Showing titles in 20th Century

Berlin, 1942. The Gestapo arrest 18-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings.

At the end of the Second World War, nearly 200 British nationals were under investigation for assisting Hitler's Germany. Many have remained infamous, such as William Joyce, known as Lord Haw-Haw, and John Amery, who were both executed for High Treason. But in this study Adrian Weale unearths others who plotted to undermine the Allies. Weale begins with Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, through the war years and the following trials from investigations by MI5.

Die »SS« untrennbar ist dieses Kürzel mit der Ermordung der europäischen Juden verbunden, dem wohl größten Menschheitsverbrechen aller Zeiten. Überall auf der Welt stehen die beiden Buchstaben als Synonym für das Böse schlechthin. Doch wie genau wurde der "Schwarze Orden" zum Vollstrecker des nationalsozialistischen Rassenwahns? Auf dem neuesten Stand der Forschung führt Bastian Hein in die Geschichte des Staatsschutzkorps des Dritten Reiches ein, beschreibt die Entstehung der Organisation, ihren Kult sowie die Auslese des Personals und schildert die von der SS verübten Verbrechen.

In Leningrad: Siege and Symphony, Brian Moynahan sets the composition of Shostakovich's most famous work against the tragic canvas of the siege itself and the years of repression and terror that preceded it. Drawing on extensive primary research in archives as well as personal letters and diaries, he vividly tells the story of the cruelties heaped by the twin monsters of the 20th century, Stalin and Hitler, on a city of exquisite beauty, and of its no less remarkable survival.

Twilight of the Gods is a riveting account of the harrowing last year of World War II in the Pacific, when the US Navy won the largest naval battle in history; MacArthur made good his pledge to return to the Philippines; waves of kamikazes attacked the Allied fleets; the Japanese fought to the last man on one island after another; B-29 bombers burned down Japanese cities; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vaporized. Toll's narratives of combat in the air, at sea, and on the beaches are gripping, but he also takes the listener into the halls of power in Washington and Tokyo.

When the Nazis invaded, they did not intend to govern fairly. Instead, they stripped defeated nations of their treasures, industry, and natural resources, with the aim of asserting German supremacy and imposing Hitler's New Order in Europe.

""Water Mirror Echo is a remarkable story of a man, the traditions and communities that created him, and the new worlds he made possible. Like Bruce Lee himself, Jeff Chang is blessed with the vision to see things we do not yet see, thinking and writing with a restless, chasm-crossing, almost...

The Nazis Next Door has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher...

The Second World War was the most destructive conflict in history. It left Europe in ruins, its economies severely damaged and millions of its people facing malnutrition, its political systems shaken if not destroyed. Yet three decades later its economies had recovered; it largely appeared politically stable; its inhabitants generally were well housed and well fed. Then at the end of the 1980s, the postwar settlement disintegrated, and a new chapter in Europe's postwar history had begun.

Alfred Nakache, a Jewish child from Constantine, never imagined that he would one day swim for France at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, nor than he would achieve a world record, as he did in 1941. As a child he was petrified of the water and yet, somehow, through sheer willpower and determination, he rose to become one of the very best swimmers in the world. That was until 1943, when he was banned from the pool - and in the same year, deported and sent to Auschwitz.

For readers and viewers of The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited new work by Sebastian Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. Here is the same meticulous prose brought to bear on the...

Germany's financial collapse in the summer of 1931 was one of the biggest economic catastrophes of modern history. It led to a global panic, brought down the international monetary system, and turned a worldwide recession into a prolonged depression. Hitler managed to profit from the crisis, because he had been the most vocal critic of the reparation regime. As the financial system collapsed, his relentless attacks against foreign creditors and the alleged complicity of the German government resonated more than ever with the electorate.

The year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put intense pressure on the ailing yet determined President Roosevelt, is brought to vivid life in “gripping” (The New York Times Book Review) detail in this New York Times bestseller. 1944 was a year that could have stymied the...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour… Sir Winston Churchill was a soldier, journalist, writer, Nobel Prize winner and, above all, a leader. Conservative then Liberal then Conservative again, his political instincts won him a sustained career at the summit of British government...

Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it's the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others in a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context.

The bitter Battle of Stalingrad on the Eastern Front was the turning point of World War II. The relentless and unstoppable German advances that had seen the panzers sweep hundreds of miles into Russia was finally brought to a halt. The elite German Sixth Army was first fought to a standstill, then surrounded and forced to surrender.

British leaders use spies and Special Forces to interfere in the affairs of others discreetly and deniably. Since 1945, MI6 has spread misinformation designed to divide and discredit targets. It has instigated whispering campaigns and planted false evidence on officials working behind the Iron Curtain, tried to foment revolution in Albania, blown up ships to prevent the passage of refugees to Israel, and secretly funneled aid to insurgents in Afghanistan and dissidents in Poland. Through bribery and blackmail, Britain has rigged elections as colonies moved to independence.

At the Mind's Limits is the story of one man's incredible struggle to understand the reality of horror. In five autobiographical essays, Amery describes his survival - mental, moral, and physical - through the enormity of the Holocaust. Above all, this masterful record of introspection tells of a young Viennese intellectual's fervent vision of human nature and the betrayal of that vision.

On November 29, 1943, as the Allies’ primary leaders met in Tehran, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin his idea for the organization that would become the United Nations. The American president suggested that the active arm of the organization be “the Four Policemen”: the U.S., USSR, UK, and China. Stalin agreed with much of the framework in principle, but asserted that China likely would not possess the strength after the war to assist.

The bestselling coauthor of The Moscow Rules and Argo tells her riveting, courageous story of being a female spy at the height of the Cold War Jonna Hiestand Mendez began her CIA career as a “contract wife” performing secretarial duties for the CIA as a convenience to her husband, a young...