26 Modern History


68908 THE FORGOTTEN MAN: A New History of the


Great Depression by Amity Shlaes


Challenging conventional history, the author offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression that devastated America in the early part of the 20th century. She shows how both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt failed to understand the prosperity of the


1920s, and heaped massive burdens on the country that more than offset the benefits of New Deal programmes. From 1929 to 1940 federal intervention helped to cause the Depression by forgetting the men and women who sought to help themselves. They range from a family of butchers in Brooklyn who dealt a stunning blow to the New Deal, to Bill W who founded Alcoholics Anonymous. 464 paperback pages, archive photos. £16.99 NOW £4


68999 BRITAIN SINCE 1918: The Strange


Career of British Democracy by David Marquand


A compelling study of modern British political history, through the primeministerships of luminaries such as Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Sir Antony Eden, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Since WWI, Britain and its democracy have dealt with much turmoil - economic, military and empirical. The author vividly describes the hectic pace of political events, but also examines the deeper currents of long-term change, and identifies the major events that have affected the state. He charts the development of Britain’s democratic institutions, examines the tension between democracy and capitalism. 480 paperback pages with colour and b/w photos. £14.99 NOW £4.50


69033 COUNTRY FORMERLY KNOWN AS


GREAT BRITAIN: Writings 1989-2009 by Ian Jack


Ian Jack began his journalistic career in the 1960s and went on to co-found and edit the Independent on Sunday. The pieces each set out to deal with aspects contemporary Britain, for example national disasters, football matches, film and TV, obesity, thuggish behaviour and terrorism - but then Jack is drawn back in time, examining with specific examples how similar episodes and topics would have been addressed in the past. Includes a look at the life and career of Kathleen Ferrier, the popular singer who died in 1953, leads to a fascinating correspondence from the ’40s and ’50s between “Kaff” and her fans and friends. Full of the style, knowledge, intimacy and eye for a story. 327pp, illus.


£18.99 NOW £5 69051 PISTOLS AT DAWN: Two Hundred


Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt & Fox to Blair & Brown by John Campbell


The duellists and their battles considered here are Fox and Pitt, Castlereagh and Canning, Gladstone and Disraeli, Asquith and Lloyd George, Bevan and Gaitskell, Macmillan and Butler, Heath and Thatcher, and finally bringing things up to date with the still simmering Blair and Brown. For each, critically acclaimed political biographer John Campbell combines a vivid narrative with an authoritative assessment of its historical and political legacy. Photos and contemporary cartoons, including a beauty of Blair and Brown sitting “united” next to each other with their body language screaming exactly the opposite. 453pp. £25 NOW £4.50


70039 MISSIONARY AND


THE LIBERTINE by Ian Buruma


Subtitled ‘Love and War in East and West’, Buruma is a cultural omnivore. In his examination of the relationship between Asia and the West, he evokes literary criticism, political commentary, meditations on the ephemera of popular culture and biographies of eccentric colonists to refute the notion that an absolute division between East and West


exists. The exoticism of the East is one of the themes of his highly intelligent and entertaining collection of 25 essays on Asia. He addresses a huge and always intriguing range of topics, is superb on his commentary and his racy and pithy prose exposes the reality of the most puzzling of nations. 308pp in paperback. £5.99 NOW £2


69144 GUIDE TO FLAGS OF THE WORLD by Jo Potts


A concise guide to the history and anatomy of the world’s flags - flag ratio (width:length), types and the parts of a flag and flagpole. Next we are taken through the many different styles of flag followed by a world map showing all the sovereign countries of the world. Then an A-Z listing of all the world’s national flags from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, one to a page and in full and accurate colour. To round it all off there is also a fact-box with the country’s area, population, capital and its population, type of government, ethnicity, languages, religions, national motto and national anthem with date first used. 224pp, colour. £9.99 NOW £4.50


69503 THEM AND US: Changing Britain - Why


We Need a Fair Society by Will Hutton


Challenging both the Right and the Left, the ex-editor-in- chief of the Observer does it again with a shrewd appraisal of the concept of ‘fairness’ advocated by the present coalition government. Can it be achieved and is the government approaching the issue in the right way? Questions about whether, in the light of the recession and the prospect of years of austerity, capitalism is really workable, are now being raised by the public. Hutton argues that reconstructing a fractured financial system cannot be done without totally revising the wider values on which it is based. Unfairness, he postulates, is economically inefficient. He warns that the new capitalism, at the same time as pursuing profit, must incorporate a conscience. We must earn our ongoing prosperity while receiving the due desert for our efforts, otherwise disastrous mistakes will continue to be repeated. 434 pages. £20 NOW £5.50


