Posterity has not been kind to Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front for much of the First World War. Haig has frequently been presented as a commander who sent his troops to slaughter in vast numbers at the Somme in 1916 and at Passchendaele the following year.The Good Soldier re-examines Haig's record in these battles and presents his predicament with a fresh eye. More importantly, it re-evaluates Haig himself, exploring the ...

More than three million American men, many of them volunteers, joined the AEF in the first twenty months of US involvement in the First World War.Of these, over 50,000 were killed on European soil. These were the Doughboys, the young men recruited from the cities and farms of the United States, who travelled across the Atlantic to aid the allies in the trenches and on the battlefields. Without their courage and determination, the outcome of the war would have been ...

LONGLISTED FOR THE HESSELL TILTMAN PRIZEWhen 25-year old Private Johnson Beharry won the Victoria Cross in 2005 for bravery under fire in Iraq, he was the first person to win Britain's highest military honour since the Falklands war in 1982 and the first living recipient since 1969, when two Australians were given the award for action in Vietnam.Born out of the squalor of the Crimean War in 1856 and the fragility of the monarchy at that time, the VC's prest...

'Mead significantly expands our understanding of Montgomery himself, his motivation and his genius' GENERAL LORD RICHARD DANNATT'Deeply researched, highly insightful... Contains all anyone needs to know about Britain's most consequential soldier of the Second World War' ANDREW ROBERTSKnown to all as 'Monty', Bernard Law Montgomery's greatest achievement was to give the British Army self-belief after Dunkirk, ensuring that hi...

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 is the first volume in William Manchester's epic three volume The Last Lion - the best-selling and definitive biography of one of Britain's pre-eminent prime ministers.When Winston Churchill was born in Blenheim Palace, Imperial Britain stood at the splendid pinnacle of her power. Yet within a few years, the Empire would hover on the brink of a catastrophic new era. This first volume of the best...

"A richly textured and deeply moving portrait of greatness" ( Los Angeles Times).In this masterful book, prize-winning historian and authorized Churchill biographer Martin Gilbert weaves together the research from his eight-volume biography of the elder statesman into one single volume, and includes new information unavailable at the time of the original work's publication.Spanning Churchill's youth, education, and early military career, his journa...

A biographical portrait of Great Britain's renowned Prime Minister during World War II—the basis for the film starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman."McCarten's pulse-pounding narrative transports the reader to those springtime weeks in 1940 when the fate of the world rested on the shoulders of Winston Churchill. A true story thrillingly told. Thoroughly researched and compulsively readable." —Michael F. Bishop, Executive Director of the International Churchill ...

The name Waterloo has become synonymous with final, crushing defeat. Now this legendary battle is re-created in a groundbreaking book by an eminent British military historian making his major American debut. Revealing how and why Napoleon fell in Belgium in June 1815, The Battle of Waterloo definitively clears away the fog that has, over time, obscured the truth.With fresh details and interpretations, Jeremy Black places Waterloo within the context of the warfare of the period, sho...

‘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’ Sunday Times‘Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy’ Sunday TelegraphDouglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British hi...

On 1 July 1916, after a five-day bombardment, 11 British and 5 French divisions launched their long-awaited 'Big Push' on German positions on high ground above the Rivers Ancre and Somme on the Western Front. Some ground was gained, but at a terrible cost. In killing-grounds whose names are indelibly imprinted on 20th-century memory, German machine-guns – manned by troops who had sat out the storm of shellfire in deep dugouts – inflicted terrible losses on the British infantry.The ...

An unrivalled and readable introduction to the years of Trench Warfare' TESThe First World War was won and lost on the Western Front. Covering the whole war, from the guns of August 1914 to the sudden silence of the November 1918 Armistice, the IWM Book of the Western Front reveals what life was really like for the men and women involved. With first-hand accounts of off-duty entertainments, trench fatalism, and going over the top, this is an extremely important contribution to the continui...

Few statesmen have received so many honours as he did over the course of his career. Although several have received the Nobel Peace Prize, none save Churchill have received the Nobel Prize for Literature. His was a career that had few parallels in British history for richness, range, length and achievement. The biography provides an interesting and informative account of Churchill's life - from his childhood, military service in India and the Sudan and his role as war correspondent during ...