep involvement in the opium drug trade in China, or that Tony Blair's hero Gladstone devoted his maiden parliamentary speech to defending his family's slave plantation in Jamaica? John Newsinger has written a wonderful popular history of key episodes in British imperial history. He pays particular attention to the battles of the colonised to free themselves of its baleful rule, including Rebellion in Jamaica; The Irish Famine; The Opium Wars; The Great Indian Rebellion; The Conquest of Egypt; Palestine in Revolt; 'Quit India' and the struggle for Independence; Suez; Malaya; Kenya and Rhodesia; and, Britain and American Imperialism.

A gripping eyewitness account of the 1964 Zanzibar revolution as told by the only American present throughout the turmoil. The Cold War exploded in Zanzibar in 1964 when African rebels slaughtered one of every ten Arabs. Led by a strange, messianic Ugandan, Cuban-trained factions headed the rebels, making Zanzibar (in the eyes of Washington) a potentially cancerous base for the communist subversion of mainland Africa. Exotic Zanzibar - fabled island of spices, former slave-trading entrept, and stepping-off point for 19th century expeditions into the vast interior of the Dark Continent - had succumbed to the terror of 20th century revolution and Cold War intrigue.In the vivid, eyewitness tradition of The Bang Bang Club and The Skull beneath the Skin , Donald Petterson weaves an engrossing tale of human drama played out against a background of violence and horror. As the only American in Zanzibar throughout the revolution, Petterson reports with the inside authority of a highly placed diplomatic observer, illuminating how the current troubles in Zanzibar are rooted in the Cold War and the revolution of 1964.

THE AGE OF EXTREMES is eminent historian Eric Hobsbawm's personal vision of the twentieth century. Remarkable in its scope, and breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, this immensely rewarding book reviews the uniquely destructive and creative nature of the troubled twentieth century and makes challenging predicitions for the future.

'...penetrating and profoundly provocative book.

This monumental narrative clarifies, analyses and demystifies the terrible ordeal of the Vietnam war. Free of ideological bias, profound in its understanding and compassionate in its portrayal of humanity, it is filled with fresh revelations drawn from secret documents and from exclusive interviews with the participants - French, American, Vietnamese, Chinese: diplomats, military commanders, high government officials, journalists, nurses, workers and soldiers.

The Vietnam war was the most convulsive tragedy of recent times. This is its definitive history.

In Vietnam, Professor, Christian G. Appy has created a staggering and monumental oral history of the type that is created only once in a generation. The vivid accounts of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975.

The testimony in this book, sometimes detached and reflective, often raw and emotional, allows us to see and feel what this war meant to people on all sides - Americans and Vietnamese, generals and guerillas, policy makers and protesters, CIA operatives, pilots and doctors, artists and journalists, and a variety of ordinary citizens whose lives were swept up in a cataclysm that killed three million people.

A remarkable, eye-opening and essential read for anyone with even a passing interest in one of the 20th century's defining conflicts.

This supplementary book provides a history of the Vietnam War from the perspective of North Vietnam. Professor Duiker is one of the English speaking world's foremost authorities on this period of Vietnamese history and is a former foreign service officer posted in Vietnam. Based on recent scholarship and evidence, this book includes Vietnamese documents and research available to very few scholars. Quotes are sprinkled throughout the book to show how the Vietnamese felt about the events that were taking place around them, and why they decided to behave the way they did. Written for the general reader, this lively account of "the other side" includes distinctive photographs and sources.

In March 1965, Marine Lieutnant Philip J. Caputo landed in Danang with the first ground combat unit committed to fight in Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history's ugliest wars, he returned home - physically whole, emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism shattered. A decade later, Caputo would write in A Rumor of War, 'This is simply a story about war, about the things men do in war and the things war does to them'.

It is far more then that. It is, as Theodore Solotaroff wrote in the New York Times Book Review, 'the troubled conscience of America speaking passionately, truthfully, finally'. It is the book that shattered America's deliberate indifference to the fate of the men it sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam, and in the years since it was first published it has become a basic text on that war. But in the literature of war that stretches back to Homer, it has also taken its place as an esteemed classic to rank alongside All Quiet on the Western Front and The Naked and the Dead.

The Vietnam War examines the conflict from its origins through to 1975 and North Vietnam’s victory. This new revised edition is completely up-to-date with current academic debates and includes new source material.

