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General Lord Ismay's name is little known today, but he participated in, and was witness to, decision-making at the highest level of government, before, during and after the Second World War. Immediately prior to the outbreak of hostilities, he was Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence responsible for advising government on strategy and preparations for war. As wartime Chief Staff Officer to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he became a close confidant and rarely left Churchill's side, whether in Britain or abroad at international conferences. He was instrumental in conciliating the sometimes-fractious relationship between the Prime Minister and the Service Chiefs of Staff. In 1947, Ismay went to India as Chief of Staff to the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, and was closely involved in the drama of Partition. As the first Secretary General of NATO from 1952 to 1957, he was instrumental in building the foundations of the Alliance and preserving its unity and cohesion at the height of the Cold War. He also played a central role in reshaping the higher management of defence in Britain, including the creation of the Ministry of Defence. This fascinating book tells the story of his life and work.

This book seeks to bridge a gap in the historiography of Spain and Great Britain by arguing that while the eighteenth century witnessed periods of tension, conflict and hostility between the two powers, their relationship remained multifaceted and significant in other spheres.Throughout the eighteenth century, Spain and Great Britain passed through phases of open warfare, armed peace and deep suspicion. The British capture of Gibraltar and Menorca dealt a severe blow to the newly established Bourbon dynasty in Spain. Even in times of war, however, not all communication channels were closed, with numerous formal and informal contacts being made despite the volatile political climate and enmities. The contributors of this book go beyond the well-known animosity and conflicts to explore the spectrum of interactions, encompassing cultural exchange, traditional diplomacy, trade and espionage plus a multitude of other facets.This book is a valuable resource for researchers and students interested in the complex relations between Great Britain and Spain during the eighteenth century, as well as for a broader audience of historians and both undergraduate and postgraduate students of history and international relations.

The West India Regiments were an anomalous presence in the British Army. Raised in the late eighteenth-century Caribbean in an act of military desperation, their rank-and-file were overwhelmingly men of African descent, initially enslaved. As such, the regiments held a unique but ambiguous place in the British Army and British Empire until their disbandment in 1927. Soldiers of Uncertain Rank brings together the approaches of cultural, imperial and military history in new and illuminating ways to show how the image of these regiments really mattered. This image shaped perceptions in the Caribbean societies in which they were raised and impacted on how they were deployed there and in Africa. By examining the visual and textual representation of these soldiers, this book uncovers a complex, under-explored and illuminating figure that sat at the intersection of nineteenth-century debates about slavery and freedom; racial difference; Britishness; savagery and civilisation; military service and heroism.

Military commanders matter. They win or lose battles, determine the outcomes of wars and often shape the history of nations. But they are also human individuals. This study of thirty-four British commanders, from Boudica to Bomber Harris, reflects on their personal stories, as individuals and warriors; as husbands and wives, libertines and lovers, strategists and shapers of British history over almost two thousand years. Short biographical essays, by military analyst Michael Clarke, cover a sweep of British history from the epic story of Queen Boudica in Roman Britain, to the generals, admirals and air marshals of the First and Second World Wars. Their styles of leadership, their strategies – or in some cases lack of them – are examined as they throw themselves on fortune. And the Gods of War decide whom will be lucky, and whom not.Some commanders described here were obvious shapers of British history, like King Alfred, William the Conqueror, Henry V, Cromwell, Marlborough, Wellington or Montgomery. Some were unlucky and seemed beset by failure, like Walter Raleigh, Sir John Moore or General John Gort. Others are less well-known as significant commanders; like Lady Aethelflaid of Mercia, the Empress Matilda, the ‘greatest knight', Sir William Marshal, or Cuthbert Collingwood who served with Nelson at Trafalgar. All have fascinating stories. Their experiences are compared in two final chapters that draw from unique interviews with a number of living British commanders who reflect on the ‘eternal verities'of command but also the new conditions of twenty-first century warfare.

The mid-nineteenth century's Crimean War is frequently dismissed as an embarrassment, an event marred by blunders and an occasion better forgotten. In The Crimean War and its Afterlife Lara Kriegel sets out to rescue the Crimean War from the shadows. Kriegel offers a fresh account of the conflict and its afterlife: revisiting beloved figures like Florence Nightingale and hallowed events like the Charge of the Light Brigade, while also turning attention to newer worthies, including Mary Seacole. In this book a series of six case studies transport us from the mid-Victorian moment to the current day, focusing on the heroes, institutions, and values wrought out of the crucible of the war. Time and again, ordinary Britons looked to the war as a template for social formation and a lodestone for national belonging. With lucid prose and rich illustrations, this book vividly demonstrates the uncanny persistence of a Victorian war in the making of modern Britain.

