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What if Isaac Newton had never lived? Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley, whose place in history has been overshadowed by the giant figure of Newton, were pioneering scientists within their own right, and instrumental in establishing the Royal Society.Whilst Newton is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time, and the father of the English scientific revolution, John and Mary Gribbin uncover the fascinating story of Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley, whose scientific achievements neatly embrace the hundred years or so during which science as we know it became established in Britain. They argue persuasively that even without Newton science in Britain would have made a great leap forward in the second half of the seventeenth century, headed by two extraordinary men, Hooke and Halley.

Comparing and contrasting the World Wars.This will be a landmark in military history: a collaborative venture between historians from 20 different countries addressing every aspect of the two world wars. The scope of the book is enormous. From frontline combat to civilian experience, women and children in wartime, genocide etc.1. The Face of Battle2. Leadership in the wars3. Civilians in the wars4. National experiences5. Cultural impact6. Moral experience7. Reflections

The stories and secrets behind BBC television’s most-loved show. The official companion to series 1 and 2, as well as the forthcoming Christmas special.The Life and Times of Call the Midwife takes you behind the scenes of the small-screen sensation that has brought to life Jennifer Worth’s experiences as a midwife among the slums and buzzing dockyards of London’s East End in the Fifties.Find out how Fifties fashions, make-up and homes were flawlessly recreated. Discover the hidden secrets of the nurses and nuns of Nonnatus House and what flavour cake ruled in the kitchen when war-time rationing finally came to an end. Immerse yourself in a world that’s been fondly revived to celebrate a glimpse of history that, like today, has childbirth at its heart.

An epic, ambitious and page-turning mystery that will appeal to fans of The Shadow of the Wind, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and The Time Traveller’s WifeLondon, 1896. Andrew Harrington is young, wealthy and heartbroken. His lover Marie Kelly was murdered by Jack the Ripper and he longs to turn back the clock and save her.Meanwhile, Claire Haggerty rails against the position of women in Victorian society. Forever being matched with men her family consider suitable, she yearns for a time when she can be free to love whom she choses.But hidden in the attic of popular author – and noted scientific speculator – H.G. Wells is a machine that will change everything.As their quests converge, it becomes clear that time is the problem – to escape it, to change it, might offer them the hope they need…

An amazing collection of eyewitness accounts of the British experience in World War II. First-hand narratives are drawn from every rank of the army and every corner of the conflict to create a moving and illuminating story of the greatest war of this century.Fascinating, moving, frightening, sometimes comic, this selection of eyewitness accounts has been edited into chronological order to form a magnificent oral history of the British and Commonwealth forces at war.We follow some 60 interviewees from the Army, RAF and Navy from 1939 to the Battle of Britain, the Desert War, the fall of Singapore, the Italian campaign, D-Day, to the occupation of Germany and the war in Burma. We hear from fighter pilots, nurses, gunners, commandos, Chindits and paratroopers. Their experiences on land, sea, in the air…and in some cases as prisoners of the Germans or Japanese are unique testimony from some remarkable men and women.

The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrún, and the Fall of the Nibelungs.“Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published for the first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closely related poems to which he gave the titles The New Lay of the Völsungs and The New Lay of Gudrún.“In the Lay of the Völsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness.“In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. In the Lay of Gudrún her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers the Niflung lords, and her hideous revenge.“Deriving his version primarily from his close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as the Poetic Edda (and where no old poetry exists, from the later prose work the Völsunga Saga), J.R.R. Tolkien employed a verse-form of short stanzas whose lines embody in English the exacting alliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.”– Christopher Tolkien

Recommended for viewing on colour device.Mapping Le Tour charts the course of every race route in cycling’s most prestigious event, including a special section on the 2014 Tour de France.This new ebook edition includes a map of each edition of the Tour de France, along with photographs, text on the history of the race, and lists of the stages, winners and key statistics, Mapping Le Tour is essential reading for any cycling fan.Each Tour de France race map is accompanied by statistics, including:• Race and stage distances• Highest point• Number of starters and finishers• Average speed• Jersey winnersAn extended section on the 2014 race is also included.

