Showing titles in Politics & Activism

The 12th Duke of Beaufort, known to his friends as 'Bunter', inherited his Dukedom and Badminton House in 2017, at the age of sixty-five. But he is also a singer and songwriter with the rock group The Listening Device. Now he combines his responsibilities as Duke with his life as a rock performer. In this lively and anecdote-filled memoir, Harry Beaufort takes us behind the scenes of his varied life: from playing poker with politicians, to partying on Ibiza with film stars to people watching with The Queen from a balcony at Windsor Castle.

The thoughtful and revealing memoir from one of the world's most recognisable women, renowned for her bold risk-taking, multiculturalism and activism. I am a product of traditional India and its ancient wisdom, and modern India and its urban bustle. My upbringing was always an amalgamation of the two Indias, and, just as much, of East and West.

This is the story of Elizabeth I's inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life. Using a wide range of original sources - including private letters, portraits, verse, drama, and state papers - Susan Doran provides a vivid and often dramatic account of political life in Elizabethan England and the queen at its center.

James Naughtie, the acclaimed author and BBC broadcaster, now brings his unique and inquisitive eye to the country that has fascinated him and drawn him across the Atlantic for half a century. In looking at America, from Presidents Nixon through to Trump, he’ll tell the story of a country that is grappling with a dream. What has it come to mean in the new century and who do Americans now think they are?

Wallis Simpson stole the king's heart and rocked the monarchy - but she was not Edward VIII's first or only love. Before Wallis dominated his life, he adored three other women: Rosemary Leveson Gower, the girl he wanted to marry; Freda Dudley Ward, the Prince's long-term mistress; and Thelma Furness, his twice-married American lover. Each one of the three women in this book could have changed the course of history. In examining their lives and impact on the heir to the throne, Rachel Trethewey questions whether he ever really wanted to be king....

The creation of the executive branch of government was one of the most audacious decisions in American history. The story of our greatest presidents create a narrative as compelling as an historical novel, and these 48 compelling lectures look at the lives, the achievements, and the legacies of those generally considered our 12 greatest presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Ronald Reagan.

Despite Catherine of Braganza's crucial place in British history, and that of its Empire, she has since been overshadowed by stories of the king's many mistresses and forgotten as Charles' boring, powerless wife. This could not be further from the truth. In an absorbing narrative, historian Sophie Shorland not only tells the full story of this long-overlooked figure and her difficult relationship with Charles II, but also reveals how Catherine changed the country in ways both large and small.

Napoleon inspires passionately held and often conflicting visions. Was he a godlike genius, a romantic avatar, a megalomaniac monster, a compulsive warmonger or just a nasty little dictator? Whilst he displayed elements of these traits at certain times, Napoleon was none of these things. He was a man and, as Adam Zamoyski presents him in this landmark biography, a rather ordinary one at that.

Jimmy Carter, 39th president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, international humanitarian, fisherman, reflects on his full and happy life with pride, humor, and a few second thoughts.

Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolo` Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? In Machiavelli: His Life and Times, Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his father's penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher's hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile.

On New Year's Eve 1999, a young Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian TV screens "” awkward, self-conscious... and the new President. Two decades later, Putin is still in power, standing self-assured and at ease on the world stage. How did a once little known KGB bureaucrat become one of the most dominant figures of twenty first century politics?

The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 is one of the most dramatic and bloody events in English history. Starting with village riots in the Essex countryside, chaos rapidly spread across much of the southeast of England, as tens of thousands of ordinary men and women marched in fury to London, torching houses, slaughtering their social superiors and terrifying the life out of those who got in their way. The burning down of Savoy Palace, home to the most powerful magnate in the realm, marked one of the Revolt’s most violent episodes.

A dramatic, sparkling tale of sex, glamour, intrigue, romance and heartbreak, England's Mistress traces the rise and rise of the gorgeous Emma Hamilton. Born into poverty, she clawed her way up through London’s underworlds of sex for sale to become England’s first media superstar. Nothing could stand in the way of her dreams– except her self-destructive desires.

As the only child of the Prince Regent and Caroline of Brunswick, Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817) was the heiress presumptive to the throne. Her parents' marriage had already broken up by the time she was born. She had a difficult childhood and a turbulent adolescence, but she was popular with the public, who looked to her to restore the good name of the monarchy.

A riveting narrative of Wall Street buccaneering, political intrigue and two of American history’s most colossal characters, struggling for mastery in an era of social upheaval and rampant inequality. Today, as the country again asks whether saving democracy means taming capital, the lessons of Roosevelt and Morgan’s time are more urgent than ever.

The nearly eight years of Harry Truman’s presidency—among the most turbulent in American history—were marked by victory in the wars against Germany and Japan; the first use of an atomic bomb and the development of far deadlier weapons; the start of the Cold War and the creation of the NATO alliance; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight a costly “limited war” in Korea.

In this incredible companion to the second and third seasons of Netflix's acclaimed series The Crown, renowned biographer and the show's historical consultant Robert Lacey takes us through the real history that inspired the drama. Covering two tumultuous decades in the reign of Elizabeth II, Lacey looks at the key social, political and personal moments and the effect they had not only on the royal family but also on the world around them.

From June of 2019 until his firing by President Trump after the November 2020 election, Secretary Mark T. Esper led the Department of Defense through an unprecedented time in history—a period marked by growing threats and conflict abroad, a global pandemic unseen in a century, the greatest domestic unrest in two generations, and a White House seemingly bent on breaking accepted norms and conventions for political advantage. A Sacred Oath is Secretary Esper’s unvarnished and candid memoir of those extraordinary and dangerous times, and includes events and moments never before told.

The first of Henry VIII's wives was Catherine of Aragon, the pious Catholic princess who suffered years of miscarriages and still births and yet failed to produce a male heir.

From the New York Times best-selling author Candice Millard, this is the gripping true story of one dramatic - and emblematic - year in the early life of Winston Churchill. At the age of 24, Winston Churchill believed that to achieve his ambition of becoming Prime Minister, he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Although he had put himself in real danger in colonial wars in India and Sudan and as a journalist covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba, glory and fame had eluded him.