“It was a damn close-run thing” — Major-General Moore, commander of the British land forces in the South Atlantic In 1982, the average Briton didn’t know the Falkland Islands existed, let alone their status as a disputed British territory just off the coast of Argentina. That changed when the Argentinians invaded the islands and overwhelmed the small defending force. Both nations claimed the islands were theirs, but now Argentina thought the British would give them up without a fight. They were wrong. Britain sent a task force into the South Atlantic to re-take the islands, and the short, intense war that followed was–in the words of Major-General Sir John Jeremy Moore–”a damn close-run thing.” This short history sums up the events leading up to the war and its major military actions including details of an Argentinian plan to sink a Royal Navy ship in Gibraltar harbour (foiled at the last minute by Spanish police) and an audacious British plan to land SAS soldiers in Argentina to destroy Exocet-carrying aircraft while they were still on the ground.

`We Can Take It!' shows that the British remember the war in a peculiar way, thanks to a mix of particular images and evidence. Our memory has been shaped by material which is completely removed from historical reality. These images (including complete inventions) have combined to make a new history. The vision is mostly cosy and suits the way in which the Britons conceive of themselves: dogged, good humoured, occasionally bumbling, unified and enjoying diversity. In fact Britons load their memory towards the early part of the war (Dunkirk, Blitz, Battle of Britain) rather than when we were successful in the air or against Italy and Germany with invasions. This suits our love of being the underdog, fighting against the odds, and being in a crisis. Conversely, the periods of the war during which Britain was in the ascendant are, perversely, far more hazy in the public memory.

Medicine and Other Topics is the story of Scottish-born GP AJ Tulloch, from his two-year RAF National Service in the 1950s, which took him to Egypt, through to his becoming a partner in a practice in Bicester, Oxfordshire. Along the way, we learn of his interest in Structured Records Systems, Geriatrics and Obstetrics. A mix of political and social commentary from a retired doctor, steeped in the traditions of the National Health Service, this book comes at a time when the issues discussed could not be more relevant. NHS underfunding, tax-cuts for the rich and Brexit, have contributed to the crisis in health that Britons today face, in Dr. Tulloch's opinion. Dr. Tulloch offers a personal, vivid, warm-hearted autobiography, coupled with an examination of life in Britain, past and present.

In THE WAR LORDS, Field Marshal Lord Carver has assembled an engrossing series of short, detailed biographies of forty-three of the dominant military commanders of the twentieth century century, American, British, German and French: Field-Marshal the Earl Alexander, E.H.H. Allenby, Claude Auchinleck, Field-Marshal Sir, Omar N. Bradley, General of the Army, Andrew Browne Cunningham, Admiral of the Fleet the Viscount, Karl Doenitz, Admiral, Hugh C.T. Dowding, Air Chief Marshal, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army, Ferdinand Foch, Bernard Freyberg, Lieutenant-General Lord, Heinz Guderian, General, Douglas Haig, William F. Halsey, Fleet Admiral, Ian Hamilton, Arthur Harris, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir, Paul von Hindenburg, John Rushworth Jellicoe, Joseph Joffre, Alphonse Juin, Marshal, Mustafa Kemal, Ivan Koniev, Marshal, Erich Ludendorff, Douglas C. MacArthur, General of the Army, John Monash, Bernard L. Montgomery, of Alamein, Louis Mountbatten, Earl of Burma, Chester W. Nimitz, Fleet Admiral, George S. Patton, General, John J. Pershing, Philippe Petain, Erwin Rommel, Field-Marshal, William Joseph Slim, Field-Marshal the Viscount, Carl A. Spaatz, General, Raymond A. Spruance, Admiral, Joseph W. Stilwell, General, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder, Hugh Trenchard, Erich Von Falkenhayn, Erich Von Manstein, Field Marshal, Gerd Von Rundstedt, Field-Marshal, Archibald Wavell, Field Marshall Earl, Isoroku Yamamoto, Admiral & Georgii Zhukov, Marshal.

In the late 1890s, Britain was basking in the high noon of empire, albeit with the sobering experience of the Boer War just around the corner. By 1956, the year of the Suez debacle and less than a lifetime later, the age of empire was drawing rapidly to a close and Britain's position as an independent great power was over. In between, the country had experienced two devastating world wars. India--the jewel in her imperial crown--had gained independence. And there had been far-reaching changes on the domestic front: the birth of the welfare state, full men's (and eventually women's) suffrage, and the foundation of the National Health Service, to name but a few. Throughout this momentous period, the Oxford Union, the world's most famous debating society, continued to meet to debate and discuss the changing world around them. Sometimes their debates had important repercussions in the wider world -- such as the notorious 'King and Country' debate of 1933 which made headlines around the globe and which Winston Churchill described as that 'abject, squalid, shameless avowal.' More often than not, the debates had merely a local impact, even if among the debaters were many of the leaders, thinkers, and opinion formers of the future, figures such as Harold Macmillan, Archbishop Temple, Edward Heath, and Tony Benn. In The Golden Talking Shop, former Parliamentary sketch writer (and Union member) Edward Pearce tells the story of Britain--and the world--in the first half of the twentieth century as seen from the perspective of these Union debates: sometimes shocking, sometimes wittily amusing, and often both. The students do most of the talking, along the way revealing the changing preoccupations, prejudices, and assumptions of their changing times. A distinct pre-First World War fashion for Social Darwinism is in due course replaced by a widespread 1930s penchant for Stalinism, with civilized opinion reliably breaking in on occasion too. Above all, browsing these debates, taken straight from another age, gives the reader a vivid, sometimes piquant, sense of a Britain which is now passing from living memory--and serves as a powerful reminder of the ways in which the past and its attitudes really are a foreign country.

By the CWA Gold Dagger award-winning author of Other Paths to Glory The evacuation of Philip Masson's body near Mrs Griffin's cottage resurrects several old ghosts that send the newshounds scurrying to dig in their clippings archives. Rumours, matured with the passing years since Masson's 'disappearance' way back in 1978, once more abound. But the investigative team of Ian Robinson and Jenny Fielding are already on a trail of discovery that leads back to the end of the Wilson/Callaghan era. Jenny has overheard a snatch of gossip at an embassy party which seems to implicate British Intelligence's David Audley in the original cover-up of Masson's death . . . and Jenny has a personal interest in that affair. But it is not until the labyrinthine trails come together on a Spanish battlefield that Jenny learns why it is that Philip Masson had to die....

Rhodri: A Political Life in Wales and Westminster is the political autobiography of Rhodri Morgan. This posthumously published account of the political life of the father of Welsh devolution is delivered with the fluency and wit that was so characteristic of the man himself. The first First Minister of Wales and Welsh Labour leader revisits the early influences that shaped him politically and which led him to Westminster, and his relationship with the New Labour project and the party establishment’s campaign to prevent him becoming Labour leader in Wales – before ‘the people’s choice’ eventually prevailed. As First Minister of Wales from 2000, he led three terms of Labour Government in Cardiff Bay (with the political, as well as health, challenges of two coalition arrangements), and navigated his own path into clear red water to present a distinct alternative policy agenda to the New Labour Government in London. Written with his typical lack of ostentation, this book allows us to read the final reflections by Rhodri Morgan on political life in Wales, in Westminster and beyond, with unique insight into the first ten years in the history of the National Assembly of Wales.