Profusely illustrated in full colour. Appeals to the layman as well as boating enthusiast. Nick Corbles seventh canal book. With over 2 000 miles of navigable waterway in the UK Britains Canals are an asset to be treasure by everyone. Nick Corble has written an accessible guide which will help you get the best out of a visit or a boating holiday on the canal network. Whether your interest lies in the history the flora & fauna to be found along the towpath or even the types of boats & their decoration there is enough in Britains Canals: A Handbook to inform & entertain. Seeking to appeal to & aid the interested tourist dog-walker passer-by or even hopeful boat-buyer the handbook is packed with tips hints & useful facts presented in laymens terms & informing the reader what makes Britains canals so special. A wealth of illustrations in full colour makes this the perfect primer for anyone who wants to know more about Britains waterways. ...

This revelatory new history punctures the still widely held belief that the British Empire was an enlightened & civilizing enterprise of great benefit to its subject peoples. Instead Britains Empire reveals a history of systemic repression & almost continual violence showing how British rule was imposed as a military operation & maintained as a military dictatorship. For colonized peoples the experience was a horrific one
- of slavery famine battle & extermination. Yet as Richard Gott illustrates the empires oppressed peoples did not go gently into that good night. Wherever Britain tried to plant its flag there was resistance. From Ireland to India from the American colonies to Australia Gott chronicles the backlash. He shows too how Britain provided a blueprint for the genocides of twentieth-century Europe & argues that its past leaders must rank alongside the dictators of the twentieth century as the perpetrators of crimes against humanity on an infamous scale. In tracing this history of resistance all but lost to modern memory Richard Gott recovers these forgotten peoples & puts them where they deserve to be: at the heart of the story of Britains empire.
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The story of Isleworth Studios is essentially that of the British film industry from 1914 to 1952. Beginning with the first British Sherlock Holmes screen adaptation & ending with its Oscar-winning swansong The African Queen in the intervening years it was one of the most technically advanced studios in the country & home to some of the best & the worst examples of British cinema. It experienced the transition from silent films to talkies. Britains only movie mogul Alexander Korda arrived looking to rival Hollywood followed by Douglas Fairbanks Jnr looking to rival Korda. Buster Keaton struggled with alcoholism; Richard Burton made his screen debut; Bogart Hepburn & Huston made a classic; & Emeric Pressburger directed his first & only film at Isleworth. Little by little the dream factorys physical shape is now crumbling or altered or is disappearing altogether. Soon it may be gone. Isleworth Studios has a history worthy of more than just an addendum in the annals of the British film industry. This is its story told for the very first time ...

What kind of Royal Navy does Britain need now? The 21st century promises to be one of huge uncertainties & challenges for the senior service. Does Britain have the right naval strategy to cope with emerging threats (does it have a naval strategy at all & should it?) & if so does the Navy have the right ships & enough of them to implement it? Given the time taken to introduce changes & develop new systems policymakers naval chiefs & designers are confronted with 50-year decisions. But future choices are likely to be clouded by economic uncertainties produced by the current crisis which could have implications for decades. Nick Childs looks at the changing strategic environment (including ever greater maritime trade & the growth of other navies such as China India South Korea revolutions in North Africa & the Middle East). He asks what Britains role in the world could or should be
- is she still interventionist? (Libya says yes). If so should our forces be designed purely to work with US UN or Western European forces? What are the options for a naval strategy? The author then considers what kind of navy would be needed to support such options. What kind of ships are needed & how many? What of aircraft carriers & the nuclear option? What are the technological developments affecting current & future warship design projects? Is the new Type 45 destroyer what is needed & worth the cost? Given the depths to which the RN has shrunk in terms of numbers public profile & strength relative to its peers this probably is a critical period in terms of determining the RNs future.
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British TV comedy in its glorious forms
- from sitcom to sketch shows -is a much-loved highlight of the small-screen schedules.
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The British Isles have a long rich & celebrated seafaring history stretching from the earliest times through the victories of Drake & Nelson the voyages of discovery of Cabot & Cook & the defence of the realm by vessels of all types in the present century. Much of this history is recorded in literature & in museums but reaches its most tangible form in the large number of historical ships that have been preserved & are continually restored as monuments to a proud past. This lavish new volume explores twenty of the most celebrated & accessible ships & offers a comprehensive history of each vessels design construction active service & subsequent restoration & preservation. Presented in order of a ships launch date each entry is written by the acknowledged expert on a particular vessel gives full

