In the Shadows of the Blitz PDF Download

Author: Mark Ellis
Publisher: Headline Accent
ISBN: 178615594X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

View

Book Description
Vividly atmospheric and brimming with suspense, Mark Ellis presents this insanely captivating wartime thriller of classic espionage. The second instalment in the Frank Merlin Series, following on from Princes Gate. Previously published as Stalin's Gold. PRAISE FOR THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED DCI FRANK MERLIN SERIES: 'A richly atmospheric, authentic, and suspenseful detective series' - Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author 'So immaculately nuanced they genuinely feel like they belong in the cannon of mid-20th century thrillers . . . Another belter!' - Fiona Phillips 'A truly spellbinding page turner that keeps you hooked right to the end' - Dorset Book Detective 'Brimming with action . . . complex, addictive and highly entertaining . . . I cannot wait to read more books by Mark Ellis' - The Book Cosy Book Club 'Brimming with authentic details . . . A compelling tale of crime fiction' - Foreword Reviews 'A mammoth read with a Dickensian plethora of characters that I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in . . . meticulously researched . . . deliciously complex' - CARAMEROLLOVESBOOKS ___________ As the Battle of Britain rages above, DCI Frank Merlin and his officers investigate the sudden disappearance of Polish RAF pilot Ziggy Kilinski - while battling the looting unleashed by the chaos and destruction of the Blitz. Unbeknownst to Merlin and his team, Russian spies have also been set loose on the city - instructed to retrieve Stalin's lost gold. Kilinski's fellow pilots, a disgraced Cambridge don, members of the Polish government in exile and a ruthless Russian gangster are amongst those caught up in Merlin's enquiries. Sweeping from Stalin's Russia to Civil War Spain, Hitler's Berlin to Churchill's London, a compelling story of treasure, treachery, and murder unfolds.

Author: Juliet Gardiner
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780007386611
Category : London (England)
Languages : en
Pages : 352

View

Book Description
September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's sustained attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight months long, the Blitz was the form of warfare that had been predicted throughout the 1930s, that everyone had expected since Neville Chamberlain's declaration that Britain was at war with Germany. The ferocity of the Luftwaffe attacks, combined with images of the City of London burning are widely considered to be iconic snapshots of Second World War history. Though compared with other great moments of that war -- D-Day, Dunkirk, V E Day -- the Blitz remains curiously unexamined. Apart from fragmentary accounts and local records, there is little in the way of a comprehensive account of the Blitz experience that so many British civilians went through -- as well as the social, political and cultural implications of the bombardment. Designed to break the morale of the British population, the nightly bombings certainly did devastate. But, as Juliet Gardiner shows in this hugely important book, they also served to galvanise the nation; from those eight months of terrifying Nazi onslaught, a new determination amongst people and politicians steadily emerged. Revealing, original and beautifully written, THE BLITZ is a much-needed exploration of one of the most important moments in Second World War history.

Author: Joshua Levine
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471131033
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

View

Book Description
The Blitz of 1940-41 is one of the most iconic periods in modern British history - and one of the most misunderstood. The 'Blitz Spirit' is often celebrated, whereas others dismiss it as a myth. Joshua Levine's thrilling biography rejects the tired arguments and reveals the human truth: the Blitz was a time of extremes of experience and behaviour. People werepulling together and helping strangers, but they were also breaking rules and exploiting each other. Life during wartime, the author reveals, was complex and messy and real. From the first page readers will discover a different story to the one they thought they knew - from the sacrifices made by ordinary people to a sudden surge in the popularity of nightclubs; from secret criminal trials at the Old Bailey to a Columbine-style murder in an Oxford College. There were new working opportunities for women and clandestine homosexual relationships conducted in the shadows. The Blitz also allowed for a melting pot of cultures: whilst prayers were offered up in a south London mosque, Jamaican sailors crossed the country. Unlikely friendships were fostered and surprising sexualities explored - these years saw a boom in prostitution and even the emergence of a popular weekly magazine for fetishists. On the darker side, racketeers and spivs made money out of the chaos, and looters prowled the night to prey on bomb victims. From the lack of cheese to the increased suicide rate, this astonishing and entertaining book takes the true pulse of a 'blitzed nation'. And it shows how social change during this time led to political change - which in turn has built the Britain we know today.

Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 038534872X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 609

View

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis “One of [Erik Larson’s] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.”—Time • “A bravura performance by one of America’s greatest storytellers.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • The Globe & Mail • Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMatters On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

Author: Peter J. Larkham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351893890
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

View

Book Description
Triggered in part by contemporary experiences in the Balkans, the Middle East and elsewhere, there has been a rise in interest in the blitz and the subsequent reconstruction of cities, especially as many of the buildings and areas rebuilt after the Second World War are now facing demolition and reconstruction in their turn. Drawing together leading scholars and new researchers from across the fields of planning, history, architecture and geography, this volume presents an historical and cultural commentary on the immediate and longer-term impacts of wartime destruction. The book's contents in 14 chapters cover the spread of themes from experiencing the war to reconstruction and its experiences; and although many chapters draw upon the UK experience, there is deliberate inclusion of some material from mainland Europe and Japan to emphasise that the experiences, processes and products are not London-specific. A comparative book tracing destruction to reconstruction is a relative rarity, and yet of the utmost importance in possessing wider relevance to post-disaster reconstructions. The Blitz and Its Legacy is a fascinating volume which includes war experiences of destruction, architecture, urban design, the political process of planning and reconstruction, and also popular perceptions of rebuilding. Its findings provide very timely lessons which highlight the value of learning from historical precedent.

Author: Andrew Hyde
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1781591245
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 207

View

Book Description
In 1917, the Germans launched a major air campaign against the British mainland, which shocked the whole nation and terrorized the southeast of England. These attacks by German bombers caused hundreds of deaths and injuries, but until now, the full details of these raids have NEVER before been told. These range from the massacre of Canadian troops resting in Folkstone on May 25, 1917, to the widespread carnage of shoppers a couple of miles away in the city center. Who is any the wiser that Sherness, then a major dockyard for the Royal Navy, barely escaped a similar fate when it too was singled out for the same treatment or that a 50kg bomb struck Upper North Street School in London's Poplar on June 13, 1917. It not only took the lives of 18 schoolchildren, many as young as 5 years, but also crippled and mutilated twice as many again. Terrible as this was, it was just one of scores of similar tragedies, which terrified the populace of London and horrified the world. The account of this campaign plus the political and military circumstances surrounding it, follows years of original and painstaking research, interviews and correspondence with those who remember that period.

Author: Mark Clapson
Publisher: University of Westminster Press
ISBN: 1911534491
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

View

Book Description
The Blitz Companion offers a unique overview of a century of aerial warfare, its impact on cities and the people who lived in them. It tells the story of aerial warfare from the earliest bombing raids and in World War 1 through to the London Blitz and Allied bombings of Europe and Japan. These are compared with more recent American air campaigns over Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, the NATO bombings during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, and subsequent bombings in the aftermath of 9/11. Beginning with the premonitions and predictions of air warfare and its terrible consequences, the book focuses on air raids precautions, evacuation and preparations for total war, and resilience, both of citizens and of cities. The legacies of air raids, from reconstruction to commemoration, are also discussed. While a key theme of the book is the futility of many air campaigns, care is taken to situate them in their historical context. The Blitz Companion also includes a guide to documentary and visual resources for students and general readers. Uniquely accessible, comparative and broad in scope this book draws key conclusions about civilian experience in the twentieth century and what these might mean for military engagement and civil reconstruction processes once conflicts have been resolved.

Author: Petra Rau
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810133350
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 397

View

Book Description
Few countries attribute as much importance to the Second World War and its memory as Britain; arguably nowhere else has this conflict developed such longevity in cultural memory and retained such presence in contemporary culture. Long Shadows is about how literature and film have helped shape this process in Britain. More precisely, the essays collected here suggest that this is a continuous work in progress, subject to transgenerational revisions, political expediencies, commercial considerations, and the vicissitudes of popular taste. It would indeed be more accurate to speak of the meanings (plural) that the war has been given at various moments in British cultural life. These semantic variations and fluctuations in cultural import are rooted in the specificity of the British war experience, in the political aftermath of the war in Europe, and in its significance for Britain’s postwar position on the global stage. In other words, the books and films discussed in these essays respond to how the war has been interpreted and remembered; what is at stake is the way in which the war has been emplotted as a hegemonic cultural narrative about Britain.

Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 030740885X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

View

Book Description
Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Devil in the White City, delivers a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.

Author: P. Towle
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230234313
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

View

Book Description
Going to War overturns conventional views of the role of public opinion, the armed forces, parliamentarians, NGOs and writers in the formation of British debates about impending wars. It shows the pressures and the reasons which have led to Britain's involvement in so many conflicts.