Road to Surrender by Evan Thomas

A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan – a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history by New York Times bestselling author
 

Published to coincide with a major Hollywood biopic on Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb

“In this meticulously crafted and vivid account, Evan Thomas tells the gripping and terrifying story of the last days of the Second World War in the Pacific. Writing with insight and understanding, he re-creates for us those critical moments when, for better or worse, the decisions, from the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the Japanese surrender, were made.” - Margaret MacMillan, author of War: How Conflict Shaped Us

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Road to Surrender
Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II
by Evan Thomas
Hardback / 8 June 2023 / Elliott & Thompson / £20

At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war “at once.” Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet?

So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb—and Japan’s decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atom bomb; Gen. Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito’s Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender.

Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as the U.S. nuclear program progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson’s recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender. 

To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender, an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history.

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ABOUT Evan Thomas

Evan Thomas is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers John Paul Jones, Sea of Thunder, and First: Sandra Day O’Connor. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years as Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. He appears regularly on many TV and radio talk shows. Thomas has taught at Harvard and Princeton.

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NEW MATERIAL AND INSIGHT

• Previously unpublished correspondence between Spaatz and his wife, shared by General Spaatz’s granddaughter, Katharine Gresham, shows Spaatz’s deep ambivalence about how the war was progressing.

• Unpublished materials shared by Togo’s grandsons, show Togo’s little-known role in avoiding an Armageddon far worse even than the damage wrought by two atomic bombs.

• Through rare access to diaries and personal discussions we have insight into the moral dilemmas faced on both sides and how the key political decision makers grappled with these impossibly difficult decisions.

• This story is more relevant than ever because of Putin’s threats, demonstrating again the strength of nuclear power as a political weapon.

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Selected Praise

“A terrifying, heart-breaking account of three men under unimaginable pressure . . . This is history that crackles with journalistic immediacy. I challenge you not to read this book in a single sitting.” - Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea and Travels with George

“With an unerring eye for detail and a deft touch with the dramatic, Evan Thomas tells one of the most important stories of all time with power and grace. Paced like a thriller, replete with fresh historical insight, and driven by new research, Thomas’s book explains how America came to deploy the deadliest weapons ever created. The result is an indispensable portrait of power, anxiety, and moral ambiguity.” - Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of And There Was Light

“This dramatic, you-are-there masterpiece provides a convincing explanation of one of the great moral questions of twentieth-century history: Was America right to drop the atom bomb on Japan at the end of World War II? This is an indispensable book for those who want to understand the moral issues surrounding the use of great power.” - Walter Isaacson

“A taut, thrilling narrative, rich, compassionate, and superbly nuanced.” - Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary

“In this mesmerizing account of the final weeks of World War II, Evan Thomas provides a haunting, deeply human look at the mental and physical torment of American and Japanese leaders as they confronted the catastrophic reality of the atomic bomb. Although U.S. officials were convinced that dropping the bomb on Japanese cities was necessary to end the war, Thomas reveals in cinematic, nail-biting detail that Japan’s surrender was not a foregone conclusion. Even as Emperor Hirohito made the wrenching decision to capitulate, senior Japanese military leaders launched a bloody, last-minute insurrection to overthrow the government and fight to the bitter end—a coup attempt that came unnervingly close to succeeding.” - Lynne Olson, New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade's Secret War and Citizens of London

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A Village in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

From the bestselling author of Travellers in the Third Reich comes a stunningly evocative portrait of Hitler’s Germany through the people of a single village.

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A Village in the Third Reich
How Ordinary Lives were Transformed by the Rise of Fascism
Julia Boyd (with Angelika Patel)
Elliott & Thompson / HB / £25 / 5 May 2022

Oberstdorf is a beautiful village high up in the Bavarian Alps, a place where for hundreds of years ordinary people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even here, in the farthest corner of Germany, National Socialism sought to control not only people’s lives but also their minds.

By putting one village under the microscope, this book evocatively portrays the momentous period of Nazism in Germany. Why did Germans respond to Hitler in the manner that they did? How did their attitudes change as the war progressed? And when all hope was gone and their country lay in ruins, how did they pick themselves up and start again?

Drawing on archive material, letters, interviews and memoirs, A Village in the Third Reich is an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Germany under Hitler, of the descent into totalitarianism and of the tragedies that befell all of those touched by Nazism. In its pages we meet the Jews who survived – and those who didn’t; the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime; and a blind boy whose life was thought ‘not worth living’.

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About Julie Boyd

Julia Boyd is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism through the Eyes of Everyday People. Her previous books include A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking's Foreign Colony, The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician and Hannah Riddell: An Englishwoman in Japan. As the widow of a former diplomat, she lived in Germany from 1977 to 1981. She lives in London.

