More than three-and-a-half million men served in the British Army during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians who had never expected to become soldiers and had little idea what military life, with all its strange rituals, discomforts, and dangers, was going to be like. Alan Allport's rich and luminous social history examines the experience of the greatest and most terrible war in history from the perspective of these ordinary, extraordinary men, who were plucked from their peacetime families and workplaces and sent to fight for King and Country. Allport chronicles the huge diversity of their wartime trajectories, tracing how soldiers responded to and were shaped by their years with the British Army, and how that army, however reluctantly, had to accommodate itself to them. Touching on issues of class, sex, crime, trauma, and national identity, through a colorful multitude of fresh individual perspectives, the book provides an enlightening, deeply moving perspective on how a generation of very modern-minded young men responded to the challenges of a brutal and disorienting conflict.

From statesmen and military commanders to ordinary Britons, a bold, sweeping history of Britain's entrance into World War II—and its efforts to survive it—illuminating the ways in which the war permanently transformed a nation and its people “Might be the single best examination of British politics, society and strategy in these four years that has ever been written.” —The Wall Street Journal Here is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the military and political dimensions of the conflict’s first crucial years, Alan Allport tackles pressing questions such as whether the war could have been avoided, how it could have been lost, how well the British lived up to their own values, and ultimately, what difference the war made to the fate of the nation. In answering these questions, he reexamines our assumptions and paints a vivid portrait of the ways in which the Second World War transformed British culture and society. This bracing account draws on a lively cast of characters—from the political and military leaders who made the decisions, to the ordinary citizens who lived through them—in a comprehensible and compelling single history of forty-six million people. A sweeping and groundbreaking epic, Britain at Bay gives us a fresh look at the opening years of the war, and illuminates the integral moments that, for better or for worse, made Britain what it is today.

What happened when millions of British servicemen were demobbed demobilized after World War II? Most had been absent for years, and the joy of arrival was often clouded with ambivalence, regrets, and fears. Returning soldiers faced both practical and psychological problems, from reasserting their place in the family home to rejoining a much-altered labor force. Civilians worried that their homecoming heroes had been barbarized by their experiences and would bring crime and violence back from the battlefield. Drawing on personal letters and diaries, newspapers, reports, novels, and films, Alan Allport illuminates the darker side of the homecoming experience for ex-servicemen, their families, and society at large a gripping story that s in danger of being lost to national memory."

While working on a project translating letters from sixteenth-century Prague, high school senior Nora Kane discovers her best friend murdered with her boyfriend the apparent killer and is caught up in a dangerous web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all searching for a mysterious ancient device purported to allow direct communication with God.

A charismatic young soldier meets a tragic end in this moving and mesmerizing account of murder and suicide in New Orleans. Brown discovers that this tragedy--like so many others--could have been avoided.

The Seeker of Truth takes his rightful place as the new ruler of D’Hara in the third novel of the #1 New York Times–bestselling author’s epic fantasy series. After escaping from the Palace of Prophets, Richard comes to terms with his true identity as a War Wizard. But when he brings down the barrier between the Old and New Worlds, the Imperial Order suddenly poses a threat to the the freedom of all humankind. As the Imperial Order sends delegations and armies into the New World, Richard’s only chance to stop the invasion is to claim his heritage as the new Lord Rahl and ruler of D’Hara. But convincing the D’Harans of his legitimacy won’t be easy. Meanwhile, a powerful enemy is on the trail of Richard’s love, Kahlan Amnell. And when the spell Richard cast to protect her is broken, he must martial his newfound authority—and the armies that come with it—to save her life.

A description of 2,000 years of Christian persecution of the Jews, written by a Jewish Christian who contends that Christians are almost totally ignorant of the Jews' agony throughout the centuries. Pointing to the Jewish origins of Jesus and the apostles, and to positive aspects of Judaism, decries the Christian distortion of Judaism, and the hatred and lies spread against the Jewish people up to the present day. Although he believes that the Jews will eventually come to accept Jesus as the Messiah, Brown calls on Christians to approach Jews with love, and not with hatred. He states that Satan is the author of the spirit of antisemitism, and that Christians must recognize that when they hate Jews they are heeding not God but Satan.