National service was a defining feature for a generation of young men in post-war Britain. Around 2.3 million of them were called up between the end of World War Two and 1963, when conscription ended. However, national service was forgotten almost before it had ended, a process aided subsequently by professional historians who have been reluctant to assess its longer-term influence on British social and political history. Based on original oral interviews with well over one hundred men, th...

This second volume considers various socialist impulses and developments after the collapse of the Owenite movement in Britain. Interventions by some leading Christian Socialists will illuminate one important tendency; publications by O’Brien another less vital strand. Central to this volume, however, will be far less well-known pamphlets, book extracts and articles in the periodical press by national and local co-operative writers and activists, who appropriated and transformed the legacy...

CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE AWARD WINNER 2018It is commonly accepted that the consumer is now centre stage in modern Britain, rather than the worker or producer. Consumer choice is widely regarded as the major source of self-definition and identity rather than productive activity. Politicians vie with each other to fashion their appeal to 'citizen-consumers'.When and how did these profound changes occur? Which historical alternatives were pushed to th...

Nineteenth-century England witnessed the birth of capitalist consumerism. Early department stores, shopping arcades and provision shops of all kinds proliferated from the start of the Victorian period, testimony to greater diffusion of consumer goods. However, while the better off enjoyed having more material things, masses of the population were wanting even the basic necessities of life during the ‘Hungry Forties’ and well beyond. Based on a wealth of contemporary evidence and adopting a...

First published in 1993 and now available as an ebook. The bestselling story of one man’s fight against terrorism.Extraordinary courage, steely professionalism and ruthless determination are vital for the bomb-disposal man who risks his life daily to save others. Peter Gurney MBE, GM & Bar is such a man. In this compelling account of a career on the front line of the fight against crime and international terrorism, he tells how:he defuzed the mortar bomb used in the a...

A bold and provocative book about Australia's national identity and a plea to keep Australia's famed open-mindedness, Cater tracks the seismic changes in Australian culture and outlook since Donald Horne published THE LUCKY COUNTRY in 1964. 'A great book.' Rupert MurdochA bold and provocative book about Australia's national identity and how it is threatened by the rise of a ruling class. Nick Cater, senior editor at the Australian, tracks the seismic changes in Australian culture an...

In January 1991, eight members of the SAS regiment embarked upon a top secret mission that was to infiltrate them deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab, they were to sever the underground communication link between Baghdad and north-west Iraq, and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: BRAVO TWO ZERO.Each man laden with 15 stone of equipment, they patrolled 20km across flat desert to reach their objective. Within days, their location...

Our Lancaster raced over the perimeter track and then tore down the slope through the dispersal area... with its wheels thumping on the grass but still firmly on the ground. It now seemed that nothing could save us and that, in the next couple of moments, we would disappear in a great explosion. I could hear Bob saying "Get off the ground, you bastard, get off," while Harry just said nothing..."Into the Darkness" is the true story of a young Australian thown into the crucible of th...

A time of major upheaval now stands between young and old in New Zealand. In 'Ruth, Roger and Me', Andrew Dean explores the lives of the generation of young people brought up in the shadow of the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, those whom he calls ‘the children of the Mother of All Budgets’. Drawing together memoir, history and interviews, he explores the experiences of ‘discomfort’ and ‘disconnection’ in modern Aotearoa New Zealand.

the inability for capital, and therefore the state, to pay for the costs of producing a well educated workforce or to guarantee that investment in education will result in a more vigorous economy and increased living standards for those with qualifications. This breakdown, and the dogmatism of free market economics which seeks to alleviate it, has seen the imposition of a business rationale onto what previously had been regarded as the provision of a public service, sometimes even a public...

A fast-paced, dramatic, funny and occasionally disturbing account of Peter Ratcliffe's 25-year career in the SAS. It is laced with first-hand descriptions of ferocious and bloody fighting, sudden death and incredible heroism, and peopled with a cast of extraordinary individuals, hard-fighting soldiers of every rank and background.

The true story of a legendary SAS soldier who participated in the battle of Mirbat and assaulted the Iranian Embassy to free the hostages held within.No publicity, no media. We move in silently, do our job, and melt away into the background. If you have the stamina, the willpower and the guts, we'll welcome you with open arms and make you one of us. And if you haven't, then it's been very nice knowing you.Eighteen years in the SAS saw Pete Winner, ...