About Angelika Patel

Angelika Patel was born into an old Oberstdorf family. She studied History and German Literature before taking an MBA at INSEAD at Fontainebleu. She is the author of Ein Dorf im Spiegel seiner Zeit (A Village in the Mirror of its Time): Oberstdorf 1918–1952. She lives in London and Oberstdorf.

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Praise for Sunday Times bestseller Travellers in the Third Reich

‘A compelling historical narrative . . . both flatters and challenges our hindsight. [Boyd] lets her voices, skilfully orchestrated, speak for themselves, which they do with great eloquence.’ – Daily Telegraph

‘Fascinating . . . surreal scenes pepper Boyd’s deep trawl of travellers’ tales from the scores of visitors who were drawn to the ‘new Germany’ in the 1930s.’ – Spectator

‘Contains many amazing anecdotes . . . It warns us that we, with our all-seeing hindsight, might ourselves have been fooled or beguiled or inclined to make excuses, had we been there at the time. I can thoroughly recommend it as a contribution to knowledge and an absorbing and stimulating book in itself.’ – Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday
 

‘Meticulously researched…. thought-provoking reading.’ – Caroline Moorehead, Literary Review

‘A fascinating book.’ – Robert Elms, BBC Radio London

‘To a younger generation it seems incomprehensible that after the tragic Great War people and political leaders allowed themselves to march into the abyss again. Julia Boyd’s book, drawing on wide experience and forensic research, seeks to answer some of these questions.’ – Randolph Churchill

‘With an almost novelistic touch, [Boyd] presents a range of stories of human interest . . . The uncomfortable moral of Travellers in the Third Reich is that people see and hear only what they already want to see and hear.’ – David Pryce-Jones, Standpoint

‘Fascinating . . . This absorbing and beautifully organised book is full of small encounters that jolt the reader into a historical past that seems still very near.’ – Lucy Lethbridge, The Tablet

 
‘In the 1930s the most cultured and technologically advanced country in Europe tumbled into the abyss. In this deeply researched book Julia Boyd lets us view Germany's astonishing fall through foreign eyes. Her vivid tapestry of human stories is a delightful, often moving read. It also offers sobering lessons for our own day when strong leaders are again all the rage.’ – Professor David Reynolds, author of The Long Shadow: The Great War and the 20th Century

‘Drawing on the unpublished experiences of outsiders inside the Third Reich, Julia Boyd provides dazzling new perspectives on the Germany that Hitler built. Her book is a tour de force of historical research.’ – Dr Piers Brendon, author of The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s

‘A truly fascinating read.’ – Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent 

‘A revealing and original account’ – Sir John Tusa
 

‘A glorious read for anyone with an interest in the history of the twentieth century.’ – Sir Christopher Mallaby, former ambassador to Germany and France

‘Unique, original and engagingly written.’ – Dr Zare Steiner, author of The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919–1933

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The Dublin Railway Murder by Thomas Morris

The Dublin Railway Murder
The sensational true story of a Victorian murder mystery
By Thomas Morris
Published 11 November 2021 | £14.99 | Hardback | ebook
Harvill Secker is part of Vintage

A thrilling and perplexing investigation of a true Victorian crime at a Dublin railway station.

Dublin, November 1856: George Little, the chief cashier of the Broadstone railway terminus, is found dead, lying in a pool of blood beneath his desk.

He has been savagely beaten, his head almost severed; there is no sign of a murder weapon, and the office door is locked, apparently from the inside. Thousands of pounds in gold and silver are left untouched at the scene of the crime.

Augustus Guy, Ireland's most experienced detective, teams up with Dublin's leading lawyer to investigate the murder. But the mystery defies all explanation, and two celebrated sleuths sent by Scotland Yard soon return to London, baffled.

Five suspects are arrested then released, with every step of the salacious case followed by the press, clamouring for answers. But then a local woman comes forward, claiming to know the murderer....

The Dublin Railway Murder tells the story of the extraordinary 1856 murder mystery that gripped a nation - and the sensational trial that followed. Thomas Morris discovered a treasure trove of contemporary documents in the Irish national archives - including original police interviews, surveillance reports and secret government memos, undisturbed for years - that have allowed him to reconstruct the twists and turns of a complex nineteenth-century murder inquiry in unprecedented detail. The Dublin Railway Murder is a fascinating in-depth investigation that reads like a mystery novel.

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Talking Points

• Britain’s ‘spying scoundrels’ – the ambivalent role of the Dublin detective force, the eyes and ears of the British state.

• Phrenology and Frederick Bridges – how one Victorian scientist used this case to test his theory that he could identify a murderer by the shape of their skull (supported by the prime minister Lord Palmerston)

• Reconstructing a murder inquiry – how the discovery of a cache of secret government documents made it possible to piece together the processes of a 19th-century murder investigation, including extraordinary details never before revealed to the public.

