- #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR, WRITING ON THE AREA HE KNOWS AND HANDLES BEST: THE THICKEST ACTION AND BIGGEST HUMAN STORIES OF WW2, WITH A BRITISH SKEW - THIS IS A STORY NEVER BEFORE COVERED BY COMMERCIAL HISTORY - RETURNING TO THE SUCCESS OF HIS MOST RECENT WW2 NARRATIVES: CHASTISE (50K HBs, 40K PBs) AND OPERATION PEDESTAL (41K HBs, 31K PBs) - HUGE SALES RECORD:
All Hell Let Loose - 142k HB, 150k PB Catastrophe - 111k HB, 105k PB Vietnam - 102k HB, 87k PB The Secret War - 84k HB, 84k PB Competition: SAS;Break Point;The Crew;Barbarossa;The Western Front;Enemy at the Gates;Grey Goose of Arnhem;Normandy 44;First Light;The Volunteer;The Second World War;Anglo-Saxons. Antony Beevor;James Holland;Saul David;John Nichol;Ben Macintyre;Ian Kershaw;Laurence Rees;David Price;Jonathan Dimbleby;Marc Morris
''As gripping as any spy thriller, Hastings''s achievement is especially impressive, for he has produced the best single volume yet written on the subject'' Sunday Times ''Authoritative, exciting and notably well written'' Daily Telegraph ''A serious work of rigourous and comprehensive history ... royally entertaining and readable'' Mail on Sunday In ''The Secret War'', Max Hastings examines the espionage and intelligence machines of all sides in World War II, and the impact of spies, code-breakers and partisan operations on events. Written on a global scale, the book brings together accounts from British, American, German, Russian and Japanese sources to tell the story of a secret war waged unceasingly by men and women often far from the battlefields but whose actions profoundly influenced the outcome.
Returning to the Second World War for the first time since his best-selling ''All Hell Let Loose'', Hastings weaves into a ''big picture'' framework, the human stories of spies and intelligence officers who served their respective masters. Told through a series of snapshots of key moments, the book looks closely at Soviet espionage operations which dwarfed those of every other belligerent in scale, as well as the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park - the greatest intelligence achievement of the conflict - with many more surprising and unfamiliar tales of treachery, deception, betrayal and incompetence by spies of Axis, Allied or indeterminate loyalty.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A masterly history of the Dambusters raid from bestselling and critically acclaimed Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the overnight destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF''s 617 Squadron, was an epic that has passed into Britain''s national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who won the VC leading the raid. In the 21st Century, however, Hastings urges that we should review the Dambusters in much more complex shades. The aircrew''s heroism was wholly authentic, as was the brilliance of Barnes Wallis, who invented the ''bouncing bombs''. But commanders who promised their young fliers that success could shorten the war fantasised wildly. What Germans call the Mohnekatastrophe imposed on the Nazi war machine temporary disruption, rather than a crippling blow. Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis'' bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams at the cost of devastating losses. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the biblical floods that swept through the Mohne valley, more than half of them Russian and Polish women, slave labourers under Hitler. Ironically, Air Marshal Sir Arthur ''Bomber'' Harris gained much of the credit, though he opposed Chastise as a distraction from his city-burning blitz. He also made what the author describes as the operation''s biggest mistake - the failure to launch a conventional attack on the Nazis'' huge post-raid repair operation, which could have transformed the impact of the dam breaches upon Ruhr industry. Chastise offers a fascinating retake on legend by a master of the art. Hastings sets the dams raid in the big picture of the bomber offensive and of the Second World War, with moving portraits of the young airmen, so many of whom died; of Barnes Wallis; the monstrous Harris; the tragic Guy Gibson, together with superb narrative of the action of one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history.
The Amazon History Book of the Year 2013 is a magisterial chronicle of the calamity that befell Europe in 1914 as the continent shifted from the glamour of the Edwardian era to the tragedy of total war.
1914: a year of unparalleled change. The year that diplomacy failed, Imperial Europe was thrown into its first modernised warfare and white-gloved soldiers rode in their masses across pastoral landscapes into the blaze of machine-guns. What followed were the costliest days of the entire War. But how had it happened?
In Catastrophe: 1914 Max Hastings, best-selling author of the acclaimed All Hell Let Loose, answers at last how World War I could ever have begun. Ranging across Europe, from Paris to St. Petersberg, from Kings to corporals, Catastrophe 1914 traces how tensions across the continent kindled into a blaze of battles; not the stalemates of later trench-warfare but battles of movement and dash where Napoleonic tactics met with weapons from a newly industrialised age. A searing analysis of the power-brokering, vanity and bluff in the diplomatic maelstrom reveals who was responsible for the birth of this catastrophic world in arms. Mingling the experiences of humbler folk with the statesmen on whom their lives depended, Hastings asks: whose actions were justified?
