Military History

John Kiszely draws on his own experience in the military to assess the ignominious failure of the British campaign in Norway in 1940. The result helps us to understand not only the outcome of the Norwegian campaign but also why more recent military campaigns have found success so elusive.

The remarkable story of the Knights Templar - the wealthiest, most powerful and most secretive of the military orders that flourished in the crusading era.

Spitfire: A remarkable aircraft flown by very brave men. This is their story.

A classic tale of derring-do: The Great Escape meets Touching the Void

Published in the 75th anniversary year, a gripping and definitive account of the attack that led to the United States' entry into the Second World War.

The explosive, dark secrets behind America's post-WWII science programs from the author of the New York Times bestseller AREA 51.

A superbly crafted and humane portrait of the last days - and last rulers - of the Russian Empire.

To Hell and Back offers readers a stunning, "you are there" time capsule, wrapped in elegant prose. Charles Pellegrino's scientific authority and close relationship with the A-bomb survivors make his account the most gripping and authoritative ever written.

A magisterial chronicle of the calamity that crippled Europe in 1914.

After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds Circus head Maston is trying to blame him for the man's death, he begins his own investigation, meeting with Fennan's widow to find out what could have led him to such desperation.

The vivid and haunting story of Sri Lanka and its brutal thirty-year civil war, from one of India's best new writers.

When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz. A Hungarian Jew and a medical doctor, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate: to perform "e;scientific research"e; on his fellow inmates under the supervision of the infamous "e;Angel of Death"e;: Dr. Josef Mengele. Nyiszli was named Mengele's personal research pathologist. Miraculously, he survived to give this terrifying and sobering account of the terror of Auschwitz. This new Penguin Modern Classics edition contains an introduction by Richard Evans.

The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity and miscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943.Beginning with the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army at Dawn follows the British and American armies as they fight the French in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans and Italians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced and sometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fighting force. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but fallible commanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery and Rommel.

Stand to attention for the definitive visual guide to 5,000 years of military historyThe Military History Book chronicles the changing technology and tactics of war from 5,000 years ago to the present day in stunning visual detail. Bringing military history to life like never before, find out all about the battles, leaders and weapons of war that have changed the course of history and shaped the world.From the siege towers and catapults of ancient times to Samurai armour, Russian Kalashnikovs and right up to the unmanned drones and stealth bombers used by today's armed forces, the evolution of battlefield technology is showcased in amazing detail. Plus, get up close with virtual tours of iconic pieces including the T-34 Tank, the Lockheed F-117 Stealth Bomber and the AH-64 Apache helicopter.The Military History Book is the perfect gift for military enthusiasts of all ages.

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese 'hellships' which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away . . .This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen and whose father was a Somme Veteran, who survived not just one, but three very close separate encounters with death - encounters which killed nearly all his comrades.

In the early hours of New Year's Eve, 1994, Russian troops invaded the Republic of Chechnya, plunging the country into a prolonged and bloody conflict that continues to this day. sne Seierstad was a foreign correspondent in Moscow at the time, and travelled regularly to Chechnya to report on the war, describing its effects on those trying to live their daily lives amidst the violence. In 2006 and 2007 she returned, travelling in secret, under constant danger. The tragedy in Chechnya had continued, but the world had moved on, its attention on other conflicts. In a broken, devastated society, she meets the orphans, the wounded, the lost. And she meets the children of Grozny, those who will shape their country's future. What happens to a child who grows up surrounded by war, who grows accustomed to violence? Whose childhood is ruined? A compelling, intimate and often heartbreaking portrait of Chechnya today, The Angel of Grozny also offers a vivid account of its violent history, and its ongoing battle for freedom.

Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918, says Paddy Griffith, the British army was demonstrating a battlefield skill and mobility that would rarely be surpassed even during World War II.Evaluating the great gap that exists between theory and practice, between textbook and bullet-swept mudfield, Griffith argues that many battles were carefully planned to exploit advanced tactics and to avoid casualties, but that breakthrough was simply impossible under the conditions of the time. According to Griffith, the British were already masters of "e;storm troop tactics"e; by the end of 1916, and in several important respects were further ahead than the Germans would be even in 1918. In fields such as the timing and orchestration of all-arms assaults, predicted artillery fire, "e;Commando-style"e; trench raiding, the use of light machine guns, or the barrage fire of heavy machine guns, the British led the world. Although British generals were not military geniuses, says Griffith, they should at least be credited for effectively inventing much of the twentieth-century's art of war.

'The room was filled with a blinding light. She was paralysed by fear, fixed still in her chair for a long moment. Everything fell.'2015 is the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima, when, on 6 August at 8.15am, an atomic bomb was dropped over the Japanese city, killing one hundred thousand men, women and children in its white fury. John Hersey's spare, devastating report on the attack was first published in the New Yorker in 1946. Written in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, it chronicles what happened through the eyes of six civilians who survived against the odds. It is a classic piece of journalism, and a defining moment of the nuclear age.'One of the most powerful writers of modern times' Washington Post

'O day so ardently desired! O time of times the most memorable! O deed before all other deeds!'The fall of Jerusalem in the summer of 1099 to an exhausted and starving army of Western European soldiers was one of the most extraordinary events of the Middle Ages.It was both the climax of a great wave of visionary Christian fervour and the beginning of what proved to be a futile and abortive attempt to implant a new European kingdom in an overwhelmingly Muslim world.The legacy of these events continues to be argued over more than nine centuries later.This remarkable collection of first-hand accounts brings to life the First Crusade in all its cruelty and strangeness.