This book explores the process by which defence policy is made in contemporary Britain and the institutions, actors and conflicting interests which interact in its inception and continuous reformulation.Rather than dealing with the substance of defence policy, this study focuses upon the institutional actors involved in this process. This is a subject which has commanded far more interest from public, Parliament, government and the armed forces since the protracted, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful British military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work begins with a discussion of two contextual factors shaping policy. The first relates to the impact of Britain's ‘special relationship'with the United States over defence and intelligence matters, while the second considers the impact of Britain's relatively disappointing economic performance upon the funding of British defence since 1945. It then goes on to explore the role and impact of all the key policy actors, from the Prime Minister, Cabinet and core executive, to the Ministry of Defence and its relations with the broader ‘Whitehall village', and the Foreign Office and Treasury in particular. The work concludes by examining the increasing influence of external policy actors and forces, such as Parliament, the courts, political parties, pressure groups and public opinion.This book will be of much interest to students of British defence policy, security studies, and contemporary military history.

In nineteenth-century England, sodomy was punishable by death; even an accusation could damage a man's reputation for life. The last executions for this private, consensual act were in 1835, but the effort to change the law that allowed for those executions was intense and precarious, and not successful until 1861. In this groundbreaking book, “Beyond the Law,” noted historian Charles Upchurch pieces together fragments from history and uses a queer history methodology to recount the untold story of the political process through which the law allowing for the death penalty for sodomy was almost ended in 1841. Upchurch recounts the legal and political efforts of reformers like Jeremy Bentham and Lord John Russell—the latter of whom argued that the death penalty for sodomy was “beyond the law and above the law.” He also reveals that a same-sex relationship linked the families of the two men responsible for co-sponsoring the key legislation. By recovering the various ethical, religious, and humanitarian arguments against punishing sodomy, “Beyond the Law” overturns longstanding assumptions of nineteenth-century British history. Upchurch demonstrates that social change came from an amalgam of reformist momentum, family affection, elitist politics, class privilege, enlightenment philosophy, and personal desires.

The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) revolutionized warfare at sea, on land, and in the air. This little-known naval aviation organization introduced and operationalized aircraft carrier strike, aerial anti-submarine warfare, strategic bombing, and the air defence of the British Isles more than 20 years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Traditionally marginalized in a literature dominated by the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, the RNAS and its innovative practitioners, nevertheless, shaped the fundamentals of air power and contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the First World War. The Development of British Naval Aviation utilizes archival documents and newly published research to resurrect the legacy of the RNAS and demonstrate its central role in Britain's war effort.

Why did killing a fox mean liberty? What did parish revels have to do with the Peterloo Massacre? What did animal cruelty have to do with the English constitution? What did the Factory Acts mean for modern football? In This Sporting Life, Robert Colls explains sport as one of England's great civil cultures. The lived experiences of people from all walks of life are reclaimed to tell England's history through its great sporting cultures, from the horseback pursuits of the wealthy and politically connected, to the street games in working-class neighbourhoods which needed nothing but a ball. It observes people at play, describes how they felt and thought, carries the reader along to a match or a hunt or a fight, draws out the sounds and smells of humans and animals, showing that sport has been as important in defining British culture as gender, politics, education, class, and religion.

Best Nonfiction of 2020 -- Kirkus ReviewsOne of the most lauded historians of our time returns to the Second World War in this magnificent retelling of the awe-inspiring raid on German dams conducted by the Royal Army Force's 617 Squadron.The attack on Nazi Germany's dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force's 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story—and the later wartime experience of the 617 Squadron—has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know. The RAF had identified the Ruhr dams as strategic objectives as far back as 1938; in those five years Wing Commander Guy Gibson formed and trained the 617 Squadron. Hastings observes that while the dropping of Wallis's mines provided the dramatic climax, only two of the eight aircraft lost came down over the dams—the rest were shot down on the flight to, or back from, the mission. And while the 617 Squadron's valor is indisputable, the ultimate industrial damage caused by the dam raid was actually rather modest. In 1943, these brave men caught the imagination of the world and uplifted the weary spirits of the British people. Their achievement unnerved the Nazi high command, and caused them to expend large resources on dam defenses—making the mission a success. An example of Churchill's “military theatre” at its best, what 617 Squadron did was an extraordinary and heroic achievement, and a triumph of British ingenuity and technology—a story to be told for generations to come.Operation Chastise includes three 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 6 maps.

A portrait of Jane Austen's England told through the career paths of younger sons—men of good family but small fortune In Regency England the eldest son usually inherited almost everything while his younger brothers, left with little inheritance, had to make a crucial decision: What should they do to make an independent living? Rory Muir weaves together the stories of many obscure and well-known young men, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Regency society. This is the first scholarly yet accessible exploration of the lifestyle and prospects of these younger sons.

This collection of essays examines the evolution of the British Army during the century-long Pax Britannica, from the time Wellington considered its soldiers'the scum of the earth'to the height of the imperial epoch, when they were highly-respected'soldiers of the Queen'. The British Army during this period was a microcosm and reflection of the larger British society. As a result, this study of the British Army focuses on its character and composition, its officers and men, efforts to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and its role and performance on active service while an instrument of British Government policy.

