Showing titles in 20th Century

On the evening of 21st November 1974, bombs planted by the IRA in two crowded Birmingham pubs exploded, killing 21 people and injuring at least 170. Within a day of the explosion, six men - Paddy Hill, Gerry Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, Billy Power, Johnny Walker and Hughie Callaghan - were arrested and charged. All were found guilty. Methodically, with total clarity and a tone that is both gripping and impassioned, then investigative journalist Mullin unpicked every detail of the case.

William Pepper was James Earl Ray's lawyer in the trial for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., and even after Ray's conviction and death, Pepper continues to adamantly argue Ray's innocence. This myth-shattering expose is a revised, updated, and heavily expanded volume of Pepper's original best-selling and critically-acclaimed book of the same name, with 26 years of additional research included. The result reveals dramatic new details of the night of the murder, the trial, and why Ray was chosen to take the fall for an evil conspiracy.

Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative, Kotkin draws upon extensive research, including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures, to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of Communism and the USSR. The new edition puts the collapse in the context of the global economic and political changes from the 1970s to the present day. Kotkin creates a compelling profile of post-Soviet Russia.

On his second combat tour, Nick Brokhausen served in Recon Team Habu, CCN. This unit was part of MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group), or Studies and Observations Group as it was innocuously called. The small recon companies that were the center of its activities conducted some of the most dangerous missions of the war, infiltrating areas controlled by the North Vietnamese in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The companies never exceeded more than 30 Americans, yet they were the best source for the enemy's disposition.

In 1851 Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. It was the high water mark of English achievement - the nation at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, at the heart of a burgeoning Empire, with a queen who would reign for another 50 years. In the following 150 years, the fate of the nation has faced turmoil and transformation. But it is too simple to talk of decline? Has Great Britain sacrificed its identity in order to stay part of the present world order?

A radio broadcaster and journalist for Edward R. Murrow at CBS, William L. Shirer was new to the world of broadcast journalism when he began keeping a diary while on assignment in Europe during the 1930s. Shirer’s Berlin Diary, which is considered the first full record of what was happening in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich, appeared in 1941. Shirer returned to the European front in 1944 to cover the end of the war. End of a Berlin Diary chronicles this year-long study of Germany after Hitler.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the iconic figures of the 20th century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress. When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s.

The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the 20th century. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it has become possible to step back and see the full picture. Starting with an overview of the roots of the revolution, Fitzpatrick takes the story from 1917, through Stalin's "revolution from above", to the great purges of the 1930s.

The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory.

The surprising story of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and the scrappy band of rebel men and women who followed them. Most people are familiar with the basics of the Cuban Revolution of 1956–1959: it was led by two of the twentieth century’s most charismatic figures, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara...

In The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire. Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation...

The first comprehensive yet accessible history of the state of Israel from its inception to present day, from Daniel Gordis, ""one of the most respected Israel analysts"" (The Forward) living and writing in Jerusalem. Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world’s attention...

Founded 100 years ago by the inventor of dynamite, the Nobel Prize is the world's most celebrated and controversial honor. It grants its winners instant celebrity and acclaim for "service to mankind", despite accusations that it is too trendy, arbitrary, and narrow-minded. In examining both its fame and notoriety, Burton Feldman opens up the Nobel institution and process: how it originated, how it works, and how it is influenced by outside pressures (political, moral, personal, and academic).

No country in history has been more deeply penetrated by spies than divided Germany after the Second World War. Fighting for the eastern corner were the 'first class comrades' of the Stasi—the East German Ministry for State Security. Rising from the ruins of a defeated country, and guided by its KGB masters, the early Cold War saw the Stasi establish itself as one of the world's most notorious spy and secret police agencies.

Having found fame and success as a model, Christine's short affair with the minister for war, John Profumo, led to his downfall at the end of Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, and was at the heart of the social and political earthquake that followed. She became the subject of scandal, intrigue and gossip and was tried for perjury and briefly jailed following the death of Stephen Ward, the socialite who had introduced her to Profumo.

Within Western culture, World War Two continues to exercise an extraordinary fascination for generations unborn when it took place. The obvious explanation is that it was the greatest and most terrible event in human history. Within the vast compass of the struggle, some individuals scaled summits of courage and nobility, while others plumbed depths of evil, in a fashion that compels the awe of posterity.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From bestselling historian Saul David, a riveting new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War. The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940...

“A riveting tale of her family’s experience in Europe during World War II [and] a well-wrought political history of the region, told with great authority. . . . More than a memoir, this is a book of facts and action, a chronicle of a war in progress from a partisan faithful to the idea of...

Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.

A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR From the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy and anti-Semitism was used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship built on violence...