• The imperfect art of detection – how the flaws in this investigation reveal how detective methodology was changing (awareness of forensics, use of the press, criminal psychology)

• The role of the press in Victorian murder inquiries – revealing hugely sensitive information, but also spreading unsubstantiated rumours.

• The corporate fraud epidemic of the 1850s, and the larger-than-life characters who embezzled vast sums from their employers.

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Selected praise for The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations

'Thrilling… The “dizzying” story of heart surgery is every bit as important as that of the nuclear, computer or rocket ages. And now it has been given the history it deserves.'  James McConnachie, Sunday Times

‘The research that has gone into this book is simply staggering… a wonderful book’.
Frances Wilson, Daily Telegraph

‘Gripping... breath-taking.’ John Crace, Guardian

‘Morris has made something unique: a history less of people than of procedures, but lively, enthusiastic and brimming with detail.’ Gavin Francis, New Statesman

‘pulse-thumpingly gripping.’ Mark Lawson

‘Tremendous…It’s rich in extraordinary detail and stories that will amaze you. A wonderful book.’ 
Melvyn Bragg

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ABOUT Thomas Morris

Thomas Morris is a writer and historian. His first book The Matter of the Heart (Bodley Head, 2017), a critically-acclaimed history of cardiac surgery, won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for non-fiction. He is also the author of The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth (Bantam, 2018). He was previously a BBC radio producer for 18 years, and his freelance journalism has appeared in publications including The Times, The Lancet and the TLS.

@thomasngmorris / http://www.thomas-morris.uk

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A History of Love & Hate in 21 Statues By Peter Hughes

A timely and compelling history of the destruction of 21 statues spanning every continent, religion, and era.

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A History of Love & Hate in 21 Statues
By Peter Hughes
Aurum / 7 September 2021 / hardback / £20

Statues have become a battleground for identity and culture wars as our collective history fractures and we fight over how to understand our past and shape the future.

A British slave trader dumped in the river.

An Aboriginal warrior twice beheaded.

A Chinese philosopher consumed by fire.

Confederate soldiers hacked to pieces.

A Greek goddess left to rot in the desert...

Statues stand as markers of collective memory connecting us to a shared sense of belonging. When societies fracture into warring tribes, we convince ourselves that the past is irredeemably evil. So, we tear down our statues, forgetting that what begins with the destruction of statues, so often ends with the killing of people.

Peter Hughes’ original approach blends philosophy, psychology and history in a meditation on identity which is also a heartfelt plea for tolerance.  A History of Love & Hate in 21 Statues is profound and necessary and it resonates powerfully as statues tumble around the world.

The 21 statues are: Hatshepsut (Ancient Egypt), Nero (Suffolk, UK), Athena (Syria), Buddhas of Bamiyan (Afghanistan), Hecate (Constantinople), Our Lady of Caversham (near Reading, UK), Huitzilopochtli (Mexico), Confucius (China), Louis XV (France), Mendelssohn (Germany), The Confederate Monument (US), Sir John A. Macdonald (Canada), Christopher Columbus (Venezuela), Edward Colston (Bristol, UK), Cecil Rhodes (South Africa), George Washington (US), Stalin (Hungary), Yagan (Australia), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), B. R. Ambedkar (India) and Frederick Douglass (US).

The book includes a black and white illustration of each statue and an illustrated map showing their geographical location.

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ABOUT PETER HUGHES

Dr. Peter Hughes is a philosopher and psychologist with expertise in how individuals succumb to the madness of crowds. He has a PhD in philosophy from Warwick University and is a member of the British Psychological Society. He has worked with extremes of human behaviour and his combination of academic expertise and real-world experience give him a unique perspective on the statue wars.

 A regular broadcaster, he has contributed to programmes including the BBC’s Addicted to Pleasure with Brian Cox and documentaries about Amy Winehouse, Eminem and Harvey Weinstein. Peter is also a successful entrepreneur and his previous book, 65 Roses and a Trunki, a ghost-written autobiography of entrepreneur Rob Law, was shortlisted for the 2021 Business Book Awards.

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Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes

In traditional retellings of the Greek myths, the focus is invariably on gods and men, but in Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, Natalie Haynes refocuses our gaze on the remarkable women at the centre of these ancient stories.