The Battle of Britain tells the extraordinary story of one of the pivotal events of the Second World War - the struggle between British and German air forces in the late summer and autumn of 1940. Exposing many of the myths surrounding the conflict, the book provides answers to important questions: how close did Britain really come to invasion? What were Hitler and Churchill's motives? And what was the battle's real effect on the outcome of the war? Told with great clarity and objectivity, this is a superb introduction to a defining moment in our history.'No individual British victory after Trafalgar was more decisive in challenging the course of a major war than was the Battle of Britain ... In his carefully argued, clearly explained and impressively documented book ... Richard Overy is at pains to dispose of the myths and expose the real history of what he does not doubt was a great British victory ... the best historical analysis in readable form which has yet appeared on this prime subject' Noble Frankland, The Times Literary Supplement

Heinz Guderian - master of the Blitzkrieg and father of modern tank warfare - commanded the German XIX Army Corps as it rampaged across Poland in 1939. Personally leading the devastating attack which traversed the Ardennes Forest and broke through French lines, he was at the forefront of the race to the Channel coast. Only Hitler's personal command to halt prevented Guderian's tanks and troops turning Dunkirk into an Allied bloodbath.Later commanding Panzergruppe 2 in Operation Barbarossa, Guderian's armoured spearhead took Smolensk after fierce fighting and was poised to launch the final assault on Moscow when he was ordered south to Kiev. In the battle that followed, he helped encircle and capture over 600,000 Soviet troops after days of combat in the most terrible conditions.Panzer Leader is a searing firsthand account of the most effective fighting force in modern history by the man who commanded it.

Named Book of the Year by the Sunday Times, TLS, Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail and Scotland on Sunday, Ian Kershaw's The End is a searing account of the final months of Nazi Germany, laying bare the fear and fanaticism that drove a nation to destruction.In almost every major war there comes a point where defeat looms for one side and its rulers cut a deal with the victors, if only in an attempt to save their own skins. In Hitler's Germany, nothing of this kind happened: in the end the regime had to be stamped out town by town with an almost unprecedented level of brutality.Just what made Germany keep on fighting?Why did its rulers not cut a deal to save their own skins?And why did ordinary people continue to obey the Fuhrer's suicidal orders, with countless Germans executing their own countrymen for desertion or defeatism?'Nuanced and sophisticated ... undoubtedly a masterpiece' - Mail on Sunday'Gripping yet scholarly ... the best attempt by far to answer the complex question of why Nazi Germany carried on fighting to total self-destruction' - Antony Beevor, Telegraph'Masterly ... Kershaw's gripping and boldly intelligent work of scholarship ... will surely become the standard account of the Nazi system's terrible final phase' - Financial Times'Brilliant ... utterly terrifying' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year

In July 1917, when the Provisional Government issued a warrant for his arrest, Lenin fled from Petrograd; later that year, the October Revolution swept him to supreme power. In the short intervening period he spent in Finland, he wrote his impassioned, never-completed masterwork The State and Revolution. This powerfully argued book offers both the rationale for the new regime and a wealth of insights into Leninist politics. It was here that Lenin justified his personal interpretation of Marxism, savaged his opponents and set out his trenchant views on class conflict, the lessons of earlier revolutions, the dismantling of the bourgeois state and the replacement of capitalism by the dictatorship of the proletariat. As both historical document and political statement, its importance can hardly be exaggerated.Translated and edited with an introduction by Robert Service

The final book in his acclaimed trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, Richard J. Evans's The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster shows how Germany rushed headlong into destroying itself, shattering an entire continent. In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. Richard Evans's astonishing, acclaimed history conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict - from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler Youth activists and middle-class housewives - tracing events from the invasion of Poland and the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's plans for genocide and his eventual suicide. 'Masterly ... will surely be the standard history for many years to come ... This is a warning for the future, as much as a judgement on the past' ;Richard Overy, Daily Telegraph 'We all know how the story ends ... but Richard Evans brings it masterfully home ... magnificent';Peter Preston, Observer 'A chilling, brilliant read' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year 'It is hard to do justice to the humanity and scholarly range of The Third Reich at War ... triumphant ... a masterful historical narrative and the most comprehensive account of Nazi Germany' Nicholas Stargardt, The Times Literary Supplement 'It gives the reader persuasive answers to questions asked for so long, that will continue to be asked, about this most violent and inexplicable of regimes' Mark Mazower, Guardian Sir Richard J. Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. His previous books include In Defence of History, Telling Lies about Hitler and the companions to this title, The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power.

1914-1918, David Stevenson's history of the First World War, has been acclaimed as the definitive one-volume account of the conflictIn the summer of 1914 Europe exploded into a frenzy of mass violence. The war that followed had global repercussions, destroying four empires and costing millions of lives. Even the victorious countries were scarred for a generation, and we still today remain within the conflict's shadow. In this major analysis David Stevenson re-examines the causes, course and impact of this 'war to end war', placing it in the context of its era and exposing its underlying dynamics. His book provides a wide-ranging international history, drawing on insights from the latest research. It offers compelling answers to the key questions about how this terrible struggle unfolded: questions that remain disturbingly relevant for our own time.'It's harder to imagine a better single-volume comprehensive history of the conflict than this superb study' Ian Kershaw'Perhaps the best comprehensive one-volume history of the war yet written' New Yorker'David Stevenson is the real deal ... His defining characteristic is his outstanding rigour as an historian ... tremendously clever' Niall Ferguson'This history of the 1914-1918 conflict surpasses all others. It is tough, erudite and comprehensive' Independent

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson s masterpiece.