Introducing Sean Dillon – terrorist, assassin, hero – in his first three adventures from master storyteller Jack Higgins.EYE OF THE STORMSean Dillon is a hired killer. The IRA, the PLO, ETA – he’s worked for them all. Now, with the Gulf War raging, the Iraqis need his services for an apocalyptic strike at the heart of the West. But British Intelligence are on his trail – they have hired a killer to stalk a killer; a mortal enemy who is hell-bent on revenge. As the lightning strikes and the bullets fly, Sean Dillon will discover how it feels to be at the eye of the storm…THUNDER POINTA diver discovers a priceless treasure off Thunder Point: a German U-boat containing proof that Martin Bormann escaped from Hitler’s bunker, bearing the most explosive secrets of the Third Reich – and the devastating document known as the Windsor Protocol. For the sake of national security, the U-boat must be destroyed, no questions asked. Sean Dillon, Britain’s most wanted terrorist, is about to be made an offer he cannot refuse…ON DANGEROUS GROUNDA deathbed confession from a Mafia kingpin reveals details of a top-secret treaty, believed lost in a plane crash in 1944. To keep it secret the British and Chinese governments will do whatever it takes. Soon, Sean Dillon enters the fray; his feared expertise tested as he battles ruthless killers and higher unseen powers to expose treacheries, colossal truths, and risk everything he loves in an explosive quest for justice.

Chasing the Moon thoroughly reimagines the race to the moon, upending much of the conventional mythology. With newly revealed stories about the moon race, from its earliest days to the monumental achievement of the lunar landing in 1969, the book features a diverse cast of characters who played key roles in these historic events.Utilising a wealth of previously overlooked and lost archival material, much of which has never before been revealed to the public, the Space Age is recast as a fascinating stew of scientific innovation, political calculation, media spectacle, visionary impulses and personal drama in this fascinating new book.Among those included are astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Frank Borman and Bill Anders; Sergei Khrushchev, son of the former Soviet premier and a leading Soviet rocket engineer; Poppy Northcutt, a 25-year old ‘mathematics whiz’ who gained worldwide attention as the first woman to serve in the all-male bastion of NASA’s Mission Control; and Ed Dwight, the Air Force pilot selected by the Kennedy administration to train as America’s first black astronaut.

Map best viewed on a tablet device.An account of the Spanish civil war which portrays the struggles of the war, as well as discussing the wider implications of the revolution in the Republican zone, the emergence of brutal dictatorship on the nationalist side and the extent to which the Spanish war prefigured World War II.No war in modern times has inflamed the passions of both ordinary people and intellectuals in the way that the conflict in Spain in 1936 did. The Spanish Civil War is burned into European consciousness, not simply because it prefigured the much larger world war that followed it, but because the intense manner of its prosecution was a harbinger of a new and horrific form of warfare that was universally dreaded. At the same time, the hopes awakened by the attempted social revolution in republican Spain chimed with the aspirations of many in Europe and the United States during the grim years of the great Depression.'The Concise History of the Spanish Civil War' is a full-blooded account of this pivotal period in the twentieth-century European history. Paul Preston vividly recounts the struggles of the war, analyses the wider implications of the revolution in the Republican zone, tracks the emergence of Francisco Franco's brutal (and, ultimately, extraordinarily durable) fascist dictatorship and assesses the way in which the Spanish Civil War was a portent of the Second World War that ensued so rapidly after it.

An entertaining, impassioned polemic on the retreat of reason in the late 20th century. An intellectual call to arms, Francis Wheen’s Sunday Times bestseller is one of 2004’s most talked about books.In 1979 two events occurred that would shape the next twenty-five years. In Britain, an era of weary consensualist politics was displaced by the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, whose ambition was to reassert 'Victorian values'. In Iran, the fundamentalist cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini set out to restore a regime that had last existed almost 1,300 years ago. Between them they succeeded in bringing the twentieth century to a premature close. By 1989, Francis Fukuyama was declaring that we had now reached the End of History.What colonised the space recently vacated by notions of history, progress and reason? Cults, quackery, gurus, irrational panics, moral confusion and an epidemic of mumbo-jumbo. Modernity was challenged by a gruesome alliance of pre-modernists and post-modernists, medieval theocrats and New Age mystics. It was as if the Enlightenment had never happened.Francis Wheen, winner of the George Orwell prize, evokes the key personalities of the post-political era – including Princess Diana and Deepak Chopra, Osama Bin-Laden and Nancy Reagan's astrologer – while charting the extraordinary rise in superstition, relativism and emotional hysteria over the past quarter of a century. From UFO scares to dotcom mania, his hilarious and gloriously impassioned polemic describes a period in the world's history when everything began to stop making sense.