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Few newspaper editors are remembered beyond their lifetimes, but David Astor of the Observer is a great exception to the rule. He converted a staid, Conservative-supporting Sunday paper into essential reading, admired and envied for the quality of its writers and for its trenchant but fair-minded views. Astor grew up at Cliveden, the country house on the Thames which his grandfather had bought when he turned his back on New York, the source of the family fortune. His liberal-minded father was a constant support, but his relations with his mother, Nancy, were always embattled. At Oxford he suffered the first of the bouts of depression that were to blight his life; a lost soul for much of the Thirties, he became involved in attempts to put the British Government in touch with the German opposition in the months leading up to the war. George Orwell had urged Astor to champion the decolonisation of Africa, and Nelson Mandela always acknowledged how much he owed to the Observer’s long-standing support. A generous benefactor to good causes, he helped to set up Amnesty International and Index on Censorship. A good man and a great editor, he deserves to be better remembered.
Since 1945 there have been over a hundred biographies of Hitler. What happens when so many people reinterpret the life of a single individual? Does Hitler emerge as a mythic anti-hero whose crimes and errors blur behind an aura of power and conquest? By making Hitler's biographers the subject of inquiry, Lukacs reveals the contradictions that take us to the true Hitler of history.
Bernard Shaw and Nancy Astor by Bernard Shaw,Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor Astor Pdf
This collection of nearly 250 letters between Shaw and Astor - as well as between Astor and Shaw's wife, Charlotte, and Shaw's secretary, Blanche Patch - illustrates the rewarding friendship the two shared and the numerous issues they debated.
Intrepid's Last Secrets: Then and Now by Bill Macdonald Pdf
In this engrossing follow-up to The True Intrepid, author Bill Macdonald explores secrets only hinted at in that book. The WW II Macdonald explores secrets only hinted at in that book. The WW II Canadian spymaster William Stephenson - known widely as "Intrepid" Canadian spymaster William Stephenson - known widely as “Intrepid" was not only tasked to get help for anti-Nazi Europe and assist setting up was not only tasked to get help for anti-Nazi Europe and assist setting up an American intelligence agency.Stephenson faced a secret Anglophile an American intelligence agency.Stephenson faced a secret Anglophile group covertly seeking a quick peace with Adolf Hitler. Often referred to group covertly seeking a quick peace with Adolf Hitler. Often referred to as "The Milner Group;' the organization reportedly swayed major events as "The Milner Group;' the organization reportedly swayed major events of the twentieth century and likely has major influence today. of the twentieth century and likely has major influence today. Intrepid's Last Secrets: Then and Now Intrepid's Last Secrets: Then and Now explores The Milner Group's history explores The Milner Group's history in Canada, from its relationship to in Canada, from its relationship to Canadian prime ministers of the first half Canadian prime ministers of the first half of the twentieth century - to its probable of the twentieth century - to its probable impact on modern cultural policy and impact on modern cultural policy and government. Both British and American government. Both British and American strands of the group are explored with strands of the group are explored with a study of some of the prominent early members, their philosophies, and their members, their philosophies, and their strategic influence on events and our lives. This book includes the final interview with the late Svetlana Gouzenko, who, along with her husband Igor, fled to Canada from the soviet Union in 1945. The information they brought with them revealed massive Soviet espionage in the West and helped trigger the Cold War. A few of Stephenson’s former British Security Coordination (BSC) agents tell their story for the first time and the organization’s major area of accomplishment - World War II communications (the genesis of the so-called "Five Eyes" agreement) - is explained. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Intrepid's Last Secrets presents a unique, fascinating, and ultimately deeply chilling take on modern history.
George Orwell was one of the greatest writers England produced in the last century. He left an enduring mark on our language and culture, with concepts such as 'Big Brother' and 'Room 101.' His reputation rests not only on his political shrewdness and his sharp satires (Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four) but also on his marvellously clear style and superb essays, which rank with the best ever written. Gordon Bowker's new biography, written to coincide with Orwell's centenary, includes fascinating new material which brings his life into unfamiliar focus. He writes revealingly about Orwell's family background; the lasting influence of Eton on his work and character; his superstitious streak and youthful flirtation with black magic; and his chaotic and reckless sex life, which included at least one homoerotic relationship. It highlights the strange circumstances of his first marriage and provides remarkable new evidence of his experiences in Spain and their nightmarish consequences. It also offers a fresh look at his peculiar deathbed marriage to a woman fifteen years his junior. All this has enabled Bowker to give Orwell's life a brilliantly fresh and distinctive interpretation.
Wild Mary: The Life Of Mary Wesley by Patrick Marnham Pdf
Mary Wesley published her first novel at seventy and went on to write a further nine bestsellers, including the legendary The Camomile Lawn, in a style best described as arsenic without the old lace. Many of her stories were inspired by her experiences during the Blitz, and by her marriages: the first to an aristocrat, a brief and conventional affair, and the second to a penniless writer she adored. A remarkable book about a remarkable woman, Patrick Marnham's brilliantly researched and wonderfully impartial book disentangles truth from rumour, highlighting the links between Wesley's real life and her fiction.