69509 WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS by David Landes


Subtitled ‘Why Some Are So Rich and Some Are So Poor?’ this hugely instructive and entertaining book brings economic history and the history of technology to life. With vigour and good humour this eminent Harvard professor asserts his right to go where others have been warned off. Here you will find wise reflections, fresh perspectives, enlightened comparisons and huge leaps of imaginative flair. The book takes Smith’s Wealth of Nations ‘as its text’ and unashamedly bangs the drum for the liberal ideals of freedom, hard work and open markets. 650pp in chunky paperback. £15.99 NOW £4


69512 WRITING ON THE WALL: China and the


West in the 21st Century by Will Hutton Could the collapse of China’s economy be imminent? In a shocking exposé, an ex-editor-in-chief for the Observer warns that, far from being an economic juggernaut set to trample all before it, China is coming across a host of problems that could well stop it in its tracks, with disastrous consequences for the worldwide economy. Hutton pulls no punches as he outlines in detail how such a derailment must not happen. China is bedevilled by corruption, environmental degradation, a weak enterprise system and growing social protest. The contradictions of an authoritarian state are, at their roots, weakening and if China is to complete a successful transition to capitalism, measures would include allowing a free press and a representative government. Otherwise, global peace and prosperity will be disastrously threatened. 431 pages. £20 NOW £5


70171 ALL THE WRONG PLACES: Adrift in the Politics


of Southeast Asia by James Fenton


The book describes experiences from two sharply divided periods: 1973- 75 in Indochina, and 1986-8 when Fenton went to the Philippines and in due course took a job on the newly-founded Independent. His is a visceral, on-the-spot and unforgettable account of the fall of


Saigon, the Philippines in the midst of revolution, and war-ravaged Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge were not like the Vietcong. When the Communists won in Indochina, the domino theory would have predicted that Thailand would be the next to ‘go’. Instead, the Thai insurgency completely failed. The section on Vietnam was written in the years following the fall of the South during which time Fenton had intended to include a full account of his experiences in Cambodia but he found it too painful. With insight, tolerance, humour, wide-eyed wonderment at the vagaries of his fellow man, Fenton is funny, clever and mischievous. 269pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £3


69519 GREAT PENSIONS ROBBERY by Alex Brummer


Subtitled How New Labour Betrayed Retirement, here is a book about the systematic destruction of our pensions, one of the biggest scandals of our time. When Labour came to power in 1997, Britain had the best system of retirement provision in the world. Millions of us felt confident that our years of hard work would ultimately be rewarded by a leisurely and comfortable old age. Now the system has virtually collapsed and vast numbers of us face the grim choice of enduring a poverty-stricken future or working until we drop. What on earth went wrong? Here an award-winning journalist exposes the truth behind endless official spin and obfuscation. He uncovers an utterly shocking story of cynicism and inaction in which a government bent on penny-pinching, a bullied and ineffectual civil service, and individuals more interested in their careers than public service have all played a part in fatally undermining a 100 year old system. It is a breathtaking story of hypocrisy where those in charge have feather- bedded their own pensions while destroying those of ordinary people. And are we only just starting to live through the appalling consequences? 226pp in large softback.


£12.99 NOW £4.50


69922 OPERATION EXODUS by Gordon Thomas This gripping book tells the disturbing story of a ship taking German Jews to Palestine in 1947 which was attacked by the British Navy and returned to the country where its passengers had already suffered unspeakable horrors. Between the two world wars Palestine was governed by the British Mandate, and Winston Churchill, the Foreign Secretary,


established a limit for Jewish immigration although Arabs and Christians could settle freely. Following the war it was widely expected that the country would open its doors to Holocaust survivors but in 1946 the Mandate decided to “prevent German Jews automatically immigrating to Palestine”. This fascinating book deals with the history of the Exodus, using interviews with survivors and political actors on all sides of the dispute, together with official records and personal diaries. The stories of individuals are vividly told, from the Zionist Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president, to courageous Jews such Jacob Kronenberg, a victim of SS storm troopers. The book ends with the successful campaign for the partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. 382pp, black and white photos. £20 NOW £6.50


70148 POL POT: The History of a Nightmare by Philip Short


Pol Pot was the architect of a revolution. His vision of Utopia was enforced by a reign of terror in which a fifth of Cambodia’s population - more than 1,000,000 people - perished. Why did it happen? How did an idealistic dream of justice and prosperity mutate into one of humanity’s worst nightmares? Here, the former Khmer Rouge Head of State, Pol Pot’s brother-in-law, as well as scores of others, speak for the first time at length about their beliefs and motives. But, Pol Pot and his cohorts did not act alone. The West - above all the US, through its role in the Vietnam War - must, the author insists, share responsibility for a disaster, the horrors of which bear disturbing parallels with other tragedies unfolding today. 522 paperback pages with b/w archive photos. £14.99 NOW £5


