Simone Veil, the former French lawyer and politician who became the first President of the European Union, was born Simone Jacob in 1927. In A Life, she describes in vivid detail a childhood of happiness and innocence spent in Nice that came to an abrupt end in 1944 when, at the age of 17, she was deported with her family to concentration camps. Though she survived, her mother, father, and brother all died in captivity. After the liberation of Auschwitz and upon her return to Fran...

The Veiled Sun: From Auschwitz to New Beginnings by Paul Schaffer and Translated from the French by Vivian Felsen with a Foreword by Serge Klarsfeld and an Introduction by Simone Veil.The Veiled Sun is a Holocaust memoir written in a highly literate style. Paul Schaffer spent his teenage years on the run from the Nazis in Austria, Belgium and France, and then in Auschwitz from 1942 to 1945. He survived to become a successful industrialist who was honoured by the g...

Aesthete, sensualist, bookworm, politician of Machiavellian cunning: François Mitterrand was a man of exceptional gifts and exceptional flaws who, during his fourteen years as President, strove to drag his tradition-bound and change-averse country into the modern world.As a statesman and as a human being, he was the incarnation of the mercurial, contrarian France which Britain and America find so perennially frustrating. He embodied the ambiguities and the contradictions of a natio...

The Magic Lantern is one of those rare books that capture history in the making, written by an author who was witness to some of the most remarkable moments that marked the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe.Timothy Garton Ash was there in Warsaw, on 4 June, when the communist government was humiliated by Solidarity in the first semi-free elections since the Second World War. He was there in Budapest, twelve days later, when Imre Nagy - thirty-one years after his exec...

As financial turmoil in Europe preoccupies political leaders and global markets, it becomes more important than ever to understand the forces that underpin the European Union, hold it together and drive it forward. This timely book provides a gripping account of the realities of power politics among European states and between their leaders. Drawing on long experience working behind the scenes, Luuk van Middelaar captures the dynamics and tensions shaping the European Union from its ori...

The problem with the history of twentieth-century Europe is that everyone thinks they know it. The great stories of the century - the two world wars, the rise and fall of Nazism and communism, female emancipation - seem self-evidently important. But behind the grand narratives, the politics and the ideologies, lies another history: the history of forces that shaped the lives of individual Europeans.That is the thrust of Richard Vinen's magisterial survey of this uniquely destructiv...

A groundbreaking interpretation of the intellectual origins of the United NationsNo Enchanted Palace traces the origins and early development of the United Nations, one of the most influential yet perhaps least understood organizations active in the world today. Acclaimed historian Mark Mazower forces us to set aside the popular myth that the UN miraculously rose from the ashes of World War II as the guardian of a new and peaceful global order, offering in...

The twentieth century in Europe witnessed some of the most brutish episodes in history. Yet it also saw incontestable improvements in the conditions of existence for most inhabitants of the continent - from rising living standards and dramatically increased life expectancy, to the virtual elimination of illiteracy, and the advance of women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals to greater equality of respect and opportunity. It was a century of barbarism and civilization, of cruelty and tende...

The incredible unexplored connections between two of history’s greatest leadersRonald Reagan and Winston Churchill were true giants of the twentieth century, but somehow historians have failed to notice the many similarities between these extraordinary leaders. Until now.In Greatness, Steven F. Hayward—who has written acclaimed studies of both Reagan and Churchill—goes beneath the superficial differences to uncover the remarkable (and remarkably important) parallel...

'Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil themselves.'These powerful words, spoken by Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address as the new president of South Africa, are taken from just one of the forty important and thought-provoking speeches in this collection.Ranging from 1945 to the present day, they provide an important insight into the modern world. Inspirational speeches by Winston Churchill, Mikhail Gorbachev, Martin Luther...

"Democracy is the road to socialism." --Karl MarxSocialism was one of the formative forces of the modern world, and its complex history stretches back nearly three centuries. But what, exactly, does socialism mean? This informative and impartial guide takes you through socialism's origins to its contemporary interpretations, covering:Socialism's founders, including Sir Thomas More, Karl Marx, and Friedrich EngelsTypes of socialism, such as Maoism, syndicalis...

The last fifty years of French history have seen immense challenges for the French: constructing a new European order, building a modern economy, searching for a stable political system. It has also been a time of anxiety and doubt. The French have had to come to terms with the legacy of the German Occupation, the loss of Empire, the political and social implications of the influx of foreign immigrants, the rise of Islam, the destruction of rural life, and the threat of Anglo-American cult...