This book explores the experience of small farmers, labourers and graziers in provincial Ireland from the immediacy of the Famine until the eve of World War One. During this period of immense social and political change, they came to grips with the processes of modernisation. By focusing upon east Galway, it argues that they were not an inarticulate mass, but rather, they were sophisticated and politically aware in their own right. This study relies upon a wide array of sources which have been utilised to give as authentic a voice to the lower classes as possible. Their experiences have been largely unrecorded and this book redresses this imbalance in historiography while adding a new nuanced understanding of the complexities of class relations in provincial Ireland. This book argues that the actions of the rural working class and nationalists has not been fully understood, supporting E.P. Thompson's argument that ‘their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experiences'.

John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda'is an invaluable collection of letters, musings and private correspondence that provides key insights into the workings of this tragic of Irish political leaders. Though Redmond left no diaries or memoir, as a leading voice in Irish politics for up to four decades, his thoughts were incessantly penned to paper or addressed to the Irish people in his voluminous correspondence. These thoughts defended Parnell's downfall, decided Ireland's role in the First World War, and prompted the opposing reaction of the Easter Rising. Redmond was at the heart of all this activity, his successes and failures reflecting the course that was eventually taken out of his control. His untimely death in 1918, after a wave of shocks and disappointments, mark a tragic end to an immense personality. While his speeches were of legendary significance, his letters exhibit a breath-taking mind in rapture to the moment - a man who felt himself to be on the precipice of securing Irish independence through democratic means.'John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda'offers new and startlingly direct perspectives on key moments in Ireland's early modern history - a landmark work to better understand a landmark figure within Irish history.

In this book, Brenda M. King challenges the notion that Britain always exploited its empire. Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship were all part of the Anglo-Indian silk trade and were nurtured in the era of empire through mutually beneficial collaboration. The trade operated within and without the empire, according to its own dictates and prospered in the face of increasing competition from China and Japan. King presents a new picture of the trade, where the strong links between Indian designs, the English silk industry and prominent members of the English the arts and crafts movement led to the production of beautiful and luxurious textiles.Lavishly illustrated, this book will be of interest to those interested in the relationship between the British Empire and the Indian subcontinent, as well as by historians of textiles and fashion.

Country houses and the British empire, 1700–1930 assesses the economic and cultural links between country houses and the Empire between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Using sources from over fifty British and Irish archives, it enables readers to better understand the impact of the empire upon the British metropolis by showing both the geographical variations and its different cultural manifestations. Barczewski offers a rare scholarly analysis of the history of country houses that goes beyond an architectural or biographical study, and recognises their importance as the physical embodiments of imperial wealth and reflectors of imperial cultural influences. In so doing, she restores them to their true place of centrality in British culture over the last three centuries, and provides fresh insights into the role of the Empire in the British metropolis.

As part of the Aviation Heritage Trail series, the accomplished military author and former RAF Officer Peter Jacobs takes us to the county of Yorkshire and to its many bomber airfields of the Second World War.From the opening day of hostilities, RAF Bomber Command took the offensive to Nazi Germany and played a leading role in the liberation of Europe. Yorkshires airfields played a key part throughout, initially as home to the Whitley squadrons of No 4 Group and then to the four-engine Halifax heavy bombers; indeed, Bomber Commands first night operation of the war was flown from one of the countys many bomber airfields. Then, as the bombing offensive gathered pace, Yorkshire welcomed the new all-Canadian No 6 (RCAF) Group, after which all of Bomber Commands major efforts during the hardest years of 1943/44 against the Ruhr, Hamburg and Berlin involved the Yorkshire-based squadrons.Most of Yorkshires wartime bomber airfields have long gone, but many have managed to retain the flying link with their wartime past. For example, the former RAF airfields of Finningley and Middleton St George, and the factory airfield of Yeadon, are now the sites of international airports, while Breighton, Burn, Full Sutton, Pocklington and Rufforth are still used for light aircraft flying or gliding and Elvington is home to the magnificent Yorkshire Air Museum.From airfields such as these came countless acts of personal courage and self-sacrifice, with two men being awarded the Victoria Cross, Britains highest award for gallantry. Stories of both men are included, as are tales of other personalities who brought these airfields to life. The stories of thirty-three airfields are told in total, with a brief history of each accompanied by details of how to find them and what remains of them today. Whatever your interest, be it aviation history or more local, the county of Yorkshire has rightly taken its place in the history of Bomber Command.

Beginning in 1942, the Eighth Air Force began a precision bombing raid offensive deep into Nazi Germany, embarking from bases in rural England. Nearly 350,000 Americans were transplanted to English soil, joining their British colleagues for this joint Allied offensive. For many it was a period of great risk, and arguably the greatest adventure of their lives.With Wings As Eagles celebrates the heroics of these pilots and their missions. A lavishly illustrated, full-color, hardcover original, the narrative is the result of the author's exclusive interviews with many of the pilots and crew, as well as research from contemporary diaries, journals, and scrapbooks. Readers relive the nostalgia and vivid reminiscences — of days of seemingly endless boredom and fatigue, the loneliness of soaring in an aluminum cocoon four miles over an intended target, and a surprising account of parachuting onto German soil and being captured by women and children.With Wings As Eagles relives the drama and history of an heroic era.

