Books by Alan Palmer

Ypres today is an international 'Town of Peace', but in 1914 the town, and the Salient, the 35-mile bulge in the Western Front, of which it is part, saw a 1500-day military campaign of mud and blood at the heart of the First World War that turned it into the devil's nursery. Distinguished biographer and historian of modern Europe Alan Palmer tells the story of the war in Flanders as a conflict that has left a deep social and political mark on the history of Europe. Denying Germany possession of the historic town of Ypres and access to the Channel coast was crucial to Britain's victory in 1918. But though Flanders battlefields are the closest on the continent to English shores, this was always much more than a narrowly British conflict. Passchendaele, the Menin Road, Hill 60 and the Messines Ridge remain names etched in folk memory. Militarily and tactically the four-year long campaign was innovative and a grim testing ground with constantly changing ideas of strategy and disputes between politicians and generals. Alan Palmer details all its aspects in an illuminating history of the place as much as the fighting man's experience.

A glib assessment of Metternich might not be a favourable one, he was not without his ridiculous qualities, and yet he survived, more than survived, in fact, with the 'Age of Metternich' lasting for more than a generation, and giving Europe a measure of peace, albeit repressive, that was much needed after the Napoleonic convulsions.Alan Palmer describes well Metternich's extraordinary longevity. 'Clement von Metternich held continuous office at the head of Europe's affairs for a longer period of time than any other statesman in modern history: he became foreign minister of the Austrian Empire in the autumn of 1809 and he did not resign until the spring of 1848. For thirty-three of these thirty-nine years his statecraft and philosophy of government determined the political pattern of the continent. The 'Age of Metternich' , though often impatiently dismissed by historians as a mere interlude, lasted for twice as long as the 'Age of Napoleon' which preceded it and for half as long again as the 'Age of Bismarck' which followed in the closing decades of the century.'Metternich was a statesman to his fingertips, practising 'the skills of diplomacy with greater fluency than any contemporary Talleyrand, from whom he had learnt many of the refinement of the game.'How would he fare today? Probably quite well as he was, again in Alan Palmer's words, 'an early champion of federalism and a good European ...''As a work of history (it) cannot be faulted.' A. J. P. Taylor, Observer'Well-written, well-researched, lucid and witty.' Philip Ziegler, The Times

Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Jerusalem, King of Bohemia, King of Dalmatia, King of Transylvania, King of Croatia and Slovenia, King of Galicia and Illyria, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow, Margrave of Moravia, Duke of Salzburg, Duke of Bukovina, Duke of Modena, Parma, and Piacenza and so on, another thirty or so titles could be added. Was ever a monarch so festooned as Emperor Francis Joseph? He ruled from the Year of the Revolutions, 1848 until his death in 1916. His empire was the most multi-national state ever. An ethnic map of 1910 shows there to be Germans, Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ruthenes, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Italians, Jews, Muslims, Ladins (in the Tyrol) and Roumanians. What is more, even together the Germans and the Magyars constituted a minority. And yet, as Alan Palmer observes no other European monarch 'exercised full sovereignty for so long.' Unlike Queen Victoria he ruled rather than merely reigned. That alone suggests he was something more than the humourless bureaucrat he is commonly thought to have been, and Alan Palmer is successful in providing a more rounded and sympathetic portrait of him both as head of an empire and head of a family.His personal life was punctuated with tragedy: his brother, Maximilian was executed y Mexican republicans; his only son, Rudolf shot himself and his mistress at Mayerling; his wife, Empress Elizabeth, was stabbed to death in Geneva, and his nephew and heir, Francis-Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo. This was the first biography of Francis Joseph by an English writer and was acclaimed when originally published in 1994.'With great skill Mr Palmer blends in the Emperor's private life with the story of the Empire. . . This is an important book; also an entrancing one.' Allan Massie, Daily Telegraph'A compelling read' Lawrence James, Evening Standard

