'Enlightening and fascinating' John Banville, Wall Street JournalThrough the lives of major figures from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, including Copernicus, Gutenberg, Luther, Catherine de Medici, Rabelais, van Eyck and Shakespeare, Paul Strathern tells the fascinating story of the northern European Renaissance, which rivalled its Italian counterpart.There is no denying that many of the first developments of the Renaissance took place in Italy. However, a revolution of similar magnitude was also occurring across northern Europe, which would forever alter European culture in its own unique fashion. Initially centred on the city of Bruges, its influence was soon felt in France, the German states, England and even in Italy itself.By vividly bringing to life the key players of the northern Renaissance, Paul Strathern explores some of the most significant advances of the whole era, revealing how they not only introduced new ways of thinking in art, literature, science, philosophy, mathematics and medicine, but also allowed for the evolution of an entirely different concept of life. In this compelling and original history, Strathern shows how the 'Other Renaissance' would play a role at least as significant as the Italian Renaissance in shattering the constraints of medieval life and bringing our modern world into being. Read more

The veteran tells his grandson about his World War 2 experiences, without pathos, but with gripping, brutal honesty.What awaits the reader:“Deeply shocked and heartbroken, we continued on our way back. I had had enough. Enough of the killing. Enough of the dying. In the eyes of the Alsatian I saw a question I was also asking myself. When would this terrible war come to an end, the cannons fall silent, the armories shut down? When would we finally be able to return to life instead of crawling, slaying, and destroying?”“He lived through the whole day and finally died the following night. During this time, he kept calling for help. Just before he died, he thought he saw his mother and calmed down a bit. I rested my hand on his shoulder. I did not want him to die alone. He finally left our world with his eyes wide open and his hands pressed over his intestines.”“My baptism of fire was the most incisive event of my life. Nothing was ever going to be the same. My youthful carefreeness had vanished under the impact of dread and orchestrated mass destruction.”SynopsisThe rulers’ mistakes are paid for with the blood of the people. This is shown in history both recent and ancient, time and time again. It was no different for an Austrian mountain farmer’s son who was thrown into the carnage of the Eastern Front. He was in the prime of his youth, and the German Reich was already close to losing the war.In ripe old age, he remembers those dark hours that have haunted him throughout his life. Manning his machine gun in merciless struggles with a superior enemy, or fighting for survival in brutal close combat, reduced to basest instincts. He also remembers the rock-solid comradeship with his mountain troop, the unexpected gestures of humanity, and an insane destructiveness at a time when the world was out of joint.This ruthless, honest, and touching real-life account of a simple WW2 frontline soldier serves as a reminder to stand up for peace at all times, and to despise war. Until the eyes shut …About the authorDr. Andreas Hartinger, born 1985 in Fuerstenfeld/Austria had a profound interest in contemporary history from a young age. During his professional assignments in various crises around the world, he has seen with his own eyes how war takes humanity hostage. He and his grandfather Hans Kahr, born 02.08.1925, wrote down the elder’s war memories together. It was painstaking work and it involved innumerable unsettling conversations. What started off as a family project has become an international book bestseller in various history and WW2 book categories. Mr. Kahr`s Wehrmacht identification tag was -600- St.Kp. II/E.u.A.G.J.E.R 138. His combat unit on the Eastern Front was 4. (s) Kompanie / Gebirgs-Jäger-Regiment 138 / 3. Gebirgsdivision. Readers with an interest in the subject or relatives/friends that were deployed on the Eastern Front, are encouraged to research Mr. Kahr`s story and the divisional history in the second half of the war. Read more

Glorious cycling routes by the river. World-class wine tasting among the vines. Days of exploring historic châteaux. Loire Valley offers enough bucket-list experiences to fill a lifetime. Whatever your dream trip involves, this DK Eyewitness travel guide is the perfect companion.Our updated guide brings Loire Valley to life, transporting you there like no other travel guide. You'll find trusted travel advice, expert-led insights, detailed breakdowns of all the must-see sights, photographs on practically every page, and our hand-drawn illustrations, which take you inside the region's buildings and neighbourhoods.You’ll discover: - Our pick of Loire Valley must-sees and top experiences- The best spots to eat, drink, shop and stay- Detailed maps and walks that make navigating the region easy- Easy-to-follow itineraries- Expert advice: get ready, get around and stay safe- Colour-coded chapters to each part of Loire Valley- A lightweight format, so you can take it with you wherever you goTravelling around France? Try DK Eyewitness France Read more

