Given the increasing interest in the Victorian era an authoritative biography of Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood VC is long overdue. By any standards his career was remarkable and began with him in the Royal Navy in the Crimea before he transferred to the cavalry to see more action.

John Reimer, minister of Lakeview Mennonite Church in Chicago, has survived several attempts on his life while looking into a gruesome killing at North Pond. He has also just lost his spouse. Everyone from district minister Waldo Wedel to Lakeview’s church moderator Nancy Huefflinger thinks they know what is best for John. What he can’t deny is that his extracurricular activities and tendency to question authority, including that of cops and aldermen, has both friends and detractors worrie...

Neil Weir died in 1967, but it was not until 2009 that his grandson, Mike Burns, discovered his diary among some boxes he had been left, and learnt that his grandfather had served as an officer in the 10th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlander throughout the First World War, seeing action at Loos, the Somme and Vimy Ridge, as well as in staff and training posts. It ends with his work at the War Office during the Russian Civil War of 191920. In the diary, and the accompanying letters w...

John Reimer, a Mennonite preacher in Lakeview, Chicago, might be on the downslope of his ministerial career. At least that's how he feels most days. Then one morning in March a hungover waitress at the Melrose diner tells him to look into the murder of a bike messenger at North Pond--and begs him to keep the cops out of it. Before too long Reimer is making tracks through Chicago, asking a lot of questions, and leaving many people uncomfortable. Reimer encounters a menagerie of characters i...

"The people of this land had simply vanished. They had left meals half-eaten, jobs half-done. Everywhere was the debris of daily life – knives, forks, spoons, tools, pens and pencils. There were tables carefully laid with plates of fossilised food, and there were work-desks spread with important-looking documents. Human life had once bustled and hummed in this city, but then mid-sentence everything had just ... This was now the realm of spiders. With a hundred years of patient industry, th...

A military historian assesses the leadership style of the man who defeated Napoleon.The Duke of Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo cemented his reputation as a great general, and much subsequent writing on his career has taken an uncritical, sometimes chauvinistic view of his talents. Little has been published that fully pins down the reality of Wellington's leadership, clearly identifying his weaknesses as well as his strengths.George E. Jaycock,...

A BBC History Magazine and Aspects of History Book of the Year 2025'Terrific – full of drama … it has profoundly altered my understanding of the Second World War' PATRICK BISHOPFROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SBS COMES AN EPIC HISTORY OF THE ALLIED VICTORY IN NORTH AFRICA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR.On 8 November 1942, British and American troops invaded French North Africa as part of Operation Torch, th...

What are the core principles of strategic thinking historically? And how do these translate into modern times? These are the questions addressed by the contributors in this Convoco mini-edition. Saul David's article examines the ideas of the father of modern strategy, Carl von Clausewitz. His discussion connects the historic element of strategy with modern-day international politics, drawing insightful parallels while pointing out the misinterpretations of a great strategic mind. In her co...

December 1943. A German fort sits impregnable atop a mountain. Standing between the Allied forces and their path to Rome is a steep climb up a 200-foot cliff, in the snow, in the middle of the night.As the future of civilisation hangs in the balance, with Axis forces sprawled around the world, a group of highly trained US and Canadian soldiers from humble backgrounds is asked to do the impossible: capture this crucial Nazi stronghold. After completing state-of-the-...

'Well written and persuasive ...objective and well-rounded....this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography' - Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday'A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it ... a balanced portrait' - The**Sunday Times'Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy' - Sunday TelegraphDouglas Haig is the single m...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFrom bestselling historian Saul David, a riveting new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War.The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10,000-strong airborne divisions: the 1st, 6th and 44th Indian, each composed of ...