England Wars

The year is 1861. The American Civil War has just begun, and London arms dealer Daniel Alberton is becoming a very wealthy man. His quiet dinner party seems remote indeed from the passions rending America. Yet investigator William Monk and his bride, Hester, sense growing tensions and barely concealed violence.

The Junkers 87 Stuka was an iconic weapon of World War Two and an aircraft name that was, and still is, instantly recognized worldwide. Its roles in Poland and the Battles of France and the Low Countries are almost legendary, but in the UK its import during the Battle of Britain is one that has never been covered in any specific detail. Here, Andy Saunders takes a critical look at every operation by Ju87s against British targets in 1940 - including those on land and at sea.

The Mediterranean, 1943... The HMS Rob Roy. A tiny machine, just 230 feet from stem to stern. In peacetime she would have trawled for cod. Now her catch is deadlier by far. Lieutenant-Commander Ian Ransome is a veteran of the treacherous front line of naval combat. Under sealed orders in the battle-tossed waters of the Mediterranean, he and his jack-tired crew face one final test of their courage....

The Pale Horseman is the compelling sequel to the best-selling The Last Kingdom. Uhtred, Northumbrian born, raised a Viking and now married to a Saxon, is already a formidable figure and warrior. But at 20 he is still arrogant, pagan, and headstrong, so not a comfortable ally for the thoughtful, pious Alfred. But these two, with Alfred's family and a few of Uhtred's companions, are apparently all that remains of the Wessex leadership after a disastrous truce.

Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of "The Cambridge Spies" - Maclean, Philby, Blunt - brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers.

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last five years at Number 10 were a period of intense emotional and political turmoil in her private and public life.

Captain Kidd has gone down in history as America's most ruthless buccaneer. However, Captain William Kidd was no career cut-throat; he was a tough, successful New York sea captain who was hired to chase pirates. Across the oceans of the world, the pirate hunter, Kidd, pursued the pirate, Culliford. One man would hang in the harbor; the other would walk away with the treasure. The Pirate Hunter is both a masterpiece of historical detective work and a page-turner.

Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of the Operation Columba and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. A tale of wartime espionage, bitter rivalries, extraordinary courage, astonishing betrayal, harrowing tragedy, and a quirky, quarrelsome band of spy masters and their special mission, Operation Columba opens a fascinating new chapter in the annals of World War II. It is ultimately, the story of how, in one of the darkest and most dangerous times in history, under threat of death, people bravely chose to resist.

It is January of 1879. While three columns of British soldiers and their African allies cross the Uminyathi River to commence the invasion of the Zulu Kingdom, a handful of redcoats from B Company, 2/24th Regiment are left to guard the centre column's supply depot at Rorke's Drift. On the morning of 22 January, the main camp at Isandlwana, just 10 miles to the east, comes under attack from the entire Zulu army and is utterly destroyed.

Paul Revere's midnight ride looms as an almost mythical event in American history - yet it has been largely ignored by scholars and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. In Paul Revere's Ride, David Hackett Fischer fashions an exciting narrative that offers deep insight into the outbreak of revolution and the emergence of the American republic. Beginning in the years before the eruption of war, Fischer illuminates the figure of Paul Revere.

Today, "the Anarchy" is used to describe the period in English history from the death of Henry I in 1135 to the Treaty of Winchester signed by King Stephen and his successor Henry II in 1153. Despite the name, it was an episode of civil war rather than of lawlessness and is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it was the first time in English history that a woman claimed the throne of England in her own right.

Winston Churchill had a longer and closer relationship with the Royal Navy than any British statesman in modern times, but his record as a naval strategist and custodian of the nation's sea power has been mired in controversy since the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign in 1915. Today, Churchill is regarded by many as an inept strategist who interfered in naval operations and often overrode his professional advisers - with inevitably disastrous results.

A remarkable story of high hopes and crushing disappointment, the campaign contains moments of sheer horror and nerve-shattering excitement; pathos and comic relief; occasional cowardice and much selfless courage - all culminating in the climax of the First Battle of Ypres. And yet, as Peter Hart shows in this gripping and revisionary look at the war's first year, for too long the British part in the 1914 campaigns has been veiled in layers of self-congratulatory myth.

A triumph of narrative, empathy and research, as gripping in its handling of individual witnesses to the war - those doomed to struggle with bombing, rationing, exhausting work and above all the absence of millions of family members - as of the gigantic military, social, technological and economic forces that swept the conflict along. It is the definitive account of a drama which reshaped our country.

The incredible true story of British special agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne, sisters who risked everything to fight for freedom during the Second World War. When elderly recluse Eileen Nearne died, few suspected that the quiet little old lady was a decorated WWII war hero. Volunteering to serve for British intelligence at age 21, Eileen was posted to Nazi-occupied France to send encoded messages of crucial importance for the Allies, until her capture by the Gestapo.

Published in time for Remembrance Day 2008, the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, We Will Remember Them commemorates the veterans who are no longer among us. With an introduction by Henry Allingham, 110, only survivor of the Battle of the Somme and Britain's oldest living man, Max Arthur's new book expands the circle of contributors by interviewing the families of First World War veterans.

In 1943 the RAF began a bombing campaign against Germany, the likes of which had never before been seen. Over the next 12 months, tens of thousands of aircrews flew across the North Sea to drop their bombs on German cities. They were opposed not only by the full force of the Luftwaffe but by a nightmare of flak, treacherously icy conditions and constant mechanical malfunction. Most of these crews never finished their tour of operations but were either shot down and killed or taken prisoner by an increasingly hostile enemy.

May 1940. Britain is at war, Winston Churchill has unexpectedly been promoted to prime minister, and the horrors of Blitzkrieg witness one Western European democracy fall after another in rapid succession. Facing this horror, with pen in hand and typist-secretary at the ready, Churchill wonders what words could capture the public mood when the invasion of Britain seems mere hours away. It is this fascinating period that Anthony McCarten captures in this deeply researched and wonderfully written new book, The Darkest Hour.

Edward Pellew, captain of the legendary Indefatigable, was quite simply the greatest British frigate captain in the age of sail. Left fatherless at age eight, with a penniless mother and five siblings, Pellew fought his way from the very bottom of the navy to fleet command. Victories and eye-catching feats won him a public following. Yet he had a gift for antagonizing his better-born peers, and he made powerful enemies. Redemption came with his last command, when he set off to do battle with the Barbary States and free thousands of European slaves.

During the summer of 1940, Hitler's Germany appeared unstoppable. The Nazis were masters of mainland Europe, in alliance with Stalin's Russia, and only the English Channel prevented an immediate invasion. Britain stood alone. Operation Sealion examines just how realistic the German threat of invasion was. The author studies the plans, the available capability and resources, and the Germans' record in Norway and, later, Crete. The author weighs these against the state of Britain's defenses and the relative strengths of the land, air, and naval forces.