British Politics

Former allies in the IRA, Sean Dillon and Martin Brosnan have chosen different paths. Now Dillon is a terrorist for hire, a master of disguise employed by Saddam Hussein. Brosnan is the one man who knows Dillon’s strengths and weaknesses…and brilliant mastery of espionage. Once friends, now enemies, they are playing the deadliest game of their careers. A game that culminates in a frightening - and true - event: Iraq’s attempted mortar attack on the British war cabinet at 10 Downing Street in February 1991.

Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death in 2002, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. The tale of Princess Margaret is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.

What if the British Museum isn't a house of learning, but a vast sinkhole of still-bubbling historic injustice? What if it presents us not with a carefully ordered cross section of history but is instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot swarming with volatile and errant spirits? When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a landslide as staff old and new brought forth testimonies of their inexplicable supernatural encounters.

When the leaders of the French Revolution executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793, they sent a chilling message to the hereditary ruling orders in Europe. Believing that monarchy anywhere presented a threat to democratic rule in France, the leaders of the revolution declared war on European aristocracies, including those of Great Britain. For more than 20 years thereafter, France and England waged a protracted war that ended in British victory.

For many years, Camilla was portrayed in a poor light, blamed by the public for the break-up of the marriage between Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Initially, Queen Elizabeth refused to see or speak to her, but, since the death of Prince Philip, Camilla had become one of the Queen's closest companions. Her confidence in Camilla and the transformation she had seen in Prince Charles since their wedding resulted in her choosing the first day of her Platinum Jubilee year to tell the world that she wanted Camilla to be Queen Consort, not the demeaning Princess Consort suggested in 2005.

Philip—elusive, complex, controversial, challenging, often humorous, sometimes irascible—is the man Elizabeth II once described as her 'constant strength and guide.' Who was he? What was he really like? What is the truth about those 'gaffes' and the rumors of affairs? This is the final portrait of an unexpected and often much-misunderstood figure. It is also the portrait of a remarkable marriage that endured for more than seventy years.

This fascinating audiobook is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time.

In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.

From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carré has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels.

Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister - before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise.

The explosive follow-up to Her Shadow. Just one year on from a violent attack that nearly killed her, MP Sara Lorenzo finds herself leader of the opposition. With the United Kingdom in the shadow of division, her promise is to bring people together. Within weeks of taking up the challenge, a major terrorist attack hits central London and she is forced to act, for the benefit of the nation and is thrust into the spotlight. Meanwhile, the impact of her previous trauma is taking its toll on her relationship with her girlfriend, Cameron. Press attention places them both under the microscope, ...

Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book, Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarization and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity, and diversity.

A Sunday Times number one bestseller in the United Kingdom, this is the intimate and revealing autobiography of Margaret Rhodes, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and niece of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Margaret was born into the Scottish aristocracy, into a now almost vanished world of privilege. Royalty often came to stay, and her house was run in the style of Downton Abbey. During the Second World War, she "lodged" at Buckingham Palace while she worked for MI5.

In Parliament Ltd, investigative journalist Martin Williams reveals the true extent of greed and corruption in Westminster. Containing explosive new revelations about the activities of those at the top, this is a shocking untold tale that goes to the rotten heart of British politics.

Many questions are explored in this authoritative book, written by two people closely associated with Diana: Inspector Ken Wharfe was the Princess's police protection officer for six years during the most turbulent period of her marriage to Prince Charles, and Ros Coward was chosen as author of the official book by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Trust. This book is both an examination of the people and events of the time and an elegiac tribute to one of the most iconic figures of the late twentieth century.

Awaiting the return of her husband and young son from a road trip, Obiajulu Ejiofor receives shattering news. There’s been a fatal car crash, and one of them is dead. In Where the Children Take Us, Obiajulu’s daughter, Zain E. Asher, tells the story of her mother’s harrowing fight to raise four children as a widowed immigrant in South London. There is tragedy in this tale, but it is not a tragedy. Drawing on tough-love parenting strategies, Obiajulu teaches her sons and daughters to overcome the daily pressures of poverty, crime and prejudice—and much more.

Winston Churchill remains one of the most revered figures of the twentieth century, his name a byword for courageous leadership. But the Churchill we know today is a mixture of history and myth, authored by the man himself. In Mirrors of Greatness, prizewinning historian David Reynolds reevaluates Churchill’s life by viewing it through the eyes of his allies and adversaries, even his own family, revealing Churchill’s lifelong struggle to overcome his political failures and his evolving grasp of what “greatness” truly entailed.

Founded in 1922, over the last century the BBC has become Britain’s most influential broadcaster. Its programs have been part of everyday life in the UK and around the world, from Its That Man Again to Life on Earth, Doctor Who, and Eastenders, reflecting social change and reshaping our culture. However, the BBC now faces significant challenges, which may even jeopardize its continued existence. This new book draws out these issues and looks at how similar threats—including hostile governments, management failures, and new technologies—were met and overcome in the past.

Tucker Wayne's past and his present collide when a former army colleague comes to him for help. She's on the run from brutal assassins hunting her and her son. To keep them safe, Tucker must discover who killed a brilliant young idealist - a crime that leads back to the most powerful figures in the US government.

A gripping history of the Security Service and its covert surveillance on British writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century.