This book explores the assertions made by Irish nationalists of a parallel between Ireland under British rule and Poland under Russian, Prussian and Austrian rule in the long nineteenth century. Poland loomed large in the Irish nationalist imagination, despite the low level of direct contact between Ireland and Poland up to the twenty-first century. Irish men and women took a keen interest in Poland and many believed that its experience mirrored that of Ireland. This view rested primarily on a historical coincidence—the loss of sovereignty suffered by Poland in the final partition of 1795 and by Ireland in the Act of Union of 1801, following unsuccessful rebellions. It also drew on a common commitment to Catholicism and a shared experience of religious persecution. This study shows how this parallel proved politically significant, allowing Irish nationalists to challenge the legitimacy of British rule in Ireland by arguing that British governments were hypocritical to condemn in Poland what they themselves practised in Ireland.

What exactly is military history? Forty years ago it meant battles, campaigns, great commanders, drums and trumpets. It was largely the preserve of military professionals and was used to support national history and nationalism. Now, though, the study of war has been transformed by the war and society approach, by the examination of identity, memory and gender, and a less Euro-centric and more global perspective. Generally it is recognised that war and conflict must be integrated into the wider narrative of historical development, and this is why Ian Becketts research guide is such a useful tool for anyone working in this growing field. It introduces students to all the key debates, issues and resources. While European and global perspectives are not neglected, there is an emphasis on the British experience of war since 1500. This survey of British military history will be essential reading and reference for anyone who has a professional or amateur interest in the subject, and it will be a valuable introduction for newcomers to it.

The best-selling author of The Battle, Alessandro Barbero, was asked which action saved Wellington at Waterloo prior to the arrival of the Prussians. He replied: ‘If I should indulge in that game, I'd say the cavalry charge which effectively broke d'Erlon's attack.'In terms of regiments the greatest contributor to that charge, made by the British heavy cavalry, was the King's Dragoon Guards (KDG), which fielded nearly half of the Household Brigade's sabres. This book tells the remarkable story of the KDG before, during and after the battle of Waterloo, drawing on private, unpublished archive material. It concludes by describing the KDGs link to their descendant regiment, 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards, of which HRH The Prince of Wales is Colonel-in-Chief.

Provides deep insights into the roles and responsibilities of men, women and children within naval families.This book explores the competing demands of family, war and duty in the lives of eighteenth-century naval men and their families. It covers not just the men afloat and their wives ashore, but also the rich and complex financial, professional and fraternal networks that were essential to naval lives. By drawing on a substantial body of personal correspondence, the book goes beyond cultural and gendered stereotypes to examine the roles and responsibilities of men, women and children within a naval family and how war shaped and determined those roles. The families considered include those of several famous naval figures, including Philip Broke, Matthew Flinders and George Bass, and also the families of'lower deck'seamen, some of whom could not write for themselves and where data has been gleaned from previously unexplored petitions. The information provided contributes to a wider understanding of gender roles, especially masculinity, in the period and to eighteenth-century social and cultural history more broadly. Moreover, as insights into the intimate and emotional details of family life, especially between husbands and wives, aredifficult to discover in any historical period (such intimacy being rarely recorded), the details presented here constitute a rare resource. Ellen Gill completed her doctorate at the University of Sydney.

This book is out of the ordinary. As well as describing the many changes in Sheffield between 1914 and 1918, it tells about the troubling events in following years as poverty and riots took hold.It is also special in identifying hundreds of small as well as large Sheffield companies that worked to provide the necessities of war. With many previously-hidden facts, the book describes the city's'national factories', the new Ministry of Munitions, the government's control of companies, arguments about the employment of women, an increased emphasis on workers'welfare, the impact of the Sheffield Committee on Munitions of War, and the special contributions of the Cutlers'Company.Compulsory call-up, conscientious objectors and the work of the Sheffield Military Tribunal are also brought to life, as are problems caused by a shortage of food and the eventual imposition of rationing. The city's German prisoners of war are introduced, as are the ravages of influenza and the terrible poverty and conflict that soon afflicted the city. These local changes are presented against a background of important national events and with more than 100 original photographs.