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'Hugely enjoyable and witty' - The Guardian

‘Agile, rich, subversive, Pandora's Jar proves that the classics are far from dead, and keep evolving with us.' - Madeleine Feeny, Mail on Sunday

'Haynes is a brilliant classicist as well as a stand-up comedian and with her latest offering, Pandora's Jar, she has effectively written the first textbook codifying this new feminist take on the Greek myths.' - Neil Mackay, Herald

‘Haynes…puts the women of Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk in an exploration of their stories, motivations and myths. Written in Haynes’ immediately gripping and readable style, we get the stories of Medea – a seriously powerful girl – who ends up betrayed by Jason as well as deep dive into the stories of The Amazons, Penelope and Phaedra to name a few. Both fascinating and incredibly researched if you want to catch up on your Greek myths, this is the place to start.’ - Stylist

‘Beyoncé, Star Trek, Ray Harryhausen ...  the most enjoyable book about Greek myths you will ever read, absolutely brimming with subversive enthusiasm.’ — Mark Haddon

‘Natalie Haynes is beyond brilliant. Pandora’s Jar is a treasure box of classical delights. Never has ancient misogyny been presented with so much wit and style.’ — Amanda Foreman

‘Witty, erudite and subversive, this takes the women of Greek myth—the women who are sidelined, vilified, misunderstood or ignored—and puts them centre stage.’ — Samantha Ellis

‘Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to, and how they sometimes made idiots of... but read on!’ — Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale

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Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes

Picador / paperback / 13 May 2021 / £9.99 / non-fiction

Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from Jason and the Argonauts to the wars of Troy. Today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men and have rarely shown interest in telling women’s stories. And when they do, those women are often painted as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil. But Pandora – the first woman, who according to legend unloosed chaos upon the world – was not a villain to the Greeks, Helen didn’t always start a war, and even Medea and Phaedra have vastly more nuanced stories than generations of retellings might indicate.

Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes – broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist – redresses this imbalance. Taking Pandora and her jar (the box was a mistranslation by Erasmus) as the starting point, she puts the women of the Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk. After millennia of stories telling of gods and men, be they Zeus, Odysseus or Oedipus, the voices that sing from these pages are those of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Eurydice and Penelope.

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About Natalie Haynes

'Natalie Haynes is the nation's great muse' — Adam Rutherford 

Natalie Haynes is the author of five books. A Thousand Ships, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. Her earlier books include: The Children of Jocasta (2017), The Amber Fury (2014), and The Ancient Guide to Modern Life (2010). She has written and recorded six series of Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics for BBC Radio 4. Natalie has written for The Times, The Independent, The Guardian and The Observer.

Visit Natalie’s Twitter | Facebook | Website 

For more information on this book, please contact Emma Finnigan.

The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall

10 maps that reveal the future of our world: the much-anticipated sequel to the million-copy bestseller Prisoners of Geography

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'Another outstanding guide to the modern world. Tim Marshall is a master at explaining what you need to know and why.' - Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

‘This valuable book is an urgent and accessible study of the facts and forces that will shape our future on earth and beyond.’ - Ed Husain, author of The House of Islam

'A skilful navigation of the regions that could define geopolitics for future generations. One to read to stay ahead of the game.' - Dharshini David, author of The Almighty Dollar

‘A compelling account of the return of geopolitics by the master of maps.’ - Professor Brendan Simms, author of Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation  

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The Power of Geography

THE POWER OF GEOGRAPHY: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World

Tim Marshall | ISBN: 978-1-78396-537-3

22 April 2021 / Royal Hardback / 368pp / £16.99
Also available in ebook and audio

If you want to understand what’s happening in the world, look at a map.

Tim Marshall’s global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation’s choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn’t changed, but the world has.

In this revelatory new book, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry. Find out why Europe’s next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks as trouble brews in the Sahel; why the Middle East must look beyond oil and sand to secure its future; why the eastern Mediterranean is one of the most volatile flashpoints of the twenty-first century; and why the Earth’s atmosphere is set to become the world’s next battleground.

In ten chapters covering Australia, The Sahel, Greece, Turkey, the UK, Iran,  Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Space, delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity’s past, present – and future.

Tim Marshall

Tim Marshall is a leading authority on foreign affairs with more than 30 years of reporting experience. He was diplomatic editor at Sky News, and before that was working for the BBC and LBC/IRN radio. He has reported from 40 countries and covered conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Libya. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps that Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics and Divided: Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls as well as Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags; and Shadowplay: Behind the Lines and Under Fire.  #powerofgeography 

Tim is available for interviews, features and events. For further information please contact Emma Finnigan.

Oh Happy Day by Carmen Callil

A story of England and Britain, of Empire, migration; of poverty and rebellion in nineteenth-century England, in ‘Oh Happy Day’ Carmen Callil explores her roots and reclaims her ancestors from obscurity. Drawing telling parallels with our own times, Callil argues that social injustice in Britain today is a product of considerable misunderstanding of its history.