Mitchell Hall explores all the key elements of the conflict, including:

· US motivations for entering the war and the military strategies employed

· The role of the media

· The rise of domestic opposition

· The war’s impact in the US and Vietnam.

Mitchell Hall provides numerous insights into the political decisions of the Vietnamese communists, and Vietnam’s relations with other major powers, particularly China and the Soviet Union.

The main text is supported by a comprehensive documents section, and a range of study tools, including a Chronology of events, Who's Who, a Glossary of terms and a Further Reading section. Concise yet thorough, the book provides students with an accessible and stimulating introduction to the war.

Mitchell K. Hall is Professor of History at Central Michigan University. He is the author of Because of Their Faith (1990) and Crossroads: American Popular Culture and the Vietnam Generation (2005).

The Definitive Biography of One of the Most Impressive and Elusive Figures in History; Finally in paperback, the book that was named a New York Times Notable Book, as well as one of the best books of the year by both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Although Ho Chi Minh's life helped shape the 20th century, not until now has there been a major biography of this immensely important and little-understood political figure. This impressive work of history by a world-renowned authority on Vietnam now fills this gap, taking full advantage of information only recently declassified. Duiker, who has appeared on A&E, NPR, C-Span and Radio 4 to share his knowledge of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam War, now presents this wealth of information in driven, page-turning prose. Engrossing and impeccably researched, this is a revelatory portrait of one of the most mysterious figures of our time.

He became a myth in his own lifetime and an international martyr-figure upon his death; he was a revolutionary fighter, a military strategist, a social philosopher, an economist, a medical doctor, and a friend and confidant of Fidel Castro. Che Guevara's dream was an epic one - to unite Latin America and the rest of the developing world through armed revolution, and to end once and for all the poverty, injustice and petty nationalisms that had bled it for centuries. In the end Che failed in his quest but he is recognized as that one-in-a-million personality who just might have pulled it off.

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life shuttles between the revolutionary capitals of Havana and Algiers to the battlegrounds of Bolivia and the Congo; from the halls of power in Moscow and Washington to the exile havens of Miami, Mexico and Guatemala, in a gripping tale of revolution, international intrigue and covert operations. It has an epic sweep as it evokes an era of tumultuous change, describing major events like the Bay of Pigs invasion, the October Missile crisis and Kennedy's assassination. Among its cast of characters are scores of historic personalities including Castro, Kennedy, Kruschev, Mao Tse-tung, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, to name but a few.

Jon Lee Anderson has been given unprecedented access to the Cuban Government's archives and has had total co-operation from Che's widow, Aleida March, who has never previously spoken for publication about her late husband. He has obtained hitherto

unpublished documents, including several of Che's personal diaries and, in the course of his research, broke open a twenty-eight-year-old mystery - the whereabouts of Che's body in Bolivia. There is no doubt that this monumental work will stand as the definitive portrait of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating, yet largely unexplored, historical figures.

With crucial insights and indispensable information concerning modern-day political upheavals, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements provides a representative cross section of the most significant revolutions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This fourth edition is revised and updated with special focus on Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic revolutionary movements and a new chapter on the Latin American democratic revolutions of the past decade. In this widely used text, students can trace the historical development of nine revolutions using a five-factor analytical framework. Author James DeFronzo clearly explains all relevant concepts and events, the roles of key leaders, and the interrelation of each revolutionary movement with international economic and political developments and conflicts, including World Wars I and II, the Cold War, and the War on Terror. Student resources include multiple orienting maps, summary and analysis sections, suggested readings, chronologies, and documentary resources.

Empire's Workshop "Grandin has always been a brilliant historian; now he uses his detective skills in a book that is absolutely crucial to understanding our present."--Naomi Klein, author of "No Logo""" The British and Roman empires are often invoked as precedents to the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy. But America's imperial identity was actually shaped much closer to home.