Born into the Anglo-Irish landowning class of Co. Down, Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751–1832) led a colourful life. Heavily influenced by the celebrated radical John Jebb at Cambridge, and the revolutionary thinker Mary Wollstonecraft, he made waves throughout his career, weathering the wrath of his own class as he championed the causes of the poor and oppressed. Of a passionate disposition, he was involved in several duels, denounced the military for shooting dead tradesmen in Dublin for bull-baiting, and as a young man was liable to getting into'scrapes with married women'. He was a founding member of the United Irish Society, and imprisoned in 1794, but he managed to escape in a fishing vessel. He then endured eleven years of hardship in France, Germany and America before his tenacious wife, Sarah Dawson, managed to secure him a pardon and he returned to Ireland in 1806. His revolutionary activities, treasonable plots, jail break and fugitive status make Rowan's remarkable life as a'god-provoking democrat'an astounding and gripping adventure.

In 1922, just after the end of the Irish War for Independence, the British Army's'Irish Command'drafted an official four-volume historical record of their experiences and their understanding of the war in Ireland, titled The Record of the Rebellion in Ireland, 1919-1921 and the Part Played by the Army in Dealing with It. Ground Truths, an annotated collection, is based on the first of those four volumes and is edited to include material that was missed, was incorrect, or was deliberately changed by the original authors before final drafts had been concluded. Largely a defense of the perception that the British army'lost'the war in Ireland, this collection of original documents features aspects of everyday warfare, such as military intelligence worries and rebel press propaganda, as well as the more intense key moments of the War of Independence, including the arrest and death of Terrence McSwiney, the murder of Thomas MacCurtain, the hunger-strikes of 1920, the murders of British Army officers that subsequently led to the Croke Park massacre on November 21, 1920, and the arrests of Arthur Griffith and Eamon De Valera. Essentially, Ground Truths contains the testimony of the British Army officers who lead the fight against the Irish republicans. The book is a unique, exciting, and original insight into the experiences and operations on a side of the War of Independence rarely studied in Irish history - the British side.

There is no lack of sensationalism in the period of Irish history 1800–1922. Large dramas played themselves out in small places. The last subsistence crisis of Europe would be enough to justify this judgement, but there is more: endemic levels of violence, the formation of the first state police force in the history of Britain, republican militancy, tithe and land wars, socialist protest, armed insurrection, war and civil war pockmark the era. The history of Ireland, particularly in its relationship to the imperial power of Britain, has been fraught to say the least. The so-called ‘Pax Britannica'never became a genuine ‘Pax Hibernia'. However, such an account needs to be balanced against other stories that emerge from the period. Ireland had its own ‘Victorian'era and a more benign revolution in social mores, technology, communication and transport. Many features of twentieth-century political and social practice were then established: a system of public health, factory inspection, primary education, ordnance survey mapping, civic improvement and census taking. Sporting, musical and cultural traditions knew an intense phase of development. Moreover, Irish leaders and many of the middle-classes adapted to the Union's constitutional arrangements and successfully exploited it to their advantage. In 1922, both north and south Ireland did inherit a certain institutional stability from the Union era. Both of these stories need to be told together to reflect the recent scholarship on all areas of modern Irish history. This book is a historiographical synthesis, providing readers with an understanding of the nature of current arguments and debates about a past that is neither dead nor, in many ways, even past.

James Crossland's work traces the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross'struggle to bring humanitarianism to the Second World War, by focusing on its tumultuous relationship with one of the conflict's key belligerents and masters of the blockade of the Third Reich, Great Britain.

A compelling new narrative about how two Great Powers of the early twentieth century did battle, both openly and in the shadowsDecades before the Berlin Wall went up, a Cold War had already begun raging. But for Bolshevik Russia, Great Britain - not America - was the enemy. Now, for the first time, Victor Madeira tells a story that has been hidden away for nearly a century. Drawing on over sixty Russian, British and French archival collections, Britannia and the Bear offers a compelling new narrative about how two great powers of the time did battle, both openly and in theshadows. By exploring British and Russian mind-sets of the time this book traces the links between wartime social unrest, growing trade unionism in the police and the military, and Moscow's subsequent infiltration of Whitehall. As early as 1920, Cabinet ministers were told that Bolshevik intelligence wanted to recruit university students from prominent families destined for government, professional and intellectual circles. Yet despite these early warnings, men such as the Cambridge Five slipped the security net fifteen years after the alarm was first raised. Britannia and the Bear tells the story of Russian espionage in Britain in these critical interwar years and reveals how British Government identified crucial lessons but failed to learn many of them. The book underscores the importance of the first Cold War in understanding the second, as well as the need for historical perspective ininterpreting the mind-sets of rival powers. Victor Madeira has a decade's experience in international security affairs, and his work has appeared in leading publications such as Intelligence and National Securityand The Historical Journal. He completed his doctorate in Modern International History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Published to coincide with the centenary of the Government of Ireland Act 1914, this majesterial biography of John Redmond begins in 1901, shortly after his election as chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the Westminster Parliament. The book details Redmond's reconstruction of the Party following its reunification after the destructive decade-long Parnell split, and its re-fashioning as a political weapon for winning Irish Home Rule. The book follows Redmond's role in successfully passing the Conservatives'1903 Land Purchase Act that greatly accelerated the transfer of land ownership from Irish landlords to farmers. His successes and failures in the years of the 1906-1910 Liberal Government are also fully documented. But, when the Liberals'moved in 1911 to remove the House of Lords'veto, the stage was set for the passage of the third Home Rule Bill, the paramount goal of Redmond's endeavors. The events of the following turbulent five years - the increasingly militant resistance of Ulster Unionism to Home Rule, the outbreak of World War I, and the unforeseen Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 (as much a blow against Home Rule as against British rule) cast Redmond down from triumphant prime-minister-in-waiting to the status of Ireland's lost leader. First vilified, then forgotten, this is the story of one of the most tragic figures in 20th-century Irish political history.