‘Lucid and damning … an absorbing – and infuriating – tale of complicity, coverup and denial’ PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of EMPIRE OF PAINA groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II – and how the world allowed them to get away with it.In 1946, Günther Quandt – patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW – was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his arch-rival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz and still control Porsche, Volkswagen and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight – until now.In this landmark work, investigative journalist David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave labourers and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burnt around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how the wider world’s political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day. Read more

‘Lucid and damning … an absorbing – and infuriating – tale of complicity, coverup and denial’ PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of EMPIRE OF PAINA groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II – and how the world allowed them to get away with it.In 1946, Günther Quandt – patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW – was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his arch-rival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz and still control Porsche, Volkswagen and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight – until now.In this landmark work, investigative journalist David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave labourers and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burnt around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how the wider world’s political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day. Read more

‘Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously’ JILLY COOPERPicked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the ObserverA Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021Barbara Pym became beloved as one of the wittiest novelists of the late twentieth century, revealing the inner workings of domestic life so brilliantly that her friend Philip Larkin announced her the era’s own Jane Austen. But who was Barbara Pym and why was the life of this English writer – one of the greatest chroniclers of the human heart – so defined by rejection, both in her writing and in love?Pym lived through extraordinary times. She attended Oxford in the thirties when women were the minority. She spent time in Nazi Germany, falling for a man who was close to Hitler. She made a career on the Home Front as a single working girl in London’s bedsit land. Through all of this, she wrote. Diaries, notes, letters, stories and more than a dozen novels – which as Byrne shows more often than not reflected the themes of Pym’s own experience: worlds of spinster sisters and academics in unrequited love, of powerful intimacies that pulled together seemingly humble lives.Paula Byrne’s new biography is the first to make full use of Barbara Pym’s archive. Brimming with new extracts from Pym’s diaries, letters and novels, this book is a joyous introduction to a woman who was herself the very best of company.Byrne brings Barbara Pym back to centre stage as one of the great English novelists: a generous, shrewdly perceptive writer and a brave woman, who only in the last years of her life was suddenly, resoundingly recognised for her genius. Read more

Berlin Airlift: The effort and the aircraft by John Provan. Read more

“[An] exceptionally interesting and well-written book” ― Thomas Morris, The Times Literary SupplementThe extraordinary story of the Nazi-era scientific genius who discovered how cancer cells eat―and what it means for how we should.The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg was widely regarded as one of the most important biochemists of the twentieth century. A Jewish homosexual living openly with his partner, he was also among the most despised figures in the Third Reich. Yet top Nazi officials - perhaps even Hitler himself - dreaded cancer and protected Warburg in the hope he could cure it.Using new archival sources and interviews with current cancer authorities, Sam Apple depicts a relentless figure, hungry for fame, who pursued his research even as the world around him disintegrated. Remarkably, Warburg's theory about the metabolic origins of cancer has been revived in our own time, as scientists investigate the dangers of sugar and the link between obesity and cancer. Ravenous is a book for readers of Alan Turing and The Emperor of All Maladies: a tale of scientific discovery, personal peril, and the race to end a disastrous disease. Read more

It was the most deadly and destructive war in human history. Millions were killed, billions in property was destroyed, ancient cultures were reduced to rubble--World War II was truly man's greatest cataclysm. Thousands of books, movies and documentary films have been devoted to the war. There has never been such a terrible retelling of the story, however, as one will find in Hellstorm. In a chilling "you-are-there" style, the author places the reader at the scene, in the moment. Throughout this book readers will see what Allied airman saw as they rained down death on German cities; or the reader will experience what those below experienced as they sat trembling in their bomb shelters awaiting that very same death from above. The reader will view up close the horrors of the Eastern Front during the last months of fighting and through the mud, blood and madness of combat they may come to understand how the same German soldiers, who only moments before had destroyed an enemy tank, could now risk their own lives to rescue the trapped Soviet crew inside. Readers will witness for themselves the fate of German women as the rampaging Red Army raped and murdered its way across Europe--all females, from "eight to eighty" feared the dreaded words, "Frau Komm." The worst nautical disasters in history which claimed thousands of lives, the greatest mass migration known to man in which millions perished, the fate of those wretched victims in post-war death camps and torture chambers, these and many other dark secrets of World War II now come to light in Hellstorm. Read more

The Magic Lantern is one of those rare books that capture history in the making, written by an author who was witness to some of the most remarkable moments that marked the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Timothy Garton Ash was there in Warsaw, on 4 June, when the communist government was humiliated by Solidarity in the first semi\-free elections since the Second World War. He was there in Budapest, twelve days later, when Imre Nagy \- thirty\-one years after his execution \- was finally given his proper funeral. He was there in Berlin, as the Wall opened. And most remarkable of all, he was there in Prague, in the back rooms of the Magic Lantern theatre, with Václav Havel and the members of Civic Forum, as they made their \x27Velvet Revolution\x27. Read more

