Historiske og politiske biografier

First published in 1968, Sir Halley Stewart was the second oldest man ever to be knighted in Britain in 1932. He made two fortunes and left almost all his wealth to a trust with a Christian foundation and the aim of promoting pioneer research. He was a preacher, politician, industrialist, and public benefactor.

In Against the American Grain, Gary Paul Nabhan--cultural ecologist, environmental historian, Franciscan Brother, and lyrical poet of the American Southwest--has illuminated the outlines of a history too long in the shadows. Whether they were Indigenous, LatinX, Catholic priests and nuns, Quakers, or cross-cultural chameleons, it has been the resisters, performance artists, grassroots organizers, nomads, and spiritual leaders from the desert margins of society who constantly reshape the faces and fabric of America. Their stories are rarely told, let alone woven into a cohesive fabric. They are the ones who have recolored and recovered the future of North America by outrageous acts of resistance against all odds. After reading the stories of María de Ágreda, Joaquin Murrieta, Teresita de Cábora, Coyote Iguana, Woody Guthrie, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, John Steinbeck, and others, we can never think about America in the same way. In Nabhan's magisterial, radical recounting, cross-cultural collaborations have changed the grain of American life to one that is many-colored, flourishing with fragrance, faith, and fecund ideas.

The first 'objects' book to explore the history of polar exploration

Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace is the story of a young Canadian who in a short time, and for a brief time, mastered Britain's most legendary war machine, the Spitfire. It is also the story of a young English woman who was for a short time his wife, and for a long time his widow, and of their son who for much of his life knew little about his father and is still learning about him. Their stories, based on their letters, diaries, and photos, unfold in richly detailed context as the setting moves from Montreal in Nelson's youth, England in the last years of peace, the first (and largely forgotten) months of the air war against Nazi Germany, Canada during the war, and finally to post-war England.William Henry Nelson was a first-generation Canadian Jew whose family name was originally Katznelson. Like many young Canadians in the 1930s, he wanted to fly. Nelson began work in Montreal's aircraft industry, but in 1936, at the age of nineteen, he left a humdrum life on the ground to go to England, intent on becoming a pilot in the Royal Air Force. A year later he was posted to a bomber squadron. Willie (as his family and friends called him) was also a fine athlete. He was captain of his squadron's team in Britain's Modern Pentathlon competitions in 1938 and 1939. While stationed in Yorkshire, he met Marjorie McIntyre. Instantly smitten, they married days before the war began. Nelson was one of the first Canadians to fly in combat over Germany, only days after the war began. The award of a Distinguished Flying Cross a few months later made him an instant hero to the Jewish community across Canada. In Britain's desperate situation in June 1940 Nelson volunteered to retrain as a fighter pilot. Within weeks he destroyed five enemy aircraft, so becoming the only Canadian Spitfire ace in the Battle of Britain. Few fought as both bomber and fighter pilot during the Second World War, even fewer managed to excel at both.Willie Nelson was shot down on the first day of November, 1940, near the English Channel. He never saw his adversary, who may have been one of Nazi Germany's most decorated fighter pilots. Nelson was 23 years old, and by then the father of a two-month old boy, William Harle Nelson. Marjorie took her infant son to Canada in 1941, seeking to meet her late husband's family and provide little Bill the opportunity for a better life. She was one of the first war brides to do so. Marjorie was unprepared for the gulf in culture and class with Willie's mother, and she was shocked by the antisemitism she encountered in Montreal. She left the city after a few months to begin her life anew, alone in a strange country. Marjorie soon remarried a Canadian, Ted McAlister. In 1957 they moved to England where Bill, having taken his stepfather's surname, would become a prominent figure in Britain's cultural life. Only in his thirties, however, would Bill come to learn of the family and origins of the father he never knew. On the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force Museum in London featured Nelson in its exhibit about the 'hidden heroes, ' the Jews who volunteered to fight in the RAF in the Second World War. Nelson had said little about his Jewish identity, though it was consequential to him and to others during his life and afterwards. Over the course of his four years in England, Willie Nelson refashioned himself. But who had he become? Who was the man behind the iconic portrayals, what had been his formative influences and his guiding lights? How did he come to do what he did and what, in those last few years in England, did he live and die for?

Around the world, women's rights are under attack.

Mike Murtagh's memoir traces his journey from 1950s South Wales to encounters with danger, espionage, and unique insights into the Russian psyche and military.Spying on the Kremlin details the background and unintentional turning points in what has been an eventful life. Mike Murtagh has had a gun stuck in his face, been seconds from a mid-air collision, been struck by lightning in an aircraft, made two emergency landings, had a sniper-sight trained on him, been the target of at least one honeytrap, nearly bled to death in India, been threatened by people working for the Azeri Mafia, worked on a movie with three Oscar-winners and may have inadvertently eaten someone.It's a memoir of a working-class boy in an unlikely life journey from austere 1950s South Wales to the political theater of The Kremlin and beyond via service as an RAF Officer and as a Diplomat. His experiences of living and working in Russia has given him valuable insights into the Russian psyche, as well as the workings and capabilities of the Russian military which still have currency and relevance.Given his humble origins, none of this was ever supposed to have happened to him and could not have been predicted. Such opportunities were almost unavailable to working-class boys at the time. However, sometimes in an almost accidental fashion, he grasped the opportunities that came his way.

