Hiroshima
Nagasaki by Paul Ham $55 Hardback (Harper Collins)
The
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more than 100,000
instantly, mostly women, children and the elderly. Many hundreds of thousands
more succumbed to horrific injuries later, or slowly perished of
radiation-related sickness. Yet the bombs were ′our least abhorrent
choice′, American leaders claimed at the time - and still today most
people believe they ended the Pacific War and saved millions of American and
Japanese lives. Ham challenges this view, arguing that the bombings, when Japan
was on its knees, were the culmination of a strategic Allied air war on enemy
civilians that began in Germany and had until then exacted its most horrific
death tolls in Dresden and Tokyo. (signed copies available)
A More Perfect
Heaven by Dava Sobel $35 Hardback (Bloomsbury)
During
the 1530s, rumours of a potentially revolutionary theory of how the heavens work
began to spread throughout Europe. The architect of this theory was a Polish
cleric named Nicolaus Copernicus. In around 1514 Copernicus had written and
hand-copied an initial outline of his heliocentric theory, in which he placed
the Sun, not the Earth, at the centre of our universe, with the planets,
including the Earth, revolving about it. Titled his Commentariolus, it
circulated among few astronomers. Over the next two decades Copernicus expanded
his theory through hundreds of sightings, leading to a secretive manuscript
whose existence tantalised mathematicians and scientists all over the world.
A Short
History of Christianity by Geoffrey Blainey $45 Hardback (Viking)
A
Short History of Christianity
vividly describes many of the significant players in the religion's rise and
fall through the ages, from Jesus himself to Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther,
Francis Xavier, John Wesley and even the Beatles, who claimed to be 'more
popular than Jesus'. Blainey takes us into the world of the mainstream
worshippers – the housewives, the stonemasons – and traces the rise of the
critics of Christ and his followers. Eminently readable, and written with
Blainey's characteristic curiosity and skill, this book often places
Christianity at the centre of world history. Will it remain near the centre?
Blainey points out again and again that its history is a much-repeated story of
ups and downs.
All Hell Let Loose
by Max Hastings $32.99 Paperback (Harper Collins)
With
its battlefields dispersed across the globe, the vastness of the Second World
War was unparalleled. This was a time when nearly everything which civilized
people took for granted in peace time was invalidated or destroyed. Between 1939
and 1945, 27,000 people died, on average, every single day. In this seminal
book, Hastings stresses that it is impossible to compare the suffering of people
during WWII - it would have seemed monstrous to a British soldier facing a
mortar barrage, with his comrades dying around him, to be told that Russian
casualties were many times greater. However, there were some aspects of wartime
experience that were virtually universal: fear and grief; the conscription of
young men who fought and died. Hastings book has been internationally acclaimed
as one of the best ever on WWII.
Mao's
Great Famine by Frank
Dikotter Paperback $35 (Bloomsbury)
Between
1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong threw his country into a
frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up and overtake Britain
in less than 15 years. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the
country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives. So
opens Frank Dikotter's astonishing, riveting, magnificently detailed chronicle
of an era in Chinese history much speculated about but never before fully
documented. Dikotter makes clear, as nobody has before the Great Leap Forward
transformed the country in quite the opposite direction. It became the site of
one of the the most deadly mass killings of human history.
The
Book of Books by Melvyn Bragg Paperback $35 (Hodder & Stoughton)
The
King James Bible is both the standard scriptural text and, for centuries, the
bestselling book in the English-speaking world. This is the story of the 300
year fight to get the Bible into the English language, and the grisly deaths of
many of the Oxford scholars involved in its translation. It is the story of
Henry VIII s Reformation and James of Scotland s determination for his version
to become England’s bible when he assumed the throne. It is the extraordinary
story of William Tyndale a master of English to rival Shakespeare. And then
there is its impact on culture and above all on language.
Death
in Florence by Paul Strathern Hardback $49.95 (Jonathon Cape)
By
the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of
the Renaissance.
In Lorenzo the Magnificent they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding
the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances.
However, in the form of Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo
found his nemesis. Savonarola’s sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised
population. His aim was to establish a ‘City of God’ for his followers, a
new kind of democratic state, the likes of which the world had never seen
before. The battle which this provoked would be a fight to the death.
Franklin
and Eleanor by Hazel Rowley Paperback $36.99 (MUP)
Franklin
Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt's marriage is one of the most famous in
presidential history. It raised eyebrows in their lifetimes and has only become
more controversial since their deaths. From FDR's lifelong romance with Lucy
Mercer, to Eleanor's purported lesbianism – and many scandals in between –
the public has never tired of speculating about the ties that bound these two
headstrong individuals. Some claim that Eleanor sacrificed her personal
happiness to accommodate FDR's needs; others claim that the marriage was nothing
more than a gracious facade for political convenience. No one has told the full
story until now.
Batavia
by by
Peter FitzSimons Hardback $49.95 (William
Heinemann)
The
Shipwreck of the Batavia combines in just the one tale, the battle of good vs
evil, the derring-do of sea-faring adventure, mutiny, ship-wreck, love, lust,
blood-lust, petty fascist dictatorship, criminality, a reign of terror, murders
most foul, sexual slavery, natural nobility, survival, retribution, rescue,
first contact with native peoples and so much more. Described by author Peter
FitzSimons as "a true Adults Only version of Lord of the Flies, meeting
Nightmare on Elm Street," the story is set in 1629, when the Batavia, is on
its maiden voyage en route from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies and mutiny is
already a possiblity…
Rome
by Robert Hughes Hardback $50 (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
One
of the most celebrated art critics and cultural commentators turns his attention
to the timelessly fascinating city of Rome. In this magisterial history, Robert
Hughes identifies seven distinct cultural episodes: the city's Etruscan
beginnings, Julius Caesar and the birth of the Imperium, primitive Christianity
and the growth of the Church, the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Neo-Classic,
the Rome of Fascism and Mussolini and, finally, the Rome of the 1960s - the era
of Fellini, la dolce vita and the birth of the paparazzo. For almost a thousand
years, Rome was the most politically important, richest and largest city in the
Western world.
Operation
Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre $23.99 Paperback (
One April morning in 1943, the
corpse of a British naval officer is found floating in the sea off the coast of