The recent retirement of Fidel Castro turned the world's attention towards the island nation of Cuba and the question of what its future holds. Amid the talk and hypothesizing, it is worth taking a moment to consider how Cuba reached this point. Antoni Kapcia provides this with his incisive history of Cuba since 1959. Kapcia's history takes the Cuban Revolution as its starting point, analysing the process of social revolution, its benefits and disadvantages, popular participation in the revolution and the development of its ideology. Kapcia probes Castro's rapid rise to national leader, exploring his politics of defence and dissent as well as his contentious relationship with the USA from the beginning of his reign. The book also considers the evolution of the revolution's international profile and Cuba's foreign relations over the years, investigating issues and events such as the Bay of Pigs crisis, Cuban relations with Communist nations like Russia and China, and the flight of asylum-seeking Cubans to Florida over the decades. The collapse of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991 catalysed a severe economic and political crisis in Cuba, but Cuba was surprisingly resilient in the face of the catastrophe, Kapcia notes, and he examines the strategies adopted by Cuba over the last two decades in order to survive America's longstanding trade embargo. A fascinating and much-needed examination of a country that has served as an important political symbol and diplomatic enigma for the twentieth century, "Cuba in Revolution" is a critical primer for all those interested in Cuba's past or concerned with its future.

Ever since Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba in 1959, Americans have obsessed about the nation ninety miles south of the Florida Keys. America's fixation on the tropical socialist republic has only grown over the years, fueled in part by successive waves of Cuban immigration and Castro's larger-than-life persona. Cubans are now a major ethnic group in Florida, and the exile community is so powerful that every American president has curried favor with it. But what do most Americans really know about Cuba itself?

In this second edition of the widely hailed Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia Sweig updates her concise and remarkably accessible portrait of the small island nation—and now includes material from her 2010 interview with Fidel Castro. The new edition covers the key events of the last few years: Raul Castro's assumption of power from his brother Fidel, economic and political reforms since Raul came to power, and the changes in US-Cuba relations following the election of Barack Obama. Expansive in coverage and authoritative in scope, the book looks back over Cuba's history since the Spanish American War before shifting to recent times. Focusing equally on Cuba's role in world affairs and its own social and political transformations, Sweig divides the book chronologically into the pre-Fidel era, the period between the 1959 revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union, the post-Cold War era, and—finally—the post-Fidel era.

Informative, pithy, and lucidly written, it is the best compact reference on Cuba's internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.

The Black Power Movement remains an enigma. Often misunderstood and ill-defined, this radical movement is now beginning to receive sustained and serious scholarly attention.

Peniel Joseph has collected the freshest and most impressive list of contributors around to write original essays on the Black Power Movement. Taken together they provide a critical and much needed historical overview of the Black Power era. Offering important examples of undocumented histories of black liberation, this volume offers both powerful and poignant examples of 'Black Power Studies' scholarship.

The Struggle for Black Equality "The Struggle for Black Equality" is a dramatic, memorable history of the civil rights movement. Harvard Sitkoff offers both a brilliant interpretation of the personalities and dynamics of civil rights organizations and a compelling analysis of the continuing problems plaguing many African Americans.

The author Adam Fairclough chronicles the struggle of black Americans to acheieve civil rights and equality in a society that, after the collapse of the Reconstruction, santioned racial segregation, racial discrimination and political supremacy. Throughout the book, Fairclough re-examines many issues and balances the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement against the persistance of racial and economic inequalities.

History of Jamaica has been revised to bring the account of the island's history up to date. Many maps and photographs have also been added.

This edition of the authoritative History of Jamaica covers the whole of the history of the island from the arrival of the Arawaks a thousand years ago until the present day. That thousand year period has also seen the arrival of the Spaniards and the extermination of the Amerindians, the coming of the British and the introduction of slavery, the fight for freedom and the achievement of Independence.

This story, with its many facets: the Buccaneers, the Maroons, the National Heroes and others, is told by the Government Archivist in a flowing narrative which is backed by a knowledge based on the closest contact with original documants.

For 200 years after 1650 the West Indies were the most fought-over colonies in the world, as Europeans made and lost immense fortunes growing and trading in sugar - a commodity so lucrative that it was known as white gold.

Young men, beset by death and disease, an ocean away from the moral anchors of life in Britain, created immense dynastic wealth but produced a society poisoned by war, sickness, cruelty and corruption.

The Sugar Barons explores the lives and experiences of those whose fortunes rose and fell with the West Indian empire. From the ambitious and brilliant entrepreneurs, to the grandees wielding power across the Atlantic, to the inheritors often consumed by decadence, disgrace and madness, this is the compelling story of how a few small islands and a handful of families decisively shaped the British Empire.

