The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria & ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific & China, & yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects. Using the most up-to-date scholarship & research, & writing with clarity & compassion, Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative that extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, from the snowbound steppe to the North African Desert, to the Burmese jungle, SS Einsatzgruppen in the borderlands, Gulag prisoners drafted into punishment battalions, & to the unspeakable cruelties of the Sino-Japanese War. Moral choice forms the basis of all human drama, & no other period in history has presented greater dilemmas both for leaders & ordinary people, nor offered such examples of individual & mass tragedy, the corruption of power politics, ideological hypocrisy, the egomania of commanders, betrayal, perversity, self-sacrifice, unbelievable sadism & unpredictable kindness. Although filling the broadest canvas on a heroic scale, Beevor's THE SECOND WORLD WAR never loses sight of the fate of the ordinary soldiers & civilians whose lives were crushed by the titanic forces unleashed in this, the most terrible war in history. ...

The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria & ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific & China, & yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects. Using the most up-to-date scholarship & research, Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative that extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, from the snowbound steppe to the North African Desert, to the Burmese jungle, Gulag prisoners drafted into punishment battalions & to the unspeakable cruelties of the Sino-Japanese War. Moral choice forms the basis of all human drama, & no other period in history has presented greater dilemmas both for leaders & ordinary people, nor offered such examples of tragedy, the corruption of power politics, ideological hypocrisy, betrayal, perversity, self-sacrifice, unbelievable sadism & unpredictable kindness. Although filling the broadest canvas on a heroic scale, Beevor's THE SECOND WORLD WAR never loses sight of the fate of the ordinary soldiers & civilians whose lives were crushed by the titanic forces unleashed in this, the most terrible war in history. ...

The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria & ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific & China, & yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects. Using the most up-to-date scholarship & research, Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative that extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific & from the snowbound steppe to the North African Desert. Although filling the broadest canvas on a heroic scale, Beevor`s THE SECOND WORLD WAR never loses sight of the fate of the ordinary soldiers & civilians whose lives were crushed by the titanic forces unleashed in this, the most terrible war in history. ...

This major work covers the whole six-year global conflagration that shattered & then re-shaped the world. From the German blitzkrieg against Poland in September 1939, to the surrender of Japan following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki almost exactly six years later. After a seemingly endless run of Axis victories
- the fall of France, the surrender of Singapore, & the Russian withdrawal to the outskirts of Moscow
- this book shows how the Allies slowly turned the tide of war in their favor, winning a decisive victory over Rommel in north Africa & destroying the German 6th Army in Stalingrad. The pace then quickens as the long, hard struggle for victory reaches it dramatic climax with the D-Day landings & subsequent bitter campaign through western Europe to Germany, the Red Army`s unstoppable march to Berlin, & the final brutal battles with the Japanese in the Far East. Each key event is presented precisely, spread by spread, with maps, photographs & documents, biographical features & timeline.

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This is a landmark reassessment of the Second World War, of its origins & prosecution. It looks set to become the definitive single-volume military history. In this major new history, Gordon Corrigan argues that what we call the Second World War was in fact two separate conflicts: one against Germany (&, for a while, Italy) in Western Europe, Soviet Russia & North Africa; the other against Japan in the Far East & Pacific. Each conflict had distinct causes & had to be fought in different ways against very different enemies, who rarely, if ever, coordinated their efforts. This is a new & cogent account of an immense, exhausting six-year conflict that continues to fascinate. Corrigan examines the agendas of the warring nations & offers fresh & vivid interpretations; Britain's own part in the war comes in for particularly close scrutiny: militarily, the British suffered an agonising series of defeats before the tide turned. The country emerged economically broken, with the loss of her empire a virtual certainty. The Second World War is vast in its erudition & epic in its execution. It will change forever the way we think about the titanic conflicts that dominated the years 1939 to 1945. It is suitable for fans of Gordon Corrigan's Mud, Blood & Poppycock & Blood, Sweat & Arrogance, & Andrew Roberts' The Storm of War, as well as Anthony Beevor, Max Hastings, & Richard Holmes. ...

Agatha Christie`s first Tommy & Tuppence book is a thrill-packed novel of international intrigue, murder & suspense. Tommy & Tuppence, two young people short of money & restless for excitement, embark on a daring business scheme
- Young Adventurers Ltd. Their advertisement says they are `willing to do anything, go anywhere`. But their first assignment, for the sinister Mr Whittington, plunges them into more danger than they ever imagined...
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In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, & ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, & when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions. ...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GILES FODEN London is under threat. It has become a haven for political exiles & anarchists. Frequent bomb threats & disturbances interrupt the lives of the city`s inhabitants, who live in fear of the terrorists in their midst. One such terrorist is Verloc. He is the secret agent who is given the mission to strike right at the heart of London`s pride by blowing up Greenwich Observatory. But his decision to drag his innocent family into the plot leads to tragic consequences on a more personal than political level. ...

Harper Collins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. ` They swarmed numerous like locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing on blind & orderly & absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic
- to terror, too, perhaps.` Considered one of Conrad`s most political works, The Secret Agent is set against the dismal backdrop of a drab & alienating London, & tells the story of the bombing of Greenwich Observatory by a group of anarchists. Shopkeeper, spy & reluctant anarchist Mr Verloc becomes embroiled in this terrorist plot, exploiting his mentally disabled brother-in-law Stevie in the process, leading to tragic circumstances.
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` Madness & despair! Give me that for a lever, & I`ll move the world`. In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, & ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, & when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions. The Penguin English Library
- 100 editions of the best fiction written in English, from the eighteenth century & the very first novels, to the beginning of the First World War.
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