Specification details & is sumptuously illustrated with contemporary photographs historical illustrations & a full set of scale plans. In addition to the featured entries an appendix presents all of the necessary contact details & opening times where applicable. The appendix also lists (and provides details for) other vessels of historical importance including a small number of working replicas such as the Matthew & the recently commissioned eighteenth-century frigate The Grand Turk featured in the current Hornblower television series. Principal vessels include: Mary Rose HMS Victory HMS Trincomalee SS Great Britain Cutty Sark RRS Discovery HMS Warrior HMS Belfast HMY Britannia HMS Alliance HMS Cavalier Gypsy Moth IV HMS Plymouth.

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At the start of the 1960s there were approaching 100 municipal operators in the UK; these ranged from Belfast in Northern Ireland to Aberdeen in the north of Scotland & from Exeter & Plymouth in the southwest to Maidstone in the southeast. By the mid-1970s as a result of the creation of the PTEs (which saw the demise of municipal operators in the countrys major conurbations) & the demise of a small number that were taken over by local NBC operators
- most notably Luton & Exeter
- the number of municipally owned operators had declined to just over 40. Following privatisation & deregulation the number of council-owned operators has declined to less than a dozen
- ranging from the 600-strong Lothian Buses to barely 60 operated in Widnes by Halton Transport. Although the rate of decline has diminished in recent years the municipally-owned companies in Plymouth Bournemouth Chester Blackburn & Eastbourne have all been sold in recent years. This is a narrative history of the 40+ municipal operators that survived the creation of the final PTEs in 1974/75. The book will include c 30 000 words of text allied toC 150 predominantly colour illustrations.


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Beautifully elegiac...a memento mori of British civic pride lost to the shopping centres & ring roads of the 1960s... This masterful book should be placed in every council planning committee in the country Tristram Hunt BBC History Magazine The destruction of Britains city centres by the combined efforts of the Luftwaffe & postwar planners is legendary. Mediaeval churches Tudor alleyways Georgian terraces & Victorian theatres vanished for ever to be replaced by concrete office-blocks & characterless shopping malls. Now for the first time Gavin Stamp shows us exactly what we have lost. Reproduced in this haunting volume are hundreds of finest top quality photographs of cities from Plymouth to Dundee all of streets & buildings that are gone for ever. In the accompanying text Stamp traces their creation & destruction remembering the massive campaign to save the Euston Arch wantonly demolished in 1962 & mourning the loss of lovely mediaeval Coventry which was already doomed by the city planners even before German air-raids intervened. Alternately fascinating enraging & heartbreaking this is an extraordinary evocation of Britains architectural past & a much-needed reminder of the importance of preserving our heritage. One of Britains best-known architectural historians Gavin Stamp is author of numerous books including Lutyens Houses. He is an energetic campaigner against demolition of important buildings & writes for numerous publications including Country Life Apollo & Private Eye. ...

Featuring 60 superb color plates this is an easy-to-use photographic identification guide to the 51 orchid species native to ...

The story of Britains prime ministers is also the story of Britains key moments in history. From the first PM Sir Robert Walpole to William Pitt the Younger the charismatic Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington to the reforming Victorians Sir Robert Peel Disraeli Gladstone & in the twentieth century Lloyd George Baldwin the gret Sir Winston Churchill through to Markaret Thatcher Tony Blair & to the present day this illustrated guide is an insightful look at the development of Britain & parliament. ...