With a thrilling narrative that sheds much light on recent events, this national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted the country’s elected prime minister, ushered in a quarter–century of brutal rule under the Shah, and stimulated the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti–Americanism in the Middle East. Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist , it now features a new preface by the author on the folly of attacking Iran.

In this substantially revised and expanded version of Nikki Keddie's classic work, "Roots of Revolution", the author brings the story of modern Iran to the present day, exploring the political, cultural, and social changes of the past quarter-century. Keddie provides insightful commentary on the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf War, and the effects of 9/11 and Iran's strategic relationship with the U.S. She also discusses developments in education, health care, the arts, and the role of women.

In a reappraisal of Iran's modern history, Ervand Abrahamian traces its traumatic journey across the twentieth century, through the discovery of oil, imperial interventions, the rule of the Pahlavis and, in 1979, revolution and the birth of the Islamic Republic. In the intervening years, the country has experienced a bitter war with Iraq, the transformation of society under the clergy and, more recently, the expansion of the state and the struggle for power between the old elites, the intelligentsia and the commercial middle class. The author is a compassionate expositor. While he adroitly negotiates the twists and turns of the country's regional and international politics, at the heart of his 2008 book are the people of Iran. It is to them and their resilience that this book is dedicated, as Iran emerges at the beginning of the twenty-first century as one of the most powerful states in the Middle East.

An essential resource?completely revised and updated for the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of Israel In print for forty years, "The Israel-Arab Reader" is a thorough and up-to-date guide to the continuing crisis in the Middle East. It covers the full spectrum of the Israel-Arab conflict?including a new chapter recounting the Gaza withdrawal, the Hamas election victory, and the Lebanon-Israel War. Featuring a new introduction that provides an overview of the past 115 years of conflict, and arranged chronologically and without bias, this comprehensive reference includes speeches, letters, articles, timelines, and reports dealing with all the major interests in the area.

This history of the foundational war in the Arab-Israeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. A riveting account of the military engagements, it also focuses on the war's political dimensions. Benny Morris probes the motives and aims of the protagonists on the basis of newly opened Israeli and Western documentation. The Arab side - where the archives are still closed - is illuminated with the help of intelligence and diplomatic materials. Morris stresses the jihadi character of the two-stage Arab assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Throughout, he examines the dialectic between the war's military and political developments and highlights the military impetus in the creation of the refugee problem, which was a byproduct of the disintegration of Palestinian Arab society. The book thoroughly investigates the role of the Great Powers - Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union - in shaping the conflict and its tentative termination in 1949. Morris looks both at high politics and general staff decision-making processes and at the nitty-gritty of combat in the successive battles that resulted in the emergence of the State of Israel and the humiliation of the Arab world, a humiliation that underlies the continued Arab antagonism toward Israel.

The renowned Israeli historian revisits the formative period of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred, and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing". Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel's founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. This book is indispensable for anyone interested in the Middle East.

Gaza in Crisis is Noam Chomsky's clear-sighted analysis of an area in a desperate impasse.

From the targeting of schools and hospitals, to the indiscriminate use of white phosphorus, Israel's conduct in 'Operation Cast Lead' has rattled even some of its most strident supporters.

In Gaza in Crisis, Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé survey the fallout from that devastation, and place the massacre in Gaza in the context of Israel's long-standing war against the Palestinians. It is a rigorous, historically informed and much-needed analysis of the situation and will be welcomed by all those eager for Chomsky's and Pappé's insights into yet another political catastrophe.

'Noam Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet today' The New York Times Book Review

'Ilan Pappé is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian' John Pilger

Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political books, including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Interventions, What We Say Goes and Hopes and Prospects, all of which are published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin.

Ilan Pappé is Professor of History at the University of Exeter, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies, director of the Palestine Studies Centre at the University of

Exeter, and the author of various books, including the bestselling The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld).

'Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it'. Thus wrote Orwell following his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War, chronicled in Homage to Catalonia. Here he brings to bear all the force of his humanity, passion and clarity, describing with bitter intensity the bright hopes and cynical betrayals of that chaotic episode: the revolutionary euphoria of Barcelona, the courage of ordinary Spanish men and women he fought alongside, the terror and confusion of the front, his near-fatal bullet wound and the vicious treachery of his supposed allies.

Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950), better known by his pen-name, George Orwell, was born in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. An author and journalist, Orwell was one of the most prominent and influential figures in twentieth-century literature. His unique political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with the dystopia of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame. All his novels and non-fiction, including Burmese Days (1934), Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Homage to Catalonia (1938) are published in Penguin Modern Classics.

If you enjoyed Homage to Catalonia, you might like Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'An unrivalled picture of the rumours, suspicions and treachery of the civil war'

Anthony Beevor, author of D-Day

Since its first publication, Hugh Thomas's The Spanish Civil War has become established as the definitive one-volume history of a conflict that continues to provoke intense controversy today.

What was it that roused left-wing sympathizers from all over the world to fight against Franco between 1936 and 1939? Why did the British and US governments refuse to intervene? And why did the Republican cause collapse so violently? Now revised and updated, Hugh Thomas's classic account presents the most objective and unbiased analysis of a passionate struggle where fascism and democracy, communism and Catholicism were at stake - and which was as much an international war as a Spanish one.

Hugh Thomas is the author of, among other books, The Spanish Civil War (1962), which won the Somerset Maugham Award, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (1971), An Unfinished History of the World (1979), and the first volume of his Spanish Empire trilogy, Rivers of Gold (2003).

The civil war that tore Spain apart between 1936 and 1939 and attracted liberals and socialists from across the world to support the cause against Franco was one of the most hard-fought and bitterest conflicts of the 20th century: a war of atrocities and political genocide and a military testing ground before WWII for the Russians, Italians and Germans, whose Condor Legion so notoriously destroyed Guernica.

Antony Beevor's account narrates the origins of the Civil War and its violent and dramatic course from the coup d'etat in July 1936 through the savage fighting of the next three years which ended in catastrophic defeat for the Republicans in 1939. And he succeeds especially well in unravelling the complex political and regional forces that played such an important part in the origins and history of the war.

Survival in Auschwitz: If This Is a Man is a book written by the Italian author, Primo Levi. It describes his experiences in the concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War.

Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in Auschwitz before the camp was liberated by the Red Army. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his shipment, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant was three months.

This truly amazing story offers a revealing glimpse into the realities of the Holocaust and its effects on our world.

Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuscinski describes the tyrannical monarch, who, despite his cruel oppression of the Iranian people, sees himself as the father of a nation, who can turn a backward country into a great power - a vain hope that proves a complete failure. Yet even as Iran becomes a 'behemoth of riches' and as the Shah lives like a European billionaire, its people live in a climate of fear, terrorized by the secret police. Told with intense power and feeling, Kapuscinski portrays the inevitable build-up to revolution - a cataclysmic upheaval that delivered Iran into the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; Francois Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. The deal they struck, which was designed to relieve tensions that threatened to engulf the Entente Cordiale, drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier. Territory north of that stark line would go to France; land south of it, to Britain. Against the odds their pact survived the war to form the basis for the post-war division of the region into five new countries Britain and France would rule. The creation of Britain's 'mandates' of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France's in Lebanon and Syria, made the two powers uneasy neighbours for the following thirty years. Through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, A Line in the Sand vividly tells the story of the short but crucial era when Britain and France ruled the Middle East. It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs and the Jews, and ultimately led to war between the British and the French in 1941 and between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948. In 1946, after many years of intrigue and espionage, Britain finally succeeded in ousting France from Lebanon and Syria, and hoped that, having done so, it would be able to cling on to Palestine. Using newly declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr brings this

overlooked clandestine struggle back to life, and reveals, for the first time, the stunning way in which the French finally got their revenge.

In the middle of the First World War, the British War Cabinet approved and issued a statement in the form of a letter that encouraged the settlement of the Jewish people in Palestine. Signed by the Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, the Balfour Declaration remains one of the most important documents of the last hundred years.

Jonathan Schneer explores the story behind the declaration and its unforeseen consequences that have shaped the modern world, placing it in context paying attention to the fascinating characters who conceived, opposed and plotted around it - among them Lloyd George, Lord Rothschild, T.E. Lawrence, Prince Faisal and Aubrey Herbert (the man who was 'Greenmantle'). The Balfour Declaration brings vividly to life the origins of one of the world's longest lasting and most damaging conflicts.

Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World is a fresh and informed account of the modern world's most intractable conflict.