Bibliophile Books Unit 5 Datapoint, 6 South Crescent, London E16 4TL TEL: 020 74 74 24 74 70051 WHAT PRICE LIBERTY? How Freedom


Was Won and Is Being Lost by Ben Wilson This controversial volume states that, in recent years, the public has been treated to the unedifying spectacle of civil liberties being legislated away by government. The case is cited of David Davis, Conservative shadow Home Secretary, who resigned because of ‘the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms’ over recent years. These included the proliferation of surveillance cameras, the government’s enthusiasm for databases, meddling with trial by jury, and new laws which severely restricted freedom of speech and public protest. How can we resist the growth of intrusive authoritarianism without exposing ourselves to crime, terrorism and other risks? In an eye- opener of a book, the author travels through four centuries of history to elaborate not just how civil liberties were constructed in the past, but how they were continually re-thought, and re-fought. If liberty is to survive, he asserts, it must adapt to new circumstances but, to do this, we need to agree about what value we place on it. 461 paperback pages. £14.99 NOW £5


69543 GRANDMA’S PUDDING AND OTHER


STORIES OF A RIPLEY MINER by Keith Staley


From memories of childhood and a working life spent in the pits of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire to vacations in the Paris of the 50s, here are more than 90 photos of faces familiar to those involved in the mining industry of the area -


workers of the Ormonde colliery, the top pub the Jolly Colliers, the Bentinck Miner’s Welfare Club, wedding days, motorcycles, sidecar racing at Malory Park in the 1950s, green grass and memories and Rhyl Miner’s Holiday Camp. B/w photos. 96 page paperback. £9.99 NOW £2


MUSIC AND DANCE


I don’t think much of a dance step where the girl looks like she was being carried out of a burning building.


- Frank McKinney Hubbard


70710 LIGHTS, CAMERA, SOUNDTRACKS


by Martin Strong and Brendon Griffin


Subtitled The Ultimate Guide to Popular Music in the Movies, this heavyweight huge softback surveys over 50 years of rock ‘n’ roll movies, musicals and performance films. Here is the classic Elvis


Presley vehicle Jailhouse Rock, documentaries like Woodstock and Dig!, low budget films with huge soundtracks like Trainspotting and Reservoir Dogs, film scores by Peter Gabriel, Nick Cave and Ry Cooder. Flip to page 842 to see at-a-glance Silver Dream Racer, Shel Silverstein, Carly Simon, Simon & Garfunkel and the film Skidoo from 1968 directed by Otto Preminger. Each double page brings back memories, soundtracks, wild angels, wild guitars, blue suede shoes to blues divas, and along the way there are eight page inserts of colour photographs of classic album covers, movie posters and stars of film and vinyl. Fabulously browseworthy 916pp, 7" x 9", softback. £25 NOW £6.50


70396 THE ART OF CLASSIC ROCK: Rock Memorabilia, Tour Posters


by Paul Grushkin and Alice Cooper What an absolutely stunning book this is! A must for rock and roll fans. It is absolutely packed with totally dazzling pictures in a never-before-equalled compendium. Rob Roth has been collecting rock and roll graphics since he was a teen and his images have to be seen to be believed. Here is the terrifying robot destroying the world for Queen’s promo poster News of the World and there the cover of The Who’s unforgettable Odds and Sods album. Every image just jumps out of the page and bites you - well, that is what it feels like. Paul Grushkin is one of the top rock historians in the United States and author or co-author of five bestselling, standard work rock histories, so who better qualified to compile the sparkling text? Our favourite inside story is about The Who playing in a very scruffy pub where the stage consisted of beer crates and the ceiling was made of plasterboard. When Pete Townshend banged his guitar against it, the whole thing collapsed. ‘This went down tremendously with the audience and that’s how the whole instrument destruction thing started’. As Elton John points out, with the decline of record stores, and the introduction of CDs instead of LPs, a beautiful, unique form of art has been lost, so collecting becomes ever more vital. This superb book features the biggest names in the business, including The Rolling Stones, Queen, Pink Floyd, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Alice Cooper and David Bowie. Each section focuses on a famous act, covering its defining tours and albums to show how the musicians’ iconic designs and graphic styles changed over the years. An introduction to each section provides an overview of rock history from the period and puts the images in a historical context. This volume is more than a trip down memory lane. It is the ultimate backstage pass. 255 gigantic pages 29cm x 34cm with photos of rock memorabilia, tour posters and merchandise in blazing colour.