Discover the intriguing world of "Hungarian Mythology: Tales of Legends and Folklore," a hypnotic voyage through the ancient legends that have molded Hungary's cultural identity. Immerse yourself in the enthralling world of "Hungarian Mythology: Tales of Legends and Folklore." Explore Hungary, a country with a long and illustrious past, by delving into its fascinating folklore and tales. Be prepared to be enthralled by the stories that have been passed down through generations. These tales, which reflect the heart and spirit of a people, can include everything from mighty wars to fantastical animals.Your heart's desire is to immerse yourself in the enchantment of Hungarian mythology as you delve into the evocative tales that pay tribute to valor, honor, and the magical powers that help shape the world. Explore worlds in which reality and the supernatural entwine, and myths and tales come to life via the compelling characters you meet along the way.When you crack open the cover of "Hungarian Mythology: Tales of Legends and Folklore," you will find yourself on an extraordinary adventure that will take you to the very center of Hungarian culture. Discover the stories of gods, warriors, and other mythical beings that have been told for generations in order to both entertain and educate listeners.Get ready to be enthralled by the cultural depth, enduring morals, and spellbinding stories that characterize Hungarian mythology. Are you prepared to lose yourself in a fantastical universe filled with mighty deeds and wondrous lands? When you crack open this book, allow the enthralling tales of Hungary's history to carry you away to a land of magic and mystery. Read more

On a moonlit night in April 1944 a small band of fearless partisans, led by the British SOE agent Patrick Leigh Fermor, kidnapped a high-ranking Nazi general on the German-occupied island of Crete.In 1941 the German army invaded the strategically important Mediterranean island with the largest airborne force in history. The years of Nazi occupation that followed saw mass executions, widespread starvation and the brutal destruction of homes - but amid the horror, the Cretan resistance, the Andartes, with the support of a handful of British SOE agents, fought on heroically.In Cairo, Patrick Leigh Fermor came up with a plan to avenge the islanders' suffering. Under cover of darkness on 4 February 1944, he parachuted onto Crete's deserted Mount Dikti in preparation for his secret and high-risk mission. This is the story of the abduction of General Kreipe by Leigh Fermor, his second-in-command William Stanley Moss and their tight-knit group of partisans; of the midnight ambush of the general's car and the perilous drive through the garrison town of Heraklion and twenty-two heavily guarded roadblocks; of their epic, dangerous journey on foot and mule across rocky peaks, hiding from their German pursuers in mountain caves and ditches, towards the coast where a Royal Navy launch was waiting to spirit the general to Egypt. But success came at a price for the islanders left behind: German reprisals were swift, unsparing and devastating. With unprecedented access to first-hand accounts of the Cretan guerrilla fighters themselves, as well as SOE files, Leigh Fermor's own account and other private papers and diaries, this astonishing true story of daring in the battle against Hitler is told in full for the first time. Read more

How two men brought about the defeat of Louis XIV's previously unbeaten army and saved Europe from French domination - A Sunday Times BestsellerBy the summer of 1704 Louis XIV's vast armies dominated Europe. France defeated every alliance formed against her and Louis was poised to extend his frontier to the Rhine and install a French prince on the throne of Spain. Two men saved Europe from French military domination: the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy. Marlborough masterminded a brilliant campaign, working with Eugene to surprise the French invaders inside Germany. The rival armies clashed in August and the hitherto unbeaten French were utterly destroyed.Blenheim was a major turning point in European history. Charles Spencer's narrative is drawn from original sources and moves seamlessly from the deliberations of Kings and princes to the frontline soldiers. This is the battle that creates the enduring reputation of the British redcoat and shatters the image of the 'Sun King' and his mighty army. Read more

In June 1863 an English lady set off by train on the trip of a lifetime: Thomas Cook's first Conducted Tour of Switzerland. A century and a half later, travel writer Diccon Bewes, author of the bestselling Swiss Watching, decided to go where she went and see what she saw. Guided by her diary, he followed the same route to discover how much had changed and how much hadn't. She went in search of adventure, he went in search of her, and found far more than he expected. Slow Train to Switzerland is the captivating account of two trips through the Alps: hers glimpsing the future of travel, his revisiting its past. Together they make a journey to remember.This is a tale of trains and tourists, of the British and the Swiss, of a Victorian traveller and a modern-day Englishman abroad. It is the story of a tour that changed both Switzerland and the world of travel forever. Read more