From the out-break of war through to its terrible making, and the bloody gambles in Sarajevo and Mons, Le Cateau, Marne and Tannenberg, this is the international story of World War I in its most severe and influential period. Published to coincide with its 100th Anniversary, Catastrophe: 1914 explains how and why this war, which shattered and changed the Western world for ever, was fought.
8 juin 1944... La division «Das Reich», forte de quinze mille hommes, deux cent neuf chars et pièces d'artillerie, s'ébranle à Montauban en direction de la Normandie. Entravée dans sa progression par la Résistance, par des opérations de commando et les bombardements de l'aviation alliée, elle va sur son trajet acquérir bientôt une terrible notoriété, en se livrant, à Tulle et à Oradour-sur-Glane, à deux représailles sanglantes dont le souvenir tragique ne s'est jamais effacé. Ces exactions barbares, perpétrées lors d'une phase critique des hostilités, allaient avoir indirectement d'importantes conséquences au niveau stratégique. En effet, si la division «Das Reich» était arrivée à temps sur les lieux du débarquement, elle aurait, selon toute vraisemblance, sinon permis aux forces allemandes de rejeter les alliés à la mer, du moins contribué à différer l'issue de la bataille, retardant du même coup la libération rapide de la France. Quel rôle la Résistance joua-t-elle dans le déroulement de ces événements ? Dans quelle mesure sa participation héroïque freina-t-elle la marche de la division ? Voici l'une des pages les plus douloureuses et les plus extraordinaires de la guerre secrète dont certains épisodes n'avaient encore jamais été racontés.
The seminal narrative history of the Second World War from one of our finest historians. A book which depicts what the war was like to live through - whether you were a starving child in Leningrad, a soldier in North Africa, or a civilian in Dresden.
Somehow the Germans found the strength to halt the Allied advance in its tracks and to prolong the war to 1945. This book is the epic story of those last eight months of the war in northern Europe.
A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children.Reflecting Max Hastings's thirty-five years of research on World War II, All Hell Let Loose describes the course of events, but focuses chiefly upon human experience, which varied immensely from campaign to campaign, continent to continent.The author emphasises the Russian front, where more than 90% of all German soldiers who perished met their fate. He argues that, while Hitler's army often fought its battles brilliantly well, the Nazis conducted their war effort with 'stunning incompetence'. He suggests that the Royal Navy and US Navy were their countries' outstanding fighting services, while the industrial contribution of the United States was much more important to allied victory than that of the US Army.The book ranges across a vast canvas, from the agony of Poland amid the September 1939 Nazi invasion, to the 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least a million people died under British rule- and British neglect. Among many vignettes, there are the RAF's legendary raid on the Ruhr dams, the horrors of Arctic convoys, desert tank combat, jungle clashes. Some of Hastings's insights and judgements will surprise students of the conflict, while there are vivid descriptions of the tragedies and triumphs of a host of ordinary people, in uniform and out of it.'The cliché is profoundly true', he says. 'The world between 1939 and 1945 saw some human beings plumb the depths of baseness, while others scaled the heights of courage and nobility'. This is 'everyman's story', an attempt to answer the question: 'What was the Second World War like ?', and also an overview of the big picture. Max Hastings employs the technique which has made many of his previous books best-sellers, combining top-down analysis and bottom-up testimony to explore the meaning of this vast conflict both for its participants and for posterity.
An extraordinary new account of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how it created some of the most dangerous, unstable years in world history - from the number one bestselling historian Max Hastings.
In the style of his bestselling history Vietnam , this book sees veteran war reporter and historian Max Hastings take on the Cuban Missile Crisis. In these gripping, authoritative pages, Hastings tells the story of a war that seemed like a stalemate, and a threat that could have meant apocalypse. Threaded together are close-up character portraits and big picture analysis, military collisions and accounts of the social, political forces that dictated decisions.
This is a new history for a new generation, putting fresh, international context on an astonishing military and political showdown. In those throes of the Cold War, hundreds of millions of people around the world were, for some days, terrified that a nuclear holocaust was imminent. Bringing together the threads of American bellicosity and Soviet brinksmanship, it becomes clear that while both sides eventually stepped away from destruction, that does not mean disaster was not terrifyingly close.