In the 1920s, hard-line Zionists developed the doctrine of the 'Iron Wall': negotiations with the Arabs must always be from a position of military strength, and only when sufficiently strong Israel would be able to make peace with her Arab neighbours.

This doctrine, argues Avi Shlaim, became central to Israeli policy; dissenters were marginalized and many opportunities to reconcile with Palestinian Arabs were lost. Drawing on a great deal of new material and interviews with many key participants, Shlaim places Israel's political and military actions under and uncompromising lens.

His analysis will bring scant comfort to partisans on both sides, but it will be required reading for anyone interested in this fascinating and troubled region of the world.

Avi Shlaim is Professor of International Relations at St. Antony's College, Oxford. His previous books include Collusion Across the Jordan (1988) and War and Peace in the Middle East (1995).

Since 2003, Iraq has rarely left the headlines. But less discussed is the fact that Iraq as we know it was created by the British, in one of the most dramatic interventions in recent history. A cautious strategic invasion by British forces led - within seven years - to imperial expansion on a dizzying scale, with fateful consequences for the Middle East and the world.

In When God Made Hell, Charles Townshend charts Britain's path from one of its worst military disasters to extraordinary success with largely unintended consequences, through overconfidence, incompetence and dangerously vague policy. With monumental research and exceptionally vivid accounts of on-the-ground warfare, this a truly gripping account of the Mesopotamia campaign, and its place in the wider political and international context. For anyone seeking to understand the roots of British involvement in Iraq, it is essential reading.

"When Allah made Hell, " runs the Arab proverb," he did not find it bad enough, so he made Mesopotamia--and added flies. What was a British Army doing in this Godforsaken place and how had it all come about?"

A.J. Barker's masterful retelling of the story of Britain's first Iraq war in 1914 is a masterpiece of military history that provides many answers to the endless problems and realities encountered in Iraq since 2003. Prestige and power played a major role then as they still do today.

If the British were dislodged from the Shatt-al-Arab, the effects would undoubtedly have reverberated throughout the whole of the Eastern world.

WINNER OF THE BARBARA JELAVICH BOOK PRIZE

'Sean McMeekin has written a classic of First World War history ... This superb and original book is the reality behind Greenmantle' Norman Stone

The Berlin-Baghdad Express explores one of the big, previously unresearched subjects of the First World War: the German bid for world power - and the destruction of the British Empire - through the harnessing of the Ottoman Empire.

McMeekin's book shows how incredibly high the stakes were in the Middle East - with the Germans in the tantalizing position of taking over the core of the British Empire via the extraordinary railway that would link Central Europe and the Persian Gulf. Germany sought the Ottoman Empire as an ally to create jihad against the British - whose Empire at the time was the largest Islamic power in the world.

The Berlin-Baghdad Express is a fascinating account of western interference in the Middle East and its lamentable results. It explains and brings to life a massive area of fighting, which in most other accounts is restricted to the disaster at Gallipoli and the British invasions of Iraq and Palestine.

It is 1916. The Allies are struggling in the Great War. The Ottoman Sultan calls for a pan-Islamic jihad against all non-Muslims except Germans. But Sharif Husein, ruler of the holy city of Mecca, is smarting under Turkish rule, fomenting Arab nationalism and lobbying the British to support him. It seems to the British a good idea secretly to encourage an Arab revolt. "Setting the Desert on Fire" is a masterly account of this key moment made legendary by T. E. Lawrence, but here filled with a wide range of characters including the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, whose desire to capture 'Jerusalem by Christmas' had consequences that reverberate to this day.

BBC History Magazine is Britain's bestselling history magazine. It covers all periods of history, and though it has a British focus, its remit is global. The features are written by leading historians, and though the magazine is never stuffy, you can be sure that what you're reading is the latest thinking. Whatever your historical interest, you'll find something inside. From social history to military, classical to modern, this is the magazine that brings the past to life.

From wars, revolutions and the rise and fall of civilisations to the histories of food, homes or fashion, History Today covers it all. Published in London for over sixty years, History Today is one of the world’s most respected magazines. Each monthly issue includes a huge breadth of fascinating material written by some of our top historians. Richly illustrated and fabulously entertaining, though serious enough to satisfy academics and students, History Today gives the long perspective on today’s events. Try it for yourself and join tens of thousands of history lovers the world over. History Today: where the past matters.