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Oh Happy Day
Those Times and These Times
By Carmen Callil
Jonathan Cape / November 2020 / hardback / £18.99

In this remarkable book, writer and founder of Virago Press Carmen Callil unearths the story of her British ancestors, beginning with her great-great-grandmother Sary Lacey. Born illegitimate in 1808, Sary was an impoverished stocking frame worker in Leicestershire. Through detailed research, we follow Sary from slum to tenement and from pregnancy to pregnancy. We also meet George Conquest, a canal worker, sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia for stealing a piece of hemp - and then faced with the extraordinary brutality of convict life. In Lincolnshire we meet Mary Ann and John Brooks, skivvies and silversmiths. Their lives traverse workhouses, gaols, pregnancies and villainies – and escape across the seas.

But for George, as for so many destitute and disenfranchised British people like him, Australia turns out to be his Happy Day. He survives, prospers and eventually returns to England, where he meets Sary again, after nearly thirty years. He brings her out to Australia, and they are never parted again.

Carmen Callil not only reclaims her ancestors from obscurity but draws telling parallels for our own times in this moving story of poverty, entitlement, injustice, empire and migration.

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TALKING POINTS    

• Has anything changed, fundamentally, in British society since the 19th century?

• Austerity and Brexit are echoed in the battles the English fought amongst themselves over a hundred years ago.

• How much do the British really know about the British Empire?

• Has Britain been corroded by its Empire – how damaging is it to a society to misunderstand its own history?

• An important account of English and British social and political history.

• Illuminates the story of refugees and asylum seekers - migration then and migration now.  

  ‘An absorbing account of empire, migration, the poverty of injustice and enduring love…The book bristles with Callil’s righteous anger at the injustices meted out to her forbears, and at the parallels for our own times.’ Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller (Editor’s Choice)

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ABOUT CARMEN CALLIL

Carmen Callil was born in Australia but has spent most of her career in the United Kingdom. She founded Virago Press in 1973 and in 1982 became managing director of Chatto & Windus. Her first book, Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family and Fatherland, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Award.

Carmen is available for interviews, features and events.

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Selected praise for Bad Faith

‘A superb exploration of the fractured mind of French anti-Semitism’ - Simon Heffer, Literary Review

‘The story she has uncovered is so strange and powerful that it would be an unusual reader who was not profoundly moved’ - Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday

‘A work of phenomenally thorough, generous and humane scholarship....Callil understands anguish, and lays bare its causes with clarity and precision. Bad Faith exemplifies what Primo Levi called the 'continuous intellectual and moral effort' that is the only adequate response to the events described here’
- Hilary Spurling, Daily Telegraph 

‘Bad Faith is a book of passion and anger which, nonetheless, manages to keep its head as a significant work of history’ - Mark Bostridge, Independent on Sunday

‘We cannot know what Anne Darquier would have thought of Callil's book, but my guess is that she would have been as moved, astonished and impressed as any other reader’
- Ruth Scurr, The Times

‘Extraordinary...touching... a masterpiece of lacerating satire’
- Peter Conrad, Observer

‘Bad Faith represents eight years of astonishing research...a remarkable book’
- Antony Beevor, Sunday Telegraph

‘A meticulous work of scholarship... [an] astonishing biography’
- Adam Thorpe, Guardian

‘Impeccably researched, Bad Faith is a work of great power and originality; Callil is to be congratulated on her achievement’ - Sunday Times

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang

A major new biography from the internationally-bestselling author of Wild Swans, Mao and Empress Dowager Cixi. A gripping story of sisterhood, revolution and betrayal, and three women who helped shape the course of modern Chinese history.

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Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister
By Jung Chang
Jonathan Cape / 17 October / Hardback / £25

They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, the three Soong sisters from Shanghai were at the centre of power, and each of them left an indelible mark on history.

Red Sister, Ching-ling, married the ‘Father of China’, Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Mao’s vice-chair.

Little Sister, May-ling, became Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right.

Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiang’s unofficial main adviser – and made herself one of China’s richest women.

 All three sisters enjoyed tremendous privilege and glory, but also endured constant mortal danger. They showed great courage and experienced passionate love, as well as despair and heartbreak. They remained close emotionally, even when they embraced opposing political camps and Ching-ling dedicated herself to destroying her two sisters’ worlds.

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey from Canton to Hawaii to New York, from exiles’ quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. In a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China.

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ABOUT JUNG CHANG

Jung Chang is the internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China; Mao: The Unknown Story (with Jon Halliday); and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine who Launched Modern China. Her books have been translated into over 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies outside Mainland China where they are banned. She was born in China in 1952 and came to Britain in 1978. She lives in London.

Jung Chang is available for interview and events .