Ireland, under both the Irish Free State and after full independence, has now had just over 100 years of autonomous national political leadership. This book, based on Iain Dale's blockbuster podcast, tells the story of Irish politics over the past century by examining the lives and actions of each Irish Taoiseach, from W.T. Cosgrave to Micheál Martin. 15 leading Irish historians, journalists and politicians write essays on each of these figures, showing in the process how Ireland developed from a poor ex-colony to a successful, modern country at the heart of the European Union. In the process, the contributors examine the importance of topics such as the power of the Roman Catholic Church, changing social mores, Ireland's relationship with the UK, and its economic development. This is a must read for anyone interested in Irish politics at a time of potential far-reaching change for the republic.

The Briennes were a particularly fascinating example of the far-flung international aristocracy in the 'age of the Crusades'. This first comprehensive study of the dynasty explores not only its rise, glory and fall, but also how it helped to shape the nature of the European state system.

Unravel the complexities of Bess of Hardwick, a figure shrouded in myths and misconceptions since the 17th century. Bess of Hardwick: Myths and Realities takes an unconventional approach to biography, meticulously separating fact from fiction through rigorous research and probing questions. Did Bess really meet her first husband in London when in service to Lady Zouche? Was her second husband compelled to relocate north because she missed her Derbyshire roots? Was she born in 1527 and what about the mysterious lead coffin said to house her body for three months post-mortem? Does the famed 'Eglantine Table' in Hardwick Hall truly commemorate three marriages? Explore these questions and more, including the compelling enigma of Bess's granddaughter, Arbella Stuart, and her claim to Elizabeth I's throne. Was Bess a unique dynastic powerhouse, or was she simply a woman of her time? Ideal for both newcomers and those already acquainted with Bess's story, this illuminating book also contains an Appendix that suggests Hardwick Hall may harbour an unidentified portrait of Sir Thomas More.

In these pages, former coalition Cabinet minister David Laws explores periods in British history when one party needed the other to secure electoral support or the ability to govern.

In this meticulously researched biography, Michael Ashcroft charts Kemi Badenoch's fascinating course from relative obscurity to being hailed in some quarters as the saviour of conservatism in the UK.

"It's like the Society of Jesus in the eighteenth century," said one former party whip. "You show them the Bible but also the instruments of torture."

The glittering story of April Ashley, model and trans pioneer, and the divorce case which gripped 1970s Britain and defined transgender rights for a generation. As Britain emerged from post-war austerity, no one embodied its newfound spirit of hedonism and glamour like April Ashley. A fashion model and socialite who rose from poverty in Liverpool to the heights of London society via Le Carrousel nightclub in Paris, she was also one of the first Britons to undergo gender-affirming surgery. Ashley was appointed MBE for services to transgender equality in 2012, but her journey towards acceptance was hard-won and bitterly contested. In 1961, a friend sold her story to a tabloid and she feared that she would never work in the UK again. Her brief marriage to Arthur Corbett, the son of a baron, set off a high-profile divorce battle, resulting in a landmark 1970 decision denying transgender women legal status as women - and denying Ashley her husband's inheritance. Instead, she blazed her own trail, rubbing shoulders along the way with the bohemians and jetsetters who had risen to prominence in the Swinging Sixties. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, award-winning biographers Jacqueline Kent and Tom Roberts tell the full story of April Ashley's extraordinary life at the vanguard of the sexual revolution and the movement for trans equality.

A solid history looking at a popular era and uncovering the cut-throat side of living in Georgian England

A unique and gritty account of D-Day told by eight Ulstermen - some of the last surviving veterans of the 1944 D-Day invasion of France. Mark Scott delves into the veterans' testimonies, revealing previously-untold stories of courage, triumph and tragedy endured by ordinary men who each played their part in the greatest invasion in history.

Tells the story of Marine Colonel Don Cook, an American who was held prisoner in Vietnam from December 31, 1964, until his death on December 8, 1967. Beginning with the days preceding Cook's capture, this volume tells of his arrival in Vietnam, and his impressions of the Vietnamese people and countryside in the letters he wrote to his wife.

A pocket guide to the real Lenin, showing the complexities behind a man often vilified by historians. Ian Birchall guides the reader through an introductory analysis of Lenin''s experiences and achievements, showing his methods and motivations in attempting to create a world in which production was to be for human need rather than profit.

At the break of dawn on D-Day, two young American paratrooper medics descended silently by parachute into the unfamiliar terrain of Normandy. Landing within half a mile of the quaint village of Angoville au Plain, just five and a half miles from the Utah invasion beach, they had no idea that the small 12th century church in this hamlet, surrounded by stone cottages and farmhouses housing only eighty-three inhabitants, would soon transform into a sanctuary for wounded American and German soldiers. In this unexpected haven, equal care and respect would be extended to all in need.At the heart of this story are the lives and deeds of medic Robert E. Wright and medic/stretcher bearer Kenneth J. Moore. Their accounts reveal the profound care and compassion they administered to their fellow soldiers amid the brutal realities of injury and death on the battlefield. More than a tale of wartime medical heroism, this is a poignant story of remarkably courageous young men facing incomprehensible stress, striving against all odds to preserve the livesof their comrades.

First published in 1991, this title is based on a 4-year longitudinal study of pupils from two catchment areas from the first days of their entry to primary school. Using qualitative methodologies of depth interviewing and 'naturalistic' observation, it examines the social construction of pupil careers in the dynamics of classroom life.

A pioneer of nursery education in inner-city areas, Margaret McMillan changed the course of British educational history. Originally published in 1989, working from her own fresh collection of Margaret McMillan's letters and newspaper articles, Dr Bradburn tells in full the inspiring story of a cultured woman who found a new motivation.