$50 NOW £20 e-mail: orders@bibliophilebooks.com www.bibliophilebooks.com


70078 BLUE MOMENT: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music


by Richard Williams It is not often that a jazz album, even from one of the greatest trumpet players ever, is said to have revolutionised music and culture. But that is exactly what happened with Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. It became the best-selling piece of music in the history of jazz


and, for many, the only album they would own. This unique book traces the album through five decades of music, looking en route at the many top quality musicians who were strongly influenced by its indelible presence. Here are saxophonist John Coltrane, pianists Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea, avant-garde composers Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Lamonte Young, rock legends the Velvet Underground and Brian Eno, and the Godfather of Soul James Brown, all of whom - although each was unique in his own way - can claim to have had his playing transformed by this seminal album. The author describes the extraordinary background to this meditative, melancholy masterpiece, its enigmatic composer, its roots in art and philosophy, and the innovative cast of musicians who performed it. 309 wide-ranging pages. £18.99 NOW £6


70081 CLASSIC ROCK edited by Chris Woodstra, John Bush and Stephen


Thomas Erlewine What is classic rock? It is shorthand for the peak of the rock ‘n’ roll era, a time when music was at its greatest popularity and creativity and the whole rock and roll lifestyle essentially came into being. It came crashing into existence in the mid 1950s with the music of Elvis


Presley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino and the Everly Brothers. Classic rockers grew up on these guys or perhaps Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson or any number of folk, blues and country singers. The Beatles marked the start of the classic rock era and arguably their 1967 LP Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band established the shift from single to album. Singles, addictive rushes of rhythm and hooks, were all about the moment whereas the album lingered on longer. There were also other seminal 67 albums like Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced? Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Who’s Who Sell Out, The Doors’ self titled album, Cream’s Disraeli Gears and Jefferson Airplane’s The Realistic Pillow. All these albums suggested new worlds, and provided a foundation for classic rock. Over the next 15 years it was a time when bands were turning into global superstars and had groupies in every port. This book is a road map to all the noteworthy albums within the classic rock era and the heart of the book is built upon album reviews with several supplements to bring it up to the MP3 era. From Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen to the Rolling Stones, here are 1000 expert reviews with iconic album art, a quick-reference artist, song and album listings, and tons of facts we may never have known. Nice clear layout over two columns, a timeline of debuts, music maps with how bands are linked, guitar heroes, classic riffs and even 20 songs with cowbells. 271pp in softback. £9.95 NOW £6


70442 ANYWAY ANYHOW ANYWHERE: The Complete Chronicle of The Who 1958-1978


by Andy Neill and Matt Kent For 20 years Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon and Pete Townshend engaged in a rock’n’roll rampage that would forever alter the course of rock music history. This meticulous day-by-day account of those wild years, up until Keith


Moon’s death in 1978, is written by two veteran Who biographers and is clearly a labour of love which will stand for all time as the definitive Who record, such is its lavish detail and mind-boggling level of research. There are forewords from Roger Daltrey and former manager Chris Stamp, followed by the authors’ introduction and an explanation of the incredible amount of information presented. There are mini-biogs of each band members’ early years, before the main part of the book begins. From their early beginnings in West London as the Detours and the High Numbers before becoming established as The Who, here is every single concert, every radio, TV or film appearance, every recording session, as much information as possible on bootleg recordings and the band members’ personal lives - births, marriages, deaths, court cases, car crashes, Rolls Royce detonations and other rock’n’roll shenanigans. The cast list of fellow reprobates and household names is equally impressive and there is little else to add other than Maxim magazine’s quote - “As definitive as definitive gets”. With 16 pages of b/w photos and over 60 pages of quick reference appendices, 485pp paperback. £9.99 NOW £4


70518 CELTIC MUSIC edited by Kenny Mathieson Karen Matheson of Capercaillie, Davey Spillane, the wonderful Christy Moore, the rock-influenced group Clannad, Welsh band Ar Log, Brittany group Gwerz, harpist, piper, singer Alan Stivvell and many more are well known in the Celtic music world of today. Featuring both traditional and new


kinds of Celtic and Celtic-influenced music by leading and lesser known performers, here are the solo artists, bands, singers and players who specialise with instruments like harps, pipes, fiddles, drums, squeezeboxes, whistles, mandolins and guitars. We even go as far as Celtic Iberia in quite some depth and for each region there are recommended records and recordings to listen to or collect. Cape Breton, Wales, Isle of Man and England, Scotland and Brittany are covered as well as Ireland. 192pp in well illustrated large softback, some colour. £14.95 NOW £6


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