British Science

In his book, Peter Hitchens describes the misjudgements made by politicians over the years that have led to the increase of class distinction and privilege in our education system. This is of course the opposite of what was intended, especially by former Minister of Education Shirley Williams and Margaret Thatcher, her successor in that role, who closed down many more Grammar Schools than Williams.

You are not an executive who can make and enforce decisions. You are a legislator who votes on making laws. You are not a counsellor, a housing officer, benefits clerk, bank or trading standards officer, but you are often expected to provide a new home, sort out benefits, provide a loan, or settle a dispute about a computer game bought for little Jimmy that doesn't work. You are, in fact, a 21st-century Member of Parliament representing about 125,000 good folk from your constituency....

This is the ideal way to quickly master the Cockney (British) accent using a combination of approaches from pronunciation and oral posture techniques to dialect development (Cockney rhyming slang) and practice exercises. The course also contains guidance on developing a basic British accent to underpin a Cockney accent if desired dependent on your native accent. This course can help you prepare for a Cockney role or audition on stage or screen.

In this sweeping consideration of Britain in the 18th century, Jeremy Black explores the interconnected roles of power and geography in the creation of a global empire. Geography was at the heart of Britain’s expansion into India, its response to uprisings in Scotland and America, and its revolutionary development of railways.

British statesman Benjamin Disraeli delivered this commanding speech in 1872. His imperialistic ideals informed his Conservative political platform as he advocated for maintaining the British Empire. He asked his audience if they were content to be a “comfortable England,” or if they preferred the glory of remaining “a great country - an imperial country - a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to paramount positions, and obtain not merely the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world.”

Why is Africa still perceived as a country when there are around 2,000 languages spoken on the continent alone? It's a Continent aims to counter the misconception that Africa is a country by breaking down this vast, beautiful and complex continent into regions and countries. Each of the 54 African countries has a unique history and culture and this audiobook highlights the key historical moments that have shaped each nation and contributed to its global position, as well as within the African continent.

The Right to Rule is the full story of what has just happened in British politics, and how it has shaped Westminster and, by extension, the nation. Over the last decade, we have seen five different Conservative Prime Ministers, with five different missions and messages to the nation. Not for two centuries has such political turnover been seen. From the ashes of a financial crisis, to a break from the UK's biggest trading block, to a global pandemic, governments - and ideologies - have changed, but the Conservative party's power has remained.

In the summer of 2014 the world watched in horror as the black flag of ISIS swept all before it. Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, fell, ISIS proclaimed the caliphate and the horror mounted: from the mass murder, rape and enslavement of the Yazidis to the public beheading of journalists by British jihadis. For Macer Gifford it wasn't enough to ask why more wasn't being done; he knew he had to act.

Victoria-Margaret is the crown princess of the empire, a direct descendent of Victoria I, the queen who changed the course of history. The imperial tradition of genetically arranged matchmaking will soon guide Margaret into a politically advantageous marriage. But before she does her duty, she'll have one summer of freedom and privacy in a far corner of empire.

In The War We Never Fought, Hitchens uncovers the secret history of the government's true attitude and the increasing recruitment of the police and courts to covert decriminalisation initiatives and contrasts it with the rhetoric. Whatever and whoever is to blame for the undoubted mess of Britain's drug policy, it is not prohibition or a war on drugs, for neither exists.

Bernard Bailyn gives us a compelling account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe, and Africa to British North America, their involvements with each other, and their struggles with the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard.

The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal’s story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal’s first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.

Behind the locked doors of three mansions in London's exclusive Kensington Palace Gardens neighborhood, the British Secret Service established a highly secret prison in 1940: the London Cage. Here recalcitrant German prisoners of war were subjected to "special intelligence treatment." The stakes were high: the war's outcome could hinge on obtaining information German prisoners were determined to withhold. After the war, high-ranking Nazi war criminals were housed in the Cage, revamped as an important center for investigating German war crimes.

Exploring the extraordinary social and political dominance enjoyed by the British aristocracy over the centuries, Entitled seeks to explain how a tiny number of noble families rose to such a position in the first place. It reveals the often nefarious means they have employed to maintain their wealth, power, and prestige and examines the greed, ambition, jealousy, and rivalry which drove aristocratic families to guard their interests with such determination.

Cosy is “the slacker’s guide to staying at home, an antidote to peak frazzle.” With trademark Anglo cheekiness, Laura Weir perfectly captures the British essence of cosy. She celebrates socks, warms to the joys of toasty open fires, and extols the virtues of a quiet walk, ultimately enticing us all to create the British magic of cosy in our everyday lives.

Recognising Black British experience within the Black Lives Matter movement, 19 prominent Black figures explain why Black lives should be celebrated when too often they are undervalued. Drawing from personal experience, they stress how Black British people have unique perspectives and experiences that enrich British society and the world; how Black lives are far more interesting and important than the forces that try to limit it.

At the dawn of the 21st century, British society is still shaped by a private education system devised to gentrify the Victorian middle classes and produce gentlemen to run the Empire. Yet it is not on the political agenda. It is rarely the subject of public debate, and we remain blind to its psychological implications. Can we afford to go on ignoring this issue? Will we continue to sacrifice the welfare of our children to satisfy our antiquated social aspirations?

This audiobook will take the listener on the slow train to another era when travel meant more than hurrying from one place to the next, the journey meaning nothing but time lost in crowded carriages, condemned by broken timetables. On the Slow Train will reconnect with that long-missed need to lift our heads from the daily grind and reflect that there are still places in Britain where we can stop and stare. It will tap into many things: a love of railways, a love of history, a love of nostalgia.

For more than a century, police officers used their uniforms to control and bully criminals, which in turn led to wholesale bribery and corruption. From Victorian times up to the 1950s, this crooked atmosphere tainted the UK police image of the 'friendly Bobby'. Then came the 1960s and 1970s when the Great Train Robbery and other bigtime heists changed the rules of the 'game' forever. It was like the Wild West out there. No one knew who the good guys and who the bad guys were anymore.

The Napoleonic Wars radically altered the old, established European power dynamics, and in 1795, the British, now emerging as the globe’s naval superpower, assumed control of the Cape as part of the spoils of war. In doing so, they recognized the enormous strategic value of the Cape as global shipping routes were developing and expanding. Possession passed back and forth once or twice, but more or less from that point onward, the British established their presence at the Cape, which they held until the unification of South Africa in 1910.