Stewart Binns is a former academic, soldier, and documentary filmmaker, who became a writer quite late in life. He has since written a wide range of books in both fiction and non-fiction. His passions are history and sport. He has completed a medieval quartet called the Making of England Series, two books about the Great War and a novel set during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. His latest work of non-fiction, Barbarossa, tells the story of the Eastern Front (1945 to 1944) from the perspective of the peoples of Eastern Europe. He is now working on a history of modern Japan.
I read this extraordinary book as a young man. It is a captivating account of how and why Germany came to be ruled by the man whose deeds were the most reprehensible in modern history. There are moments in the book, like Hitler’s famous meeting with Hindenburg in January 1933, which make you shiver when you read Shirer’s account.
It was Hitler's boast that the Third Reich would last a thousand years. Instead it lasted only twelve. But into its short life was packed the most cataclysmic series of events that Western civilisation has ever known.
William Shirer is one of the very few historians to have gained full access to the secret German archives which the Allies captured intact. He was also present at the Nuremberg trials.
First published sixty years ago, Shirer's account of the years 1933-45, when the Nazis, under the rule of their despotic leader Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany is held up as a classic…
Taylor’s book was controversial in many ways. He contradicted many of the conventional wisdoms about the war, but more importantly, he annoyed the stuffy world of historical academia by writing popular history which was accessible to a wide readership. He certainly led me to realise that history can be immediate and compelling rather than distant and dry.
A.J.P. Taylor's bestselling The Origins of the Second World War overturns popular myths about the outbreak of war.
One of the most popular and controversial historians of the twentieth century, who made his subject accessible to millions, A.J.P. Taylor caused a storm of outrage with this scandalous bestseller. Debunking what were accepted truths about the Second World War, he argued provocatively that Hitler did not set out to cause the war as part of an evil master plan, but blundered into it partly by accident, aided by the shortcomings of others. Fiercely attacked for vindicating Hitler, A.J.P. Taylor's stringent re-examination…
There are many military histories. However, Keegan’s account talks about what battle is really like for those who fight them. Although he only dwells on the Battle of the Somme in the twentieth century, his telling of it is compelling. There are few battles as tragic and heroic as the Somme.
John Keegan's groundbreaking portrayal of the common soldier in the heat of battle -- a masterpiece that explores the physical and mental aspects of warfare
The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the "point of maximum danger." Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions, John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles representative of three different time periods, he manages to convey what the…
I was a young boy living in a small town in the North of England when I watched the new phenomenon of television news as it brought me the awful traumas of the fight for civil rights in America. The scenes shaped my attitudes and philosophy for the rest of my life. Branch’s account is a stunningly evocative analysis of an issue in America that, as I move into the twilight of my days, is still not resolved.
In Parting the Waters, the first volume of his essential America in the King Years series, Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch gives a “compelling…masterfully told” (The Wall Street Journal) account of Martin Luther King’s early years and rise to greatness.
Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American Civil Rights Movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations.
Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is a vivid tapestry of…
Oral history sources have always been central to my work, both as an author and a documentary-maker. Cook’s account of the experiences of ordinary Japanese people during the Second World War is one of the best. It is both powerful and a lesson about the utter tragedy of war.
A "deeply moving book" (Studs Terkel) and the first ever oral history to document the experience of ordinary Japanese people during World War II
"Hereafter no one will be able to think, write, or teach about the Pacific War without reference to [the Cooks'] work." -Marius B. Jansen, Emeritus Professor of Japanese History, Princeton University
This pathbreaking work of oral history by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook was the first book ever to capture the experience of ordinary Japanese people during the war and remains the classic work on the subject.
On June 22nd 1941, the largest military invasion in human history was launched - an attack on the Soviet Union by almost four million men of Nazi Germany's brutal war machine. Operation Barbarossa led to the bloodiest military campaign mankind has ever known. The statistics of death and destruction are almost impossible to believe. The cruelty, suffering and destitution it wrought are unimaginable . . . over forty million people lost their lives.
Yet, the real story of the Eastern Front is still not truly understood outside of Germany and Eastern Europe. Little is known of those who suffered in the horror of Hitler's 'War of Annihilation' - the soldiers and civilians of Eastern Europe who fought and died trying to save their homelands and their loved ones.
Edge of the Known World is a near-future love and adventure story about a brilliant young refugee caught in era when genetic screening tests like 23AndMe make it impossible to hide a secret identity. The novel is distributed by Simon & Schuster. It is a USA Today Bestseller and 2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in multiple categories, including Best New Fiction, Political Thriller, and Science Fiction: General.
Alexandra is a gifted student, adoring daughter, and exuberant prankster. She is also hiding in the open. After a blissful childhood, Alex learned she’s an illegal refugee from a brutal regime, smuggled into…
Fans of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake will be swept away by this riveting speculative fiction adventure and love story about family, genetic privacy, and the onrushing future of surveillance technology.
2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in multiple categories, including Best New Fiction, Political Thriller, and Science Fiction
Alexandra Tashen is a brilliant student, adoring daughter, merry wit, and exuberant prankster. After a blissful childhood on a Texas ranch, she learns the truth: She is a refusé, an illegal refugee smuggled into the Allied Nations as an infant. Everyone from her birth region carries a harmless but detectable bit of…