A growing list from this large series relating to the domestic papers of English monarchs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This book studies the agrarian and political aspects of a local community in Mead County, Ireland. Based on field research this book is a careful study of how the social dimensions of the community have evolved over the last seventy years. It takes into account policies from a meta-political level down to a micro-level. This study also looks at the way politicians in Ireland make government more responsible to the needs of local communities, even though this power was largely lost by the 1970's. It also shows the meta-political forces that shape the community.

Buildings of Empire takes the reader on an exciting journey through thirteen territories of the British Empire. From Dublin Castle to the glass and steel of Sir Norman Foster's Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank skyscraper, these buildings capture the essence of the imperial experience, painting an intimate portrait of the biggest empire the world has ever seen: the people who made it and the people who resisted it, as well as the legacy of the imperial project throughout the world. Ashley Jackson visits classic examples of the buildings that the British governed from, the forts they (often brutally) imposed their rule from, the railway stations they travelled from, the banks they traded from, the educational establishments they spread their values from, as well as the grand colonial hotels they stayed in, the sporting clubs and botanical gardens where they took their leisure, and the monumental exhibition spaces in which they celebrated the achievements of settlement and imperial endeavour. The history of these buildings does not end with the empire that built them. Their story in the aftermath of empire highlights the continuing legacy of many of the structures and institutions the British left behind, as well as the sometimes unexpected role that these former symbols of alien rule have played in the establishment of new national identities in the years since independence.

The Duke of Wellington was not just Britain's greatest soldier, although his seismic struggles as leader of the Allied forces against Napoleon in the Peninsular War deservedly became the stuff of British national legend. Wellington was much more: a man of vision beyond purely military matters, a politically astute thinker, and a canny diplomat as well as lover, husband, and friend. Rory Muir's masterful new biography, the first of a two-volume set, is the fruit of a lifetime's research and discovery into Wellington and his times. The author brings Wellington into much sharper focus than ever before, addressing his masterstrokes and mistakes in equal measure. Muir looks at all aspects of Wellington's career, from his unpromising youth through his remarkable successes in India and his role as junior minister in charge of Ireland, to his controversial military campaigns. With dramatic descriptions of major battles and how they might have turned out differently, the author underscores the magnitude of Wellington's achievements. The biography is the first to address the major significance of Wellington's political connections and shrewdness, and to set his career within the wider history of British politics and the war against Napoleon. The volume also revises Wellington's reputation for being cold and aloof, showing instead a man of far more complex and interesting character.

Ernie O'Malley was a revolutionary republican and writer. One of the leading figures in the Irish independence and civil wars, he survived wounds, imprisonment and hunger stirke, before going to the USA in 1928 to fundraise on de Valera's behalf. Broken Landscapes tells of his subsequent journeys, through Europe and the Americas, where O'Malley moved in wide social circles that included Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Hart Crane and Jack B. Yeats. Back in Mayo he took up farming. In 1935 he married Helen Hooker, an American heiress, with whom he had three children, Cathal, Etain and Cormac, before a bitter separation. His literary reputation was established with a magnificent memoir, On Another Man's Wound (1936). In later years he was close to John Ford, and worked on The Quiet Man (1952). This vibrant new collection of letters, diaries and fragments opens up the broad panorama of his life to readers. It enriches the history of Ireland's troubled independence wiht reflections on loss and reconciliation. It links the old world to the new - O'Malley perched on the edge of the Atlantic, a folklore collector, art critic and radio broadcaster; autodidact, modernist and intellectual. It conducts a unique conversation with the past. In Broken Landscapes, we travel with O'Malley through Italy, the American Southwest, Mexico and points inbetween. In Taos, he mingled wiht the artistic set around D. H. Lawrence. In Ireland, he drank with Patrick Kavanagh, Liam O'Flaherty and Louis MacNiece. The young painter Louis le Brocquy was his guest on his farm in Burrishoole, Co. Mayo. These places and people remained with O'Malley in his private writing, assembled for the first time from family and institutional archives. Reading these letters, dairies and fragments is to see Ireland in the tumultuous world of the twentieth cetnury, as if for the first time, allowing us to view the intellectual foundations of the State through the eyes of its leading chronicler. CORMAC K.H. O'MALLEY co-edited with Richard English Prisoners: The Civil War Letters of Ernie O'Malley (Dublin 1991), co-edited with Anne Dolan'No Surrender Here!'The Civil War Papers of Ernie O'Malley, 1922-1924 (Dublin 2007) and edited Rising-Out: Sean Connolly of Longford (1890-1921) by Ernie O'Malley (Dublin 2007). He is an international legal consultant based in New York City, and is the son of Ernie O'Malley. NICHOLAS ALLEN is Moore Institute Professor at the National University of Ireland, and has been Burns Scholar at Boston College. He has published widely on Irish literature and cultural hisotry, including Moderism, Ireland and Civil War (Cambridge 2009) and George Russell and the New Ireland (Dublin 2003). He is currently writing a book about 1916.