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BOOK TOUR 2019/2020

·      Cheltenham Literary Festival – 12 October

·      Durham Literary Festival – 13 October

·      Manchester Literary Festival – 14 October

·      Linghams Bookshop – 15 October

·      Salisbury Literary Festival – 18 October (Salisbury Cathedral)

·      London Literature Festival / Asia House at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank – 19 October

·      Dublin Festival of History – 20 October (Printworks of Dublin Castle)

·      Toppings, Edinburgh – 22 October (Greenside Church)

·      Toppings, Bath – 23 October (Christchurch)

·      Waterstones, Canterbury – 24 October

·      Blackwells, Oxford – 29 October (Newman Rooms)

·      Dulwich Literary Festival – 13 November (George Farha Auditorium)

·      Chorleywood Bookshop – 18 November (Chorleywood Memorial Hall)

·      Daunts, Marylebone High Street – 28 November

·      Cambridge Literary Festival – 1 December

·      How To Academy, Conway Hall – 2 December 

·      Aldeburgh Literary Festival – 5-8 March 2020

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Carrington by Christopher Lee

A vivid and expert biography of Lord Carrington, one of the outstanding politicians of the 20th century, who died on 9 July 2018.

"One of the country's greatest post-war statesmen" - Sir John Major

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Carrington - An Honourable Man
by Christopher Lee
Viking | £25.00 | Hardback | 6 September 2018

Lord Carrington served as a minister in every Conservative government from Churchill to Thatcher – who said there was something innately reassuring walking into a room where Carrington stood. Most notably, he was Margaret Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary when the Argentinians invaded the Falklands in 1982. Absent in Israel on the eve of the invasion, he promptly resigned since it was, he said, a point of honour. He is seen by many today as the last of his breed in politics, an honourable man committed to public service.

He could be viewed as a typical Tory grandee, yet he disliked the Party, claiming late in his life that he was no longer a member, and could be fiercely independent. And there were recurring oddities in his career. He was forced to offer his resignation to Churchill for bad judgement over the Crichel Down Affair. As Navy Minister he was caught in the glare of a spy ring, and, though Defence
Secretary, kept out of the loop of the military operation which culminated in Bloody Sunday.

In this full biography, authorised but not read by the subject, Christopher Lee offers a fascinating portrait of a Tory icon whose career is a window into post-war British politics and life as a politician and diplomat.

Suggested talking points:

• The relationship between Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers
• The relationship between Carrington and Thatcher
• MPs’ resignations - are there still ‘honourable’ resignations
• Falklands War, and Carrington’s subsequent resignation
• The agreement over Rhodesia / Zimbabwe, and its impact on Carrington’s career
• Carrington’s wartime experiences – including his Military Cross at Arnhem

Christopher Lee began this book while Quatercentenary Research Fellow at Emmanuel College Cambridge where he also edited Winston Churchill's A History of the English-speaking Peoples and where he wrote his award-winning BBC Radio 4 history of Britain, This Sceptred Isle. He was previously Defence & Foreign Affairs Correspondent at the BBC, where he controlled Radio 4’s output on the Falklands War. Lee lives in Kent and aboard a restored sloop which he sails from the Beaulieu River.

Christopher Lee started the book twenty years ago and interviewed Carrington regularly. It was Carrington who requested that the book wasn’t published until after his death.

Others interviewed by Lee over the course of writing the book include Sir Edward Heath; Dr Henry Kissinger; Baroness Thatcher and Sir John Nott.

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1984: India’s Guilty Secret by Pav Singh

When 8,000 citizens in the world's largest democracy are murdered in a government- orchestrated genocidal massacre in just four days, how is it possible for the guilty to evade justice? This shocking exposé of a true-life Orwellian plot of nightmarish proportions reveals how they did it.

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1984: India’s Guilty Secret by Pav Singh | Kashi House / non-fiction / tpb / £12.99 / 1 November 2017

In November 1984, the ruling elite of the world's largest democracy conspired to murder thousands of their country's citizens in genocidal massacres reminiscent of Nazi-era Germany while the world watched on. Over four days, armed mobs brutally and systematically butchered, torched and raped members of the minority Sikh community living in Delhi and elsewhere. The sheer scale of the killings exceeded the combined civilian death tolls of the conflict in Northern Ireland, Tiananmen Square and 9/11. In Delhi alone 3,000 people were killed. The full extent of what took place has yet to be fully acknowledged.

This definitive account based on harrowing victim testimonies and official accounts reveals how the largest mass crime against humanity in India's modern history was perpetrated by politicians and covered up with the help of the police, judiciary and media. The failings of Western governments - who turned a blind eye to the atrocities for fear of losing trade contracts worth billions - are also exposed.