Casting new light on an epic clash of wills, this is the story of when the abyss beckoned.
An epic, intimate new account of one of the greatest naval dramas of World War II, from number one bestselling historian Max Hastings. Operation Pedestal was a crucial relief mission that became an epic, bloody naval battle and a pivotal moment in the Second World War. In 1942, the Luftwaffe had a stranglehold on Malta. In the months of April and May, they dropped more bombs on the island than on London in the entire Blitz. British attempts to bring in supplies and reinforcements were failing with heavy losses, and the people on Malta were closing in on starvation as the Axis attempted to force their surrender. Operation Pedestal saw an armada of fifty British ships, painstakingly loaded with food and medical supplies, ammunition and fuel, attempt to fight its way in convoy to the island. The ensuing battle was brutal on both sides, Italian submarines and German planes dealing serious damage alongside the naval skirmishing. Over the course of a few fierce days, Britain scraped a victory and ensured Malta''s survival - though at the loss of a horrifying number of ships and lives. It was an emblematic moment when, in the cruel accountancy of war, the price was worth paying. In his signature brilliant style, Max Hastings gives a thrilling narrative of this little-known but crucial naval battle, retelling the intense action which perfectly encapsulates the spirit and power of the Royal Navy, surely the fiercest and most iconic fighting force of WW2.
''A fascinating collection of military stories ... The sort of book that can be picked up at intervals ... [but] once tasted, is hard to put down'' Washington Post From bestselling author Max Hastings, a collection of the most extraordinary stories of war, courage, tragedy, strategy and survival.
Men at War is a collection of the very best stories about soldiers, brought together by the award-winning, bestselling historian Max Hastings. In his almost sixty years of military study and his work in the midst of modern conflicts as a foreign correspondent, these are the stories that left a mark.
In these pages you will find heroes and cowards; triumphs, tragedies and comedies. It illustrates, mostly through people''s own words, what it''s been like to fight in wars, to live and die as a warrior, from Greek and Roman times through to today''s Iraq and Afghanistan.
The characters include the Black Prince and Cromwell, Wellington at Waterloo, Siegfried Sassoon at the Somme, George Orwell in the Spanish Civil War and Evelyn Waugh as a commando. But there are also Americans, Frenchmen, Israelis, Russians, not to mention the women warriors of Dahomey, Queen Boudicca and the women who serve today in the US Marines.There are more than 300 stories in all,and an astounding variety of soldiers'' experiences through the ages.Many have been responsible for wonderful achievements but a few, also, for dreadful crimes.Some relate horrors, while others tell terrific jokes.
This is a book that might make you feel as grateful that whatever the troubles of our own times, we are spared the mud and blood and anguish, if also the moments of glory, that the soldiers in these pages bring so vividly to life.
Paris et ses curiosités ; ou nouveau guide du voyageur à Paris . Contenant l'indication de tout ce qui concerne le gouvernement.-Objets relatifs au commerce.-Bibliothèques.-Monumens des sciences et arts.-Théâtres.-Jardins publics, etc, etc. ; augmenté d'une description des châteaux et maisons de plaisance des environs de Paris ; suivi d'une liste nominative des fonctionnaires publics, des banquiers, agens de change, etc.
Date de l'édition originale : 1802 Appartient à l'ensemble documentaire : IledeFr1 Ce livre est la reproduction fidèle d'une oeuvre publiée avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres réimprimés à la demande éditée par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliothèque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunité d'accéder à des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la BnF.
Les oeuvres faisant partie de cette collection ont été numérisées par la BnF et sont présentes sur Gallica, sa bibliothèque numérique.
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Nous avons cherché à concilier la reproduction fidèle d'un livre ancien à partir de sa version numérisée avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. Nous espérons que les ouvrages de cette nouvelle collection vous apporteront entière satisfaction.
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The Battle for the Falklands is a thoughtful and informed analysis of an astonishing chapter in modern British history from journalist and military historian Sir Max Hastings and political editor Simon Jenkins. Ten weeks. 28,000 soldiers. 8,000 miles from home. The Falklands War in 1982 was one of the strangest in British history. At the time, many Britons saw it as a tragic absurdity - thousands of men sent overseas for a tiny relic of empire - but the British victory over the Argentinians not only confirmed the quality of British arms but also boosted the political fortunes of Thatcher''s Conservative government. However, it left a chequered aftermath and was later overshadowed by the two Gulf wars. Max Hastings'' and Simon Jenkins'' account of the conflict is a modern classic of war reportage and the definitive book on the conflict.