JUST OVER a month after the 1921 truce that ended Ireland's fight with England, Ernie O'Malley longed for a return to war. Ten months later he was waging civil war against many of the men he had once fought with, against those who accepted the new Irish Free State.'No Surrender Here!'The Civil War Papers of Ernie O'Malley 1922-1924 is the first comprehensive collection of letters, memoranda and orders detailing this period of chaos and confusion, intransigence and idealism, which gripped the country from June 1922 to May 1923. These documents detail the war as it was fought with none of the benefit of hindsight and occasional artistry that marks the memoirs of many of the men involved, not least O'Malley's own carefully crafted narratives, On Another Man's Wound and The Singing Flame, published decades later. This collection documents one man's attitude to war and his difficult acceptance of peace, his experience of capture, imprisonment, hunger strike and finally release. In these letters, however,'No Surrender Here!'also captures the voices of both the leadership and the rank and file: the detached and often inappropriate orders from above, and the confusion of men who, in some cases without boots on their feet, know that theirs is a hopeless cause. Letters to friends and family also reveal the more personal costs of war. These fully annotated documents, given historical perspective with a general introduction by Professor Joe Lee, provide extraordinary insights into the republican mentality during the Irish Civil War, into what remains a contested and controversial period of modern Irish history.

After the German occupation of 1940, Britain was forced to reassess its relationship with Norway, a country largely on the periphery of the main theatres of the Second World War. Christopher Mann examines British military policy towards Norway, concentrating on the commando raids, deception planning and naval operations.

This book is a richly detailed exploration of the complex and cosmopolitan urban culture inhabited by the Presbyterian elite of late-Georgian Belfast, which will prove to be of interest to a wide range of scholars working on the political, cultural and intellectual histories of both Ireland and Britain during the age of reform. Employing both biographical and thematic approaches, the book begins by examining the story of the Tennents, one of the most prominent Presbyterian families in early-nineteenth-century Belfast, before turning to reconstruct their milieu. Challenging existing narratives, the study provides a major re-assessment of the political life of late-Georgian Belfast, highlighting the activities of a close-knit group of advanced reformer - the'natural leaders'of the books title - who sought to promote the cause of reform and engage with British and European political events. In addition, the book contains the first serious scholarly examination of the cultural and intellectual life of the town in the early-nineteenth century, and the first major treatment of the middle classes'philanthropic activities. The interplay of politics and culture is discussed, as is the accuracy of Belfast's reputation as the'Athens of the North'and the religious underpinnings of the town's charitable societies. In examining these areas, attention is paid to the influence of trends such as romanticism and evangelicalism and of writers such as Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Robert Owen and Thomas Chalmers, and it is argued that, both culturally and politically, the Presbyterian middle classes of Belfast inhabited a British world.

The British Biographical Index, 3rd cumulated and enlarged ed., contains information on more than 420,000 individuals from Great Britain and Ireland from the beginnings until the end of the 20th century. 760 sources, published between 1601 and 2002, have been cumulated.

Before they had an empire in the East, the British travelled into the Islamic world to pursue trade and to form strategic alliances against the Catholic powers of France and Spain. First-hand encounters with Muslims, Jews, Greek Orthodox, and other religious communities living together under tolerant Islamic rule changed forever the way Britons thought about Islam, just as the goods they imported from Islamic countries changed forever the way they lived. Britain and the Islamic World tells the story of how, for a century and a half, merchants and diplomats travelled from Morocco to Istanbul, from Aleppo to Isfahan, and from Hormuz to Surat, and discovered a world that was more fascinating than fearful. Gerald MacLean and Nabil Matar examine the place of Islam and Muslims in English thought, and how British monarchs dealt with supremely powerful Muslim rulers. They document the importance of diplomatic and mercantile encounters, show how the writings of captives spread unreliable information about Islam and Muslims, and investigate observations by travellers and clergymen who reported meetings with Jews, eastern Christians, Armenians, and Shi'ites. They also trace how trade and the exchange of material goods with the Islamic world shaped how people in Britain lived their lives and thought about themselves.