• This is the first book to expose the chilling events of November 1984, the Indian government's 33- year cover-up and the moral indifference of Thatcher cabinet.
• Reveals for the first time the high-level conspiracy at the heart of the Indian establishment by connecting the lower level actors to senior politicians, high-ranking policemen, judges and ultimately, to the Gandhi family itself
• A powerful and compelling account exposing the dark underbelly of a key global and economic powerhouse - hailed as ‘a timely reminder of India's shameful inability to account for that explosion of racial and religious hatred’ in Delhi and elsewhere in November 1984 (Geoffrey Robertson QC)
• Includes an analysis of the previously unrecognised issue of mass genocidal rape against women and the killing of children: 'long overdue in coming since there is far too little writing on 1984' (Dr Uma Chakravarti, Indian historian & feminist).

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About Pav Singh

Pav Singh was born in Leeds, England, the son of Punjabi immigrants. He has been instrumental in campaigning on the issues surrounding the 1984 massacres. In 2004, he spent a year in India researching the full extent of the pogroms and the subsequent cover-up. He met with survivors and witnessed the political fall-out and protests following the release of the flawed Nanavati Report into the killings. His research led to the pivotal and authoritative report 1984 Sikhs' Kristallnacht, which was first released in the UK Parliament in 2005 and substantially expanded in 2009. In his role as a community advocate at the Wiener (Holocaust) Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, London, he curated the exhibition 'The 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms Remembered' in 2014 with Delhi-based photographer Gauri Gill.

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Sevastopol’s Wars: Crimea from Potemkin to Putin by Mungo Melvin

Published in hardback by Osprey Publishing on 20 April 2017 at £30

From award-winning historian Mungo Melvin, the first book to cover the full history of Russia's historic Crimean naval citadel, from its founding in 1783 through to the current tensions that threaten the region’s peace and stability.

Founded by Catherine the Great, the maritime city of Sevastopol has been fought over for centuries. Crucial battles of the Crimean War were fought on the hills surrounding the city, and the memory of this stalwart defence inspired those who fought the Germans during the Second World War. Twice the city has faced complete obliteration yet twice it has risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes. Rebuilt from scratch during the Cold War, it remains a formidable bastion of Russian military power.

In this ground-breaking volume, award-winning author Mungo Melvin explores how Sevastopol became a crucible of three major conflicts – the Crimean War, the Russian Civil War and the Second World War – witnessing the death and destruction of countless soldiers, sailors and civilians yet creating the indomitable 'spirit of Sevastopol'.  By weaving together historical accounts, first-hand interviews, detailed operational reports and expert battle analysis, Melvin creates a rich tapestry of history, brought further to life through 16 colour maps and over 80 pictures.

Talking Points

• The significance of both Crimea and Sevastopol to Russia since 1783, and why they were re-annexed in 2014 at the expense of Ukraine.
• The background to the tensions surrounding Russia, Ukraine, Crimea and the West.
• The close bonds between the Crimea generally and Sevastopol specifically to the Russian people – explaining why the Russian action was widely welcomed by local inhabitants in 2014.
• A deeply researched study of the operational and tactical methods used by Russian and Soviet forces during the 19th and 20th centuries, and most recently in 2014.
• Russian author Leo Tolstoy and his service as a junior artillery officer during the Crimean War.  (Sevastopol’s Wars includes fascinating excerpts from his vivid accounts of the city under siege in 1854–55, Sevastopol Sketches.)

About Major General Mungo Melvin

Major General Mungo Melvin CB OBE is the author of award-winning Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010). He is a retired senior Army officer - commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1975, he saw operational service in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and the Balkans. During the latter part of his 37-year career he specialised in strategic analysis and professional military education and doctrine, becoming one of the British Army's leading thinkers and writers. Mungo Melvin is president of the British Commission for Military History, and is currently advising the British Army on the First World War centenary commemorations. He is a senior associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute and a senior visiting research fellow of the Department of War Studies of King's College London. He lectures widely on strategy and military history in both the public and commercial sectors.  For more information about Major General Mungo Melvin please visit www.mungomelvin.com.

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The Tartan Turban: In Search Of Alexander Gardner by John Keay

In this compelling investigative biography, bestselling author of India: A History, John Keay, takes readers on a quest from the American West to the Asian East to unravel the greatest enigma in the history of travel.  Alexander Gardner – a 19th-century Scots-American traveller, adventurer and mercenary – lived a life many found too outrageous to believe and using a wealth of original material and compelling new evidence, Keay uncovers the truth about a character seemingly from the ‘Flashman’ stories.

“Among the many gripping tales of travel and exploration the tale of Alexander Gardner is surely one of the most extraordinary. Master storyteller John Keay deftly sifts truth from myth-making to uncover fascinating new evidence, revealing an amazing tale worthy of Kipling or Flashman of a life lived further out on the edge than most could even imagine.”

