At the outbreak of World War Two, the Bank of England was shipping gold to America to purchase arms and munitions. In June 1940, RMS Niagara was secretly carrying 8 tons of British gold when it hit a German mine and sank off New Zealand. The Royal Navy declared salvage was impossible because the water was too deep, so the desperate Bank of England offered the job to a retired sea captain, John Williams. Within weeks, Williams hired a deep-sea diver, built an exper...

Triumphs and disasters in the deep seaThis is a journey through time and water, to the bottom of the ocean and the future of our planet.We do not see the ocean when we look at the water that blankets more than two thirds of our planet. We only see the entrance to it. Beyond that entrance is a world hostile to humans, yet critical to our survival. The first divers to enter that world held their breath and splashed beneath the surface, often clutching rocks t...

By the 1930s, no one had yet crossed Antarctica, and its vast interior remained a mystery frozen in time. Hoping to write his name in the history books, wealthy American Lincoln Ellsworth announced he would fly across the unexplored continent. The main obstacles to Ellsworth’s ambition were numerous: he didn’t like the cold, he avoided physical work, and he couldn’t navigate. Consequently, he hired the experienced Australian explorer, Sir Hubert Wilkins, to organize the expedition on his b...

‘He was a highly accomplished and absolutely fearless combat photographer. Wounded many times and even buried by shellfire, he always came through. At times he brought in the wounded, at other times he supplied vital intelligence of enemy activity. At one point he even rallied troops as a combat officer. His war record was unique.’ — General Sir John Monash, commander, Australian Army CorpsCameras were banned at the Western Front when the Anzacs arrived in 1916, prompting correspon...

Triumphs and disasters in the deep seaThis is a journey through time and water, to the bottom of the ocean and the future of our planet.We do not see the ocean when we look at the water that blankets more than two thirds of our planet. We only see the entrance to it. Beyond that entrance is a world hostile to humans, yet critical to our survival. The first divers to enter that world held their breath and splashed beneath the surface, often clutching rocks t...

By the 1930s, no one had yet crossed Antarctica, and its vast interior remained a mystery frozen in time. Hoping to write his name in the history books, wealthy American Lincoln Ellsworth announced he would fly across the unexplored continent, and to honor his hero, Wyatt Earp, he would carry his gun belt on the flight. The obstacles to Ellsworth’s ambition were numerous: he didn’t like the cold, he avoided physical work, and he couldn’t navigate. Consequently, he hired the experienced Aus...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania“Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR“Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. MartinOn May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country...

Stranded on the beach with the Nazis closing in, the British army managed one of the most unlikely maneuvers in modern military historyIn May of 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men who gathered on that beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear. And so, unable to retre...

Stunning trade paperback edition of Grantlee Kieza's bestselling biography of Australia's greatest generalIt's December 1918 and the world war is over. General Sir John Monash attends a glittering banquet to dine with the King of England and the likes of Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling. Just four months earlier, the commander of the Australian Corps had been knighted in a battlefield, a long way from the streets of Melbourne where this son of a long line of Po...

The epic true story of the Battle of Dunkirk—now a major motion picture by Christopher Nolan, starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, and Mark Rylance.New York Times Bestseller"This book, magnificently edited by Joshua Levine, is a great tribute to the extraordinary spirit of an army shattered in battle but determined not to surrender." —Peter Snow, author of When Britain Burned the Whit...

Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machineIn the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage.The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents w...

Australians have celebrated the Anzacs for nearly a century--but what do we really know of what war did to them? Charles Bean, historian of the citizen soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force, wrote that its history spanned 'the good and the bad'--but so far Australians have only looked at the good.Leading war historian Peter Stanley reveals the citizen soldiers the army regarded as its 'bad characters'. These were men who went absent and deserted, caught or concealed VD, got dru...