Covering the lives and achievements of five English intelligence officers involved in wars at home and abroad between 1870 and 1918, this exceptionally researched book offers an insight into spying in the age of Victoria. Including material from little-known sources such as memoirs, old biographies and information from MI5 and the police history archives, this book is a more detailed sequel to Wade's earlier work,'Spies in the Empire'. The book examines the social and political context of Victorian spying and the role of intelligence in the Anglo-Boer wars as well as case studies on five intriguing characters: William Melville, Sir John Ardagh, Reginald Wingate and Rudolf Slatin, and William Roberston. Responding to a dearth of books covering this topic, Wade both presents fascinating biographies of some of the most significant figures in the history of intelligence as well as a snapshot of a time in which the experts and amateurs who would eventually become MI5 struggled against bias, denigration and confusion.

'The Military and the Monarchy: The Case and Career of the Duke of Cambridge in a Age of Reform,'written by Kevin W. Farrell, follows Prince George, 2nd Duke of Cambridge, through his military career. Though this cousin of Queen Victoria, the book explores the changing relationship between the Military and the British Monarchy during the Victorian Era. It is a must have for any scholar of British History or fan of Victorian life.

The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small. Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.

Originally published: London : Longman & Co., 1879.

Originally published: London : Her Majesty's Stationery Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1894.

An examination of Irish society and politics, providing a wide-ranging introduction to the involvement of the middle classes in Irish political life and the public sphere accrosss the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Combines analytical surveys and case/area studies to offer new perspectives on crucial movements and figures in Irish history.

In May 1943 a specially established RAF squadron made its permanent imprint on military aviation history by flying a high-risk, low level, nighttime attack against German hydro-electric dams vital to the Nazi armaments industry in the Ruhr Valley. A comparatively tiny part of Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris'four-month-long “Battle of the Ruhr” this one raid had an impact totally out of proportion to the small number of aircraft involved. It highlights the synergy of science and technology, weapons development and production, mission planning and practice, and the unflinching courage in the execution of a highly dangerous bombing raid. Furthermore, it established a legend that still resonates today.

Approximately three fifths of the emigration from the United Kingdom to America arrived in the 19th century. The remainder came through Ellis Island between 1900 and 1924. Arrivals from the U.K. began to increase in the mid-1840's with the Irish Famine that led to very high mortality rates, rising prices and unemployment and a massive outflow of Irish population to the U.S. In the post-Famine period, England's industrial revolution progressed and emigration continued to grow between the prosperous 1850's and the mid-1890's. This series on Emigration from the United Kingdom to America concentrates on U.K. emigration in the period 1870-1897, listing migrants from the U.K. who arrived in New York. The original passenger lists transcribed by shipping agents and ship's officers and filed by all vessels entering U.S ports have been used in the preparation of Emigration from the United Kingdom to America. Presented in chronological order by each ship's date of arrival, these passenger lists provide the names of ships, ports of departure, and arrival and debarkation dates. The researcher can also locate data regarding a person's age, sex, and occupation, as well as village of origin and destination when reported. An important feature of Emigration from the United Kingdom to America is the extensive surname index of ships'passengers included in each volume. These indexes, containing approximately 3 million names for the period 1870-1897, will greatly facilitate the task of finding an ancestor's family name, especially when the exact date or port of arrival in the United States is unknown. In addition to the passenger lists and name indexes, Emigration from the United Kingdom to America includes an introduction to the history of the U.K. migratory movement to the U.S. This series is an invaluable reference work for anyone interested in studying family history or in genealogical research.

Between 1939 and 1945, the British public was spellbound by the martial endeavours and dashing style of the young men of the RAF, especially those with silvery fabric wings sewn above the breast pocket of their glamorous slate-blue uniform. Martin Francis provides the first scholarly study of the place of'the flyer'in British culture during the Second World War. Examining the lives of RAF personnel, and their popular representation in literary and cinematic texts, he illuminates broader issues of gender, social class, national and racial identities, emotional life, and the creation of a national myth in twentieth-century Britain. In particular, Francis argues that the flyer's relationship to fear, aggression, loss of his comrades, bodily dismemberment, and psychological breakdown reveals broader ambiguities surrounding the dominant understandings of masculinity in the middle decades of the century. Despite his star appeal, cultural representations of the flyer encompassed both the gentle, chivalrous warrior and the uncompromising agent of destruction. Paying particular attention to the romantic universe of wartime aircrew, Francis reveals the extraordinary contrasts of their daily lives: dicing with death in the sky one moment, before sitting down to lunch with wives and children in the next. Male and female experiences during the war were not polarized and antithetical, but were complementary and interrelated, a conclusion which has implications for the history of gender in modern Britain that reach well beyond either the specialized military culture of the wartime RAF or the chronological parameters of the Second World War.

Eighteenth-century drama is often dismissed as homogenous, aesthetically uninteresting, or politically complacent. This book reveals the incredibly intriguing and intricate nature of the period's history plays and their often messy dramatisaton of the complexities of patriotic rhetoric and national identification.