— Michael Wood

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HB ǀ £25.00 ǀ 9781911271000 ǀ 16 February 2017 ǀ Kashi House (distributed by Allison and Busby)

Like the travels of Marco Polo, those of Alexander Gardner clip the white line between credible adventure and creative invention. Either he is the nineteenth century’s most intrepid traveller or its most egregious fantasist, or a bit of both. Contemporaries generally believed him; posterity became more sceptical. And as with Polo, the investigation of Gardner’s story enlarged man’s understanding of the world and upped the pace of scientific and political exploration.

For before more reputable explorers notched up their own discoveries in innermost Asia, this lone Scots-American had roamed the deserts of Turkestan, ridden round the world’s most fearsome knot of mountains and fought in Afghanistan ‘for the good cause of right against wrong’. From the Caspian to Tibet and from Kandahar to Kashgar, Gardner had seen it all. At the time, the 1820s, no other outsider had managed anything remotely comparable. When word of his feats filtered out, geographers were agog.

Historians were more intrigued by what followed. After thirteen years as a white-man-gone-native in Central Asia, Gardner re-emerged as a colonel of artillery in the employ of India’s last great native empire. He witnessed the death throes of that Sikh empire at close quarters and, sparing no gruesome detail, recorded his own part in the bloodshed (the very same featuring as the exploits of ‘Alick’ Gardner in the ‘Flashman’ series).

Fame finally caught up with him during his long retirement in Kashmir. Dressed in tartan yet still living as a native, he mystified visiting dignitaries and found a ready audience for the tales of his adventurous past - including saving the city of Lahore in 1841 by singlehandedly killing 300 invaders. But one mystery he certainly took to the grave: the whereabouts of his accumulated fortune has still to be discovered. 

JOHN KEAY has been a professional writer, scholar, broadcaster and traveller for more than 40 years. He has written and presented over 100 documentaries for BBC Radios 3 and 4 and is the author of some two dozen books mainly on Asia and exploration. His narrative histories India: A History, China: A History and The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company are widely regarded as standard works. A Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, his prose has been described as ‘exquisite’ (Observer) and his historical analysis as ‘forensic’ (The Guardian). He has also edited The Royal Geographical Society’s History of World Exploration and encyclopaedias of both Scotland and London. For his literary contribution to Asian studies he was awarded the Royal Society for Asian Affairs' Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal in 2009. He lives in Argyll.

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Talking Points

Exploration and travel

The travels of a maverick mercenary who, having crossed Central Asia's arid deserts and high
mountain passes in the hope of finding ‘happiness among wild races and in exploring unknown lands’, astounded his contemporaries in ways no man had since Marco Polo

Lone Survivor

What are the odds of a lone traveller surviving thirteen years amidst some of the harshest conditions in Asia, roaming the deserts of Turkestan, trekking round the world’s most fearsome knot of mountains, fending off a wolf-pack, evading the clutches of Central Asian slave-traders, engaging in raids and ambushes against bandits in Afghanistan, and spending nine months in an underground dungeon?

Lost treasure

The fabulous treasure horde, amassed by an American soldier of fortune who had the opportunity to steal the Koh-i-Noor diamond, remains waiting to be discovered somewhere in the subcontinent

Inspiration for Kipling?

As the first white man to trek across the secretive anti-Islamic mountain enclave of Kafiristan (‘Land of the Unbeliever’) and live to tell the tale, was Alexander Gardner the real inspiration behind Kipling’s famous novel, The Man Who Would Be King?

The First American in Afghanistan

Revealing the remarkable tale of a lone American who, two centuries before the United States’ began its military action, became the first of his nation to venture into Afghanistan.

A Son of Scotland & His Tartan Turban

Exploring the ancestry, shifting identities, achievements and tartan tastes of a pioneering Scots American who went native in Asia.

The fashion of white men wearing turbans

Alexander Burnes - British political agent in Afghanistan who lost Alexander Gardner’s crucial Kafiristan journal in the 1840s

Queen Victoria’s sons - they were dressed up like Sikh princes by Maharaja Duleep Singh
(who Gardner had guarded when he ruled at Lahore) soon after his arrival in the UK in 1854
William Simpson - war artist who, like George Landseer who captured Gardner’s portrait, was in
Kashmir in 1860s; the works of both artists are in the collections of the Victoria & Albert
Museum

George Hayward - a military man who turned explorer consulted Gardner on routes into the
Pamir mountains

August Schoefft - painter who travelled across India in the 1830s-40s and produced works
connected to the court of Lahore (captured other white officers but not Gardner, who may
have been away on campaign)

Victorian / Edwardian military officers - men like General Sir Samuel James Browne VC (Sam Browne’s Cavalry), Captain Robert Shebbeare VC (15th Punjab Infantry) and Sir John Smyth VC, who wore turbans on campaign, all commanded men (or their descendants in the case of Smyth) from the disbanded Sikh army when Britain took control of Punjab

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