Showing results by author "Benn" in All Categories

When turmoil strikes world monetary and financial markets, leaders invariably call for "a new Bretton Woods" to prevent catastrophic economic disorder and defuse political conflict. The name of the remote New Hampshire town where representatives of 44 nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization.

July, 1944, a full month after D-Day. Billy, Kaz, and Big Mike are assigned to investigate a double murder close to the front lines in Normandy. An American officer and a member of the French Resistance were found dead in a manor house outside the town of Trevieres. The investigation is shrouded in secrecy, due to the highly confidential nature of the American unit headquartered at the Manoir de Castilly; the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops.

What's a 22-year-old Irish American cop who's never been out of Massachusetts before doing at Beardsley Hall, an English country house, having lunch with King Haakon of Norway? Billy Boyle himself wonders. Back home in Southie, hed barely made detective when war was declared. Unwilling to fight and perhaps die for England, he was relieved when his mother wangled a job for him on the staff of a general married to her distant cousin.

Henry Wallace is the most important, and certainly the most fascinating, almost-president in American history. As FDR’s third-term vice president, and a hero to many progressives, he lost his place on the 1944 Democratic ticket in a wild open convention, as a result of which Harry Truman became president on FDR’s death. Books, films, and even plays have since portrayed the circumstances surrounding Wallace’s defeat as corrupt, and the results catastrophic. Filmmaker Oliver Stone, among others, has claimed that Wallace’s loss ushered in four decades of devastating and unnecessary Cold War.

When stylish young bibliophile Julia Kydd returns to 1920s New York, she’s determined to launch her own private press. Julia’s aspirations take her into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement unlike any she’s known - where notions of race, sexuality, and power are slippery, and identities can be deceptively fluid.

It's late May 1944. Captain Billy Boyle is court-martialed on spurious charges of black-market dealings. Stripped of his officer's rank, reduced to private, and sentenced to three months' hard labor, Boyle is given an opportunity: He can avoid his punishment if he goes behind enemy lines to rescue a high-value Allied soldier.

The war of 1812–1815 was a bloody confrontation that tore through the American frontier, the British colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, and parts of the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico. The conflict saw British, American, and First Nations forces clash, and in the process, shape the future of North American history. Carl Benn explains what led to America's decision to take up arms against Great Britain and assesses the three terrible years of fighting that followed on land and sea, where battles such as Lake Erie and Lake Champlain launched American naval traditions.

Tony Benn was the patriarch of the Labour left, a radical statesman, orator and anti-war campaigner who spent over 50 years as an MP, serving in the Cabinet under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. A prolific diarist, his political memoirs have been compared to Pepys in their detail, scope and accuracy. Three volumes are included here, read by Benn himself, together with four fascinating programmes focussing on the man behind the diaries.

'As a diarist I have chronicled the time through which I have lived in meticulous detail: but all that is history. What matters now is the future for those who will live through it. The past is the past but there may be lessons to be learned which could help the next generation to avoid mistakes their parents and grandparents made. Certainly at my age I have learned an enormous amount from the study of history.' (Tony Benn)

This abridged audio edition of the Diaries, read by the author, conveys even more directly than the Diaries themselves the achievements, conflicts, and dramatic events in a unique political life.

Late each night for over 25 years, the Labour MP and former Secretary of State Tony Benn sat alone and dictated onto tape his account of the daily events at the heart of government. Here, in the second highly acclaimed Radio 4 series, he reveals what he discovered from his scrutiny of the nuclear industry and why he now believes nuclear power is unsafe.

In his first-ever collection, the award-winning author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries presents an eclectic mix of new and previously published mystery stories rife with historical detail and riveting wartime storytelling. Full of terror, action, amusement, and bliss, The Refusal Camp is a must-have collection from one of historical crime fiction’s most acclaimed authors.

Tony Benn's diaries began in 1940, and have been compared to those of Pepys in their detail, scope, and accuracy. This volume brings them right up to date, covering the Gulf War, the rise of New Labour, international repercussions of American foreign policy, and reactions against it.

Late each night for over 25 years, the Labour MP and former Secretary of State Tony Benn sat alone and dictated onto tape his account of the daily events at the heart of government. The immediacy, passion, and mood is striking as he unburdens himself of the pressure and stress, trials and tribulations of government and opposition, with accounts veering from anecdotal to almost confessional.

Secrets trail an American soldier from his Depression upbringing to the cold winter battles in the Ardennes Forest in the last months of World War II, and through the postwar decades, as he struggles to keep his family from being torn apart while keeping the truth buried close to his heart. Clay Brock, proprietor of Jake's Tavern, has endured terrible losses throughout his life. In 1964, he is working to build a life for his wife and son, only to see everything he's worked for threatened by forces beyond his control.

In this radiant, highly anticipated debut, a cast of unforgettable women battle for independence while a maelstrom of change threatens their Jamaican village. Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis-Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate.

Abducted from Earth as a baby by a well-meaning alien, Terra has grown up far across the galaxy on planet Fnrr. Terra has always known she was different. Her skin isn’t grey. Her eyes are a weird blue color. She has... ears. And now, Terra is starting high school. A daunting prospect, even without being the only human in class.

Israel - at least the largely secular and progressive version of Israel that once captured the world’s imagination - is over. Although that Israel was always in some ways a fantasy, the myth was at least grounded in reality. Today that reality has changed, and the country that has replaced it is profoundly different from the one its founders imagined almost 70 years ago. Since the last elections, in March 2015, a number of slow-moving trends have accelerated dramatically.

From award-winning novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn comes this beautifully layered portrait of motherhood, immigration and sacrifice. Patsy yearns to escape the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised for a new life in New York and the chance to start afresh. Above all, she hopes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, and to rekindle their young love. But spreading her wings will come at a price: she must leave her five-year-old daughter, Tru, behind. And Patsy is soon confronted by the stark reality of life as an undocumented migrant in a hostile city.

When he turns 65 years old, grumpy old Harold's strenuous life grows even worse. His future may last only five years. He just got divorced and is broke, and, what's worse, he meets fusspot old George outside the courtroom. He, too, just got divorced. They rent a four-bedroom flat together with dull mate Michael. Lively George decides to rob the Mafia, with the help of Michael. Harold does not want to steal on principle. However, when Harold discovers they stole a suitcase full of newspapers instead of money, he gets angry.