Previous histories have focused on the KGB, leaving military intelligence and the special service—which specialized in codes and ciphers—lurking in the shadows. Drawing on previously neglected Russian sources, Haslam reveals how both were in fact crucial to the survival of the Soviet state. This was especially true after Stalin's death in 1953, as the Cold War heated up and dedicated Communist agents the regime had relied upon—Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, Donald Maclean—were betrayed. In t...

The history of secret intelligence, like secret intelligence itself, is fraught with difficulties surrounding both the reliability and completeness of the sources, and the motivations behind their release—which can be the product of ongoing propaganda efforts as well as competition among agencies. Indeed, these difficulties lead to the Scylla and Charybdis of overestimating the importance of secret intelligence for foreign policy and statecraft and also underestimating its importance in th...

At the age of 13 Sidney Kidman ran away from home with only five shillings in his pocket. He went on to become a horse dealer, drover, cattle buyer and bush jockey and he also ran a coach business. Above all Kidman created a mighty cattle empire of more than a hundred stations, fighting droughts, bushfires, floods and plagues of vermin to do so. His enterprise and courage won him a huge fortune and made him a legend.

The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Has...

A leading expert on US-Russian relations reveals how the United States and its European allies set the course for the war in Ukraine—and offers a sobering indictment of American foreign policy since the fall of the Soviet Union.Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 should not have taken the world by surprise. The attack escalated a war that began in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, but its origins are visible as far back as the afterma...

Excited about her first day at her new school, Posie quickly realizes she's not like the other students. Posie continues to go through the growing pains of trying to make friends and fit in until one day she has the opportunity to celebrate her differences with her classmates. Can Posie teach her classmates what adoption means?

'The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love - only for their fear.'- Heinrich HimmlerThe Schutzstaffel, or SS - the brutal elite of the Nazi Party - was founded by Hitler in 1925 to be his personal bodyguard. From 1929 it was headed by Heinrich Himmler, who built its numbers up from under 300 to well over a million by 1945 as the SS grew to be the backbone of Nazi Germany, ta...

The definitive history of Hitler and Stalin's politics of mass killing, explaining why Ukraine has been at the center of Western history for the last century, from the author of the international bestseller, On Tyranny**.**Americans call the Second World War "the Good War." But before it even began, America's ally Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens, and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was defeated, he ...

Between 1933 and 1945, more than 500,000 German citizens resisted the Nazi government. Many were imprisoned for political crimes which included both active attempts to remove Hitler from office and passive attempts to oppose the Nazi regime. Resistance was found among university students, churches and even in the German military.This fascinating and compelling history of the German resistance covers groups and methods from underground newspapers such as "Rote Kapella" and "Internal...

**Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize"A superb and immensely important book."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostThe Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years...**The end of World War II in Europe is remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, but the reality was quite different. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed, and more than thirty mil...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[Timothy] Snyder identifies the conditions that allowed the Holocaust—conditions our society today shares. . . . He certainly couldn’t be more right about our world.”—The New RepublicA “gripping [and] disturbingly vivid” (The Wall Street Journal) portrait of the defining tragedy of our time, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On TyrannyONE OF THE...

**An absorbing, revelatory, and definitive account of one of the greatest tragedies in human history, by the author of The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and Hitler's People“This is history in the grand style, the kind of large-scale narrative that few historians dare to write these days. It is difficult to imagine how it could be improved upon, let alone surpassed.” —The Washington Post"This superb book is n...