Military History

The incredible untold story of Virginia Hall, an American woman with a wooden leg who infiltrated Occupied France for the SOE and became the Gestapo's most wanted Allied spy, written by acclaimed biographer Sonia Purnell.

A gripping tale of war at sea about how a game of battleships, and a group of exceptional young women, won the Second World War.

In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. This book exposes a fundamental misreading of one of the modern world's most central figures and presents a new narrative that boldly counters the received account.

From the author of the critically acclaimed Bosnia: A Short History comes a 'magisterial work of history' TLS

Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 19th November 1939 he was arrested by the Russians and after brutal interrogation he was sentenced to 25 years in the Gulags. After a three month journey to Siberia in the depths of winter he escaped with six companions, realising that to stay in the camp meant almost certain death. In June 1941 they crossed the trans-Siberian railway and headed south, climbing into Tibet and freedom nine months later in March 1942 after travelling on foot through some of the harshest regions in the world, including the Gobi Desert. First published in 1956, this is one of the world's greatest true stories of adventure, survival and escape, has been the inspiration for the film The Way Back, directed by Peter Weir and starring Colin Farrell and Ed Harris.

'The magnitude and vital importance of the Battle of Britain has found a superb chronicler in Stephen Bungay' Andrew RobertsStephen Bungay's magisterial history is the definitive book about this central event in Britain's history and mythology. Unrivalled for its synthesis of all previous historical accounts, for the acuity and intelligence of its strategic analysis and its sheer narrative drive, it is a book ultimately distinguished by the trenchancy of its conclusions -- that it was the British in the Battle who displayed all the virtues of efficiency, organisation and even ruthlessness we habitually attribute to the Germans, and they who fell short in their amateurism, ill-preparedness, engineering sub-standards and even in their old-fashioned notions of gallantry.An addictive read and gripping throughout, this book is a classic of military history.Stephen Bungay is Director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre in London. He is the author of Alamein (Aurum) and Making Strategy Happen (Nicholas Brealey 2009.) Since the first publication of The Most Dangerous Enemy in 2000, the author has become a respected authority in television documentaries, and lectures on the Battle to the RAF itself.

Paratrooper David Kenyon Webster jumped into the chaos of occupied Europe on D-Day, fighting his way through Holland and finally capturing Hitler s Eagle s Nest. He was the only member of Easy Company to write down his experiences as soon as he came home from war.Webster records with visceral and sometimes brutal detail what it is like to take a bullet in the leg, to fight pitched battles capturing enemy towns, and to endure long periods of boredom punctuated by sudden moments of terror. But most of all, Parachute Infantry shows how a group of comrades entered the furnace of war and came out brothers.

In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all - the titanic battle for Western Europe. D-Day marked the commencement of the European war's final campaign, and Atkinson's riveting account of that bold gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich - all these historic events and more come alive with a wealth of new material and a mesmerizing cast of characters. With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Rick Atkinson's remarkable accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West.

Richard Evans' brilliant book unfolds perhaps the single most important story of the 20th century: how a stable and modern country in less than a single lifetime led Europe into moral, physical and cultural ruin and despair. A terrible story not least because there were so many other ways in which Germany's history could have been played out. With authority, skill and compassion, Evans recreates a country torn apart by overwhelming economic, political and social blows: the First World War, Versailles, hyperinflation and the Great Depression. One by one these blows ruined or pushed aside almost everything admirable about Germany, leaving the way clear for a truly horrifying ideology to take command.

On 2 August 1944, in the wake of the complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre in Belorussia, Winston Churchill mocked Adolf Hitler in the House of Commons by the rank he had reached in the First World War. 'Russian success has been somewhat aided by the strategy of Herr Hitler, of Corporal Hitler,' Churchill jibed. 'Even military idiots find it difficult not to see some faults in his actions.' Andrew Roberts's previous book Masters and Commanders studied the creation of Allied grand strategy; Beating Corporal Hitler now analyses how Axis strategy evolved. Examining the Second World War on every front, Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-making process and a different strategy, the Axis might even have won. Were those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler after the war correct, or were they merely scapegoating their former F hrer once he was safely beyond defending himself? In researching this uniquely vivid history of the Second World War Roberts has walked many of the key battlefield and wartime sites of Russia, France, Italy, Germany and the Far East. The book is full of illuminating sidelights on the principle actors that bring their characters and the ways in which they reached decisions into fresh focus.

In this groundbreaking book, leading Arab and Jewish intellectuals examine how and why the Holocaust and the Nakba are interlinked without blurring fundamental differences between them. It searches for a new historical and political grammar for relating and narrating their complicated intersections.

This new volume in the prestigious, beautifully presented Book of Samurai series offers an unparalleled understanding of a historical samurai's armour, weaponry and military tactics.

First publication of a rare, full colour edition

The theories expressed within The Art of War are used today as a source of insight into office politics, business management and corporate strategy. The lessons in the text can be applied to many areas of life.

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, this book follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship.

From the Number One bestselling author of BAND OF BROTHERS comes the story of the ordinary soldiers in Northwest Europe from the day after D-Day until the triumphant end of the war.

A stirringly evocative, thought-provoking, and often jaw-dropping account of SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring four-hundred-mission career.

Recreate the action and drama of 17th Century warfare on your tabletop with The Pikeman''s Lament. Start by creating your Officer - is he a natural leader raised from the ranks, the youngest son of a noble family, or an old veteran who has seen too many battles? As you campaign, your Officer will win honour and gain promotion, acquiring traits that may help lead his men to victory. Before each skirmish, your Officer must raise his Company from a wide range of unit options - should he lean towards hard-hitting heavy cavalry or favour solid, defensively minded infantry? Companies are typically formed from 6-8 units, each made up of either 6 or 12 figures, and quick, decisive, and dramatic games are the order of the day. With core mechanics based on Daniel Mersey''s popular Lion Rampant rules, The Pikeman''s Lament captures the military flavour of the 17th Century, and allows you to recreate skirmishes and raids from conflicts such as the Thirty Years'' War, the English Civil Wars, and the Great Northern War.

An authoritative visual directory and history to ancient and modern sharp-edged weapons, photographed throughout.

The explosive, untold story of the Cold War's biggest secret. The REAL X-Files.

The history of Britain's most iconic aircraft of World War II, with more than 250 photographs.

Offers the secrets of the Spetsnaz, their missions and personalities. This book is also packed with details such as orders-of-battle, equipment and operational doctrine.