Author: Duncan Campbell-Smith Publisher: Penguin UK ISBN: 0141973226 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 840
Book Description
The origins of the Post Office go back to the early years of the Tudor monarchy: Brian Tuke, a former King's Bailiff in Sandwich, was acknowledged as the first 'Master of the Posts' by Cardinal Wolsey in 1512, and went on to build up a network of 'postmasters' across England for Henry VIII. Over the following five hundred years the Royal Mail expanded to an unimaginable degree to become the largest employer in the country, and the face of the British state for most people in their everyday lives. But it also faced the demands of an increasingly commercial marketplace. With the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the possibility of privatising the Royal Mail has prompted passionate arguments - and has added immeasurably to the difficulties of running it. In charting the whole of this extraordinary story, Duncan Campbell-Smith recounts a series of remarkable tales, including how postal engineers built the first programmable computer for the wartime code-breakers of Bletchley Park and how the Royal Mail managed to successfully continue delivering post to the front lines during two world wars, but also how they failed to avert the Great Train Robbery of 1963. He brings to life many of the dominant personalities in the Royal Mail's history - from Rowland Hill, who imposed a uniform penny post and set the great Victorian expansion on its way, to Tony Benn who championed the modernisation of the service in the 1960s and Tom Jackson who led the postal workers' biggest union through fifteen frequently stormy years up to 1982. This is the first complete history of the Royal Mail up to the present day, based on its comprehensive archives, and including the first detailed account of the past half-century of Britain's postal history, made possible by privileged access to confidential records. Today's debate over the future of the Royal Mail is shown to be just the ;atest chapter in a centuries-old conflict between its roles raising revenue and serving the public. Will its employees remain, like Brian Tuke's postmasters, servants of the Crown? This book could hardly appear at a more timely moment.
Author: Adam Johnson Publisher: Random House Incorporated ISBN: 0812992792 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 465
Book Description
The son of a singer mother whose career forcibly separated her from her family and an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, Pak Jun Do rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il. By the author of Parasites Like Us.
Author: David Kushner Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1588362892 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 394
Book Description
Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to co-create the most notoriously successful game franchises in history—Doom and Quake—until the games they made tore them apart. Americans spend more money on video games than on movie tickets. Masters of Doom is the first book to chronicle this industry’s greatest story, written by one of the medium’s leading observers. David Kushner takes readers inside the rags-to-riches adventure of two rebellious entrepreneurs who came of age to shape a generation. The vivid portrait reveals why their games are so violent and why their immersion in their brilliantly designed fantasy worlds offered them solace. And it shows how they channeled their fury and imagination into products that are a formative influence on our culture, from MTV to the Internet to Columbine. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry—a powerful and compassionate account of what it’s like to be young, driven, and wildly creative. “To my taste, the greatest American myth of cosmogenesis features the maladjusted, antisocial, genius teenage boy who, in the insular laboratory of his own bedroom, invents the universe from scratch. Masters of Doom is a particularly inspired rendition. Dave Kushner chronicles the saga of video game virtuosi Carmack and Romero with terrific brio. This is a page-turning, mythopoeic cyber-soap opera about two glamorous geek geniuses—and it should be read while scarfing down pepperoni pizza and swilling Diet Coke, with Queens of the Stone Age cranked up all the way.”—Mark Leyner, author of I Smell Esther Williams
Author: Terry Pratchett Publisher: Gollancz ISBN: 1473223539 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 558
Book Description
The absolute, comprehensive, from Tiffany Aching to Jack Zweiblumen guide to all things Discworld, fully illustrated by Paul Kidby. The Discworld, as everyone knows, is a flat world balanced on the back of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the shell of the giant star turtle, the Great A'Tuin, as it slowly swims through space. It is also the global publishing phenomenon with sales of over 70 million books worldwide (but who's counting?). There's an awful lot of Discworld to keep track of. But fear not! Help is at hand. For the very first time, everything (and we mean everything) you could possibly want to know has been crammed into one place. If you need a handy guide to locales from Ankh-Morpork to Zemphis . . . If you can't tell your Achmed the Mads from your Jack Zweiblumens . . . If your life depends on distinguishing between the Agatean Empire and the Zoons . . . Look no further. Updated and perfected by Stephen Briggs, the man behind The Ultimate Discworld Companion's predecessor Turtle Recall, this is your ultimate guide to Sir Terry Pratchett's beloved fantasy world.
Author: Patricia L. Maclachlan Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 1684175127 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 393
Book Description
"In 2001, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō launched a crusade to privatize Japan’s postal services. The plan was hailed as a necessary structural reform, but many bemoaned the loss of traditional institutions and the conservative values they represented. Few expected the plan to succeed, given the staunch opposition of diverse parties, but four years later it appeared that Koizumi had transformed not only the post office but also the very institutional and ideological foundations of Japanese finance and politics. By all accounts, it was one of the most astonishing political achievements in postwar Japanese history. Patricia L. Maclachlan analyzes the interplay among the institutions, interest groups, and leaders involved in the system’s evolution from the early Meiji period until 2010. Exploring the postal system’s remarkable range of economic, social, and cultural functions and its institutional relationship to the Japanese state, this study shows how the post office came to play a leading role in the country’s political development. It also looks into the future to assess the resilience of Koizumi’s reforms and consider the significance of lingering opposition to the privatization of one of Japan’s most enduring social and political sanctuaries."
Author: Publisher: Hotcourses ISBN: 9781904735311 Category : Graduate students Languages : en Pages : 614
Book Description
Features information on studying at Postgraduate level in the UK, what is involved, what opportunities there are, lists details £75 million of funding available to Postgraduate students.
Author: Duncan Campbell-Smith
Author: Adam Johnson
Author: Great Britain
Author: South Carolina
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Author: David Kushner
Author: Terry Pratchett
Author: Patricia L. Maclachlan
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