Like Charles II, the sick man of Europe was 'an unconscionable time dying.' Time and time again from the seventeenth century observers predicted the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, yet it outlived all its rivals. As late as 1910 it straddled three continents. Unlike the Romanovs, Hohenzollerns or Habsburgs, the House of Osman was still recognised as an imperial dynasty during the peacemaking which followed the First World War.This book offers a fascinating overview of the Ottoman Empire's decline from the failure to take Vienna in 1683 to the abolition of the Sultanate in 1922 by Mustafa Kemal, after a revolutionary upsurge of Turkish national pride. It deals with constantly recurring problems: competing secular and religious authority; acceptance or rejection of Western ideas; greedy neighbours; population movements; and the strength or weakness of successive Sultans. The book also emphasises the challenges of the early twentieth century, when railways and oilfields gave new importance to Ottoman lands in the Middle East. Recent events have put the problems that faced the later Sultans back upon the world agenda. Names like Basra and Mosul again make the headlines. So, too, do the old empire's outposts in Albania and Macedonia in the west and the mountainous Caucasus in the east. Alan Palmer's narrative reminds us of the long, sad continuity of conflict in the Lebanon. We read of the Kurdish struggle for survival, of Armenian aspirations for independence, of the lingering interests of the Ottomans in their Libyan provinces, and of the Muslim character of Sarajevo in the troubled country that was once Yugoslavia. The Ottoman past has great relevance to the changing patterns of eastern Europe and western Asia in the twentieth century.

As Alan Palmer himself writes in his preface, 'Alexander 1, ruler of Russia for the first quarter of the nineteenth century, is remembered today mainly on three counts: as the Tsar who refused to make peace with the French when Moscow fell in 1812; as the idealist who sought to bind Europe's sovereigns in a Holy Alliance in 1815; and as the Emperor who died - or gave the impression of having died - at the remote southern seaport of Taganrog in the winter of 1825. Recent interest has concentrated , perhaps excessively, on the third of these dramatic episodes akthough it is natural that the epic years of the struggle with Napoleon should continue to excite the historical imagination.'He has been dubbed 'The Enigmatic Tsar'. There are many contrasting opinions of him. Thomas Jefferson declared 'A more virtuous man, I believe, does no exist, nor one who is more enthusiastically devoted to better the condition of mankind. Castlereagh thought well of him, too, but both Metternich and Napoleon considered him inconsistent and untrustworthy. And Pushkin famously described him as 'a Sphinx who carried his riddle with him to the tomb.' an assessment even more piquant if it is true, as some maintain, his tomb in empty.With his customary blend of meticulous scholarship and agreeable writing, Alan Palmer provides the most balanced and engaging portrait imaginable.'A pleasure to read and unlikely to be replaced for many years' Philip Ziegler, The Times'Excellent . . . a major biographical achievement, a notable contribution to our understanding of this still enigmatic monarch' Robert Blake, Spectator

The businessperson's guide to saying what needs to be said and asking questions that need to be asked In the business world, the first step to great results is good communication.

Presents a study of the political development over the last century and a half of the lands between Germany and Italy in the west and Russia in the east. This title focuses on six countries in Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Roumania and Yugoslavia.

'The Gardeners of Salonika' as Clemenceau contemptuously labelled them, could well be called the forgotten army of the First World War. Yet the Macedonian Campaign was, in Lord Hankey's words, 'the most controversial of all the so-called sideshows.' In his definitive The First World War (1999) Sir John Keegan hailed Alan Palmer for having written 'the best study of the Macedonian Front in English.' Palmer tells the story of this extraordinary polyglot army (it included, at various times, contingents from seven countries) from the first landing at Salonika in 1915 to the peace in 1918. He also illuminates the political and strategic background: the ceaseless argument in London and Paris over the army's future and the maze of Greek politics within which it and its commanders were enclosed. 'A masterly and colourful account of this, the most controversial and neglected sideshow of them all.'Guardian'Not only a valuable contribution to history, but also an enthralling book' Sunday Times

"Council on Tall Buildings and Urban habitat."

The East End as an idea is known to every Londoner, and to many others, though its boundaries are vague. Alan Palmer's historical overview of the area (first published in 1989 and revised in 2000) takes its extent to be the traditional limits of Hackney and Tower Hamlets, Hoxton and Shoreditch, the docklands and their overflow into West Ham and East Ham. And at the heart of the East End lies Spitalfields, home to a transient, often radical and hard-working population. Though it is often seen as London's centre of industry and poverty, in comparison to the well-to-do West End, the East End has always been a diverse place: in the seventeenth century, Hackney was a pleasant country retreat; Stepney and the docklands a bustling world of sailors and merchants. The book traces the development of the area from these roots, through the nineteenth century - when the East End became notorious as the home of radicals, exiled revolutionaries and the very poor, its crowded streets the scene of murder, riot and cholera -to the bombing of the first and second world war; and the subsequent decline and regeneration of the twentieth century.

The greatest military disaster of the greatest military leader of modern times