In this long-awaited book Donald Trelford recalls his adventures and misadventures during nearly sixty years in journalism. Described as the 'Rocky Marciano of newspaper politics', he fought off politicians, owners and predators over a quarter-century at The Observer, including Rupert Murdoch, who said afterwards: 'I made the mistake of underestimating Donald Trelford. One owner sold The Observer because the editor refused to bow to pressure to support Margaret Thatcher. Another tried to sack him for writing the first report of atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe's forces in Zimbabwe. He tells for the first time the inside story of his complex relationship with Tiny Rowland – often tense, sometimes hilarious - and about his role in the notorious Pamella Bordes affair. He recalls how he was held at gunpoint by the FBI and strip-searched by the KGB. How a black dictator poked him in the chest and yelled: 'Keep out of my politics, white man. While he was editor, The Observer won more press awards than any other newspaper. Trelford himself was described by Peter Preston, the former Guardian editor, as "a crusader... multi-talented, hands-on, a master of sport as well as news, shrewd and decisive." Written with style and humour, this is a compelling account of an important period in the history of the British press.
From the man who made TV criticism an entertainment in its own right comes Visions Before Midnight, a selection from the column hundreds of thousands of devoted fans would turn to first thing on a Sunday morning. Clive James's comic brilliance is displayed here, from the 1972 Olympics (But your paradigm no-no commentary can't be made up of fluffs alone. It needs flannel in lengthy widths, and it's here that Harry and Alan come through like a whole warehouse full of pyjamas) to the 1976 Olympics ('Jenkins has a lot to do' was a new way of saying that our man, of whom we had such high hopes, was not going to pull out the big one). In between we have 'War and Peace' (Tolstoy makes television history), the Royal Wedding (Dimbling suavely, Tom Fleming introduced the scene), the Winter Olympics (unintelligibuhl), the Eurovision Song Contest (The Hook of their song lasted a long time in the mind, like a kick in the knee. You could practically hear the Koreans singing it. 'Waterloo . . .' ), and much more.
In the spring of 1920, three ships steamed into the port of Famagusta in the British colony of Cyprus with sick and wounded officers and men of the White Russian army, together with their families and other civilians fleeing the victorious Bolsheviks at the end of the Civil War, which had raged through the country after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Britain had offered transport and temporary sanctuary in its nearest territory. 1,546 desperate men, women, and children from two of the ships were housed in a WWI Turkish prisoner-of-war camp to wait for other countries to offer asylum; the other ship sailed on to Egypt and another camp. In Cyprus, some died and some moved on, but a group of about seventy saw opportunities for a new life on the island. They formed the core of a Russian community which attracted other migrs over the decades but whose story is largely unknown or forgotten, even on the island. One of them was the authors grandfather. The author has tracked down official documents and historical sources and interwoven them with her own notes and diaries to tell her personal and human account of a Russian family in Cyprus, through three generations and fifty years of dramatic events.
A New York Times bestseller! A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 A dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, who preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism, from the left and right alike. Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930's—Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they'd died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and in deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right. In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then they acted on their beliefs. Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West's compass set toward freedom as its due north. It's not easy to recall now how lonely a position both men once occupied. By the late 1930's, democracy was discredited in many circles, and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism, but saw in Hitler and Mussolini "men we could do business with," if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign, but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom—that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted. In the end, Churchill and Orwell proved their age's necessary men. The glorious climax of Churchill and Orwell is the work they both did in the decade of the 1940's to triumph over freedom's enemies. And though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell's reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in Animal Farm and 1984 would define the stakes of the Cold War for its 50-year course, and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day. Taken together, in Thomas E. Ricks's masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin. Churchill and Orwell is a perfect gift for the holidays!
Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980) lived one of the most intriguing theatre lives of the twentieth century. A brilliant writer, critic and agent provocateur he made friends or enemies of nearly every major actor, playwright, impresario and movie mogul of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Working on each side of the Atlantic during various periods in his career, Tynan wrote for the Evening Standard, the Observer, and the New Yorker; was lured by Laurence Olivier in the early 1960s to become dramaturg of Britain's newly formed National Theatre; and spent his final years in Los Angeles. This biography offers the first complete appraisal of Tynan's powerful contribution to post-war British theatre, set against the context of the fifties, sixties and seventies of his own turbulent life. Shellard proves beneath the celebrity myths to uncover Tynan the private man and theatre genius. He draws on Tynan's own extensive personal papers and diaries, taped interviews with theatre professionals who knew him and fascinating letters to such correspondents as Tennessee Williams, Marlene Dietrich, George Devine, Peter Brook, Alec Guiness and Terence Rattigan. Shellard highlights Tynan's early writings, when the brilliant young critic came to national prominence, and discusses how Tynan gained a left-wing readership, took his place at the vanguard of the new realist movement, and helped to establish subsidized theatre. He shows how, through indefatigable battles against theatre censorship and railings against the myopia of a politically and culturally insular Britain, Tynan helped create some of the most controversial theatrical events of the 1960s and 70s, including Oh Calcutta! Exploring the public and private sides of Tynan, Shellard reveals an outspoken, explicit and sometimes savage critic who ranks among the most influential theatre figures of the twentieth century.
A Lifetime of Training for Just Ten Seconds by Richard Witt Pdf
'I hope the Romanian doesn't get through, because I can't pronounce her bloody name.' Allegedly from David Coleman, British radio and TV commentator, at one of his many Olympic coverages, when he thought he was off air. A Lifetime of Training for Just 10 Seconds is a collection of quotations from Olympic athletes, eyewitnesses and commentators through the ages, whether written, broadcast, overheard or misreported. They are inspiring, devastating - often hilarious - and a fascinating insight into the Games, the people who watch and compete in them, and those labouring and slithering behind the scenes. The notes following the quotes give a potted history of the Games and its cast of characters. 'These are the Olympics; you die before you quit.' The great American discus thrower, Al Oerter, winner of four successive gold medals (1956-1968). For the third of these in Tokyo, he competed despite excruciating pain from a torn rib cartilage, strapped up and iced.