By the end of the nineteenth century Detroit founded by the French as a fur-trading post was thriving. In 1913 Henry Ford began mass-producing cars at his Model T plant transforming the area into the Silicon Valley of its day. By 1920 it was the fourth largest city in America & by the mid-1950s General Motors had become the single biggest employer on earth. Here indeed was the most modern city in the world the city of tomorrow. But by the time Berry Gordy founded Motown Records in 1960
- thereby creating twentieth-century Detroits other great assembly line
- the cracks were already beginning to show: big industry was looking elsewhere for cheaper sites cheaper labour & better tax breaks; urban planning was in meltdown; corruption was rife; racial tensions were running high. The 1967 riots
- at the time the worst in US history
- left 43 dead more than 7 000 arrested & 3 000 buildings destroyed. Detroit a former beacon of the capitalist dream had degenerated into an urban wilderness where unemployment ran at 50 per cent. With more guns in the city than people the murder rate was the highest in America
- three times that of New York. Mark Binelli returned to live in his native Detroit after a break of many years. He tells the story of the boom & the bust
- & of the new society to be found emerging from the debris: Detroit with its urban farms & vibrant arts scene; Detroit as a laboratory for the post-industrial post-recession world. Heres what an iconic rust-belt city now looks like & how it might transform & regenerate itself in the twenty-first century.





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Brilliantly written & researched The Last Days of Hitler remains the most vivid account of the final Wagnerian chapter of Hitlers tyranny Max Hastings In September 1945 the fate of Adolf Hitler was a complete mystery. He had simply disappeared & had been missing for four months. Hugh Trevor-Roper an intelligence officer was given the task of solving the mystery. His brilliant piece of detective work not only proved finally that Hitler had killed himself in Berlin but also produced one of the most fascinating history books ever written. The Last Days of Hitler tells the extraordinary story of those last days of the Thousand Year Reich in the Berlin Bunker. Besieged in the shattered capital but still dominating the remains of his court Hitler reiterated the original alternative of Nazism: either total victory or annihilation. This book is the record of that carefully prepared ceremonious finale to a terrible chapter of history. This is an incomparable book by far the best written on any aspect of the second German war: a book sound in scholarship brilliant in its presentation.. . No words of praise are too strong A. J. P. Taylor New Statesman A masterpiece The Times A brilliant study Guardian ...

St Giles London 1829: three people have been brutally murdered & the city simmers with anger & political unrest. Pyke sometime Bow Street Runner sometime crook finds himself accidentally embroiled in the murder investigation but quickly realises that he has stumbled into something more sinister & far-reaching. In his pursuit of the murderer Pyke ruffles the feathers of some powerful people & falsely accused of murder himself he soon faces a death sentence & the gallows of the Old Bailey. Imprisoned & with only his uncle & the headstrong aristocratic daughter of his greatest enemy who believe in him Pyke must engineer his escape find the real killer & untangle the web of politics that has been spun around him. From the gutters of Seven Dials to the cells of Newgate prison from the turmoil of 1800s Belfast to the highest levels of murky pre-Victorian politics THE LAST DAYS OF NEWGATE is a gripping darkly atmospheric story with a fantastic pragmatic
- & reluctantly heroic
- hero.

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The Last Days of Richard III contains a new & uniquely detailed exploration of Richards last 150 days & explores these events from the standpoint of Richard himself & his contemporaries. By deliberately avoiding the hindsight knowledge that he will lose the Battle of Bosworth Field we discover a new Richard: no passive victim awaiting defeat & death but a king actively pursuing his own policies & agenda. It also re-examines the aftermath of Bosworth: the treatment of Richards body; his burial; & the construction of his tomb. Based on newly discovered evidence & wider insights it explores the motives underlying these events. & there is the fascinating story of why & how Richard IIIs DNA was rediscovered alive & well & living in Canada. John Ashdown-Hill has produced a stimulating & thought-provoking acount of the end of Richards life. Even readers very familiar with his short life will discover a new & fascinating picture of him. ...

The Last Days of Richard III contains a new & uniquely detailed exploration of Richard's last 150 days. By deliberately avoiding the hindsight knowledge that he will lose the Battle of Bosworth Field we discover a new Richard: no passive victim awaiting defeat & death but a king actively pursuing his own agenda. It also re-examines the aftermath of Bosworth: the treatment of Richard's body; his burial; & the construction of his tomb. & there is the fascinating story of why & how Richard III's family tree was traced until a relative was found alive & well in Canada. Now with the discovery of Richard's skeleton at the Greyfrairs Priory in Leicester England John Ashdown-Hill explains how his book inspired the dig & completes Richard III's fascinating story giving details of how Richard died & how the DNA link to a living relative of the king allowed the royal body to be identified. ...

A Leaf in The Wind covers the last days of T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) up to & following his mysterious & fatal motorcycle accident on the 13th of May 1935. New evidence discovered by the authors questions the original story published at the time & sheds new light on his tragic death. Meticulously researched over several years these painstaking investigations have revealed many new insights in Lawrences life activities & interests some of which may surprise & offend many people. The documentary & photographic evidence encompasses some 60 plates maps & figures & for anyone with an interest in T E Lawrence this book will be essential reading. ...

In 1572 the Spanish sacked Vilcabamba the last Inca stronghold & the city was rapidly overtaken by the jungle receding for hundreds of years into legend & myth. This is the story of how Vilcabamba was founded & how the Incas held out against the Spanish for over 30 years in a savage guerrilla war. Hundreds of years later at the turn of this century an American explorer Hiram Bingham stumbled on the ruins of Machu Pichu & announced to the world that he had found Vilcabamba the lost city of the Incas. For fifty years the academic world agreed with him until in 1967 another American explorer discovered the real Vilcabamba... This is the biography of a city
- through history myth legend literature exploration & archaeology.
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WHAT IS HIS DARK SECRET? Destined for the convent Emery Montbard disguises herself as a boy & enlists the help of chivalrous knight Nicholas de Burgh. From a proud dynastic family Nicholas has a strong code of honour
- which is challenged when he notices the provocative curves of his mysterious companion. Doesn't she realise that she gives away her true identity every time she moves? But Nicholas also hides a secret
- one that lies at the very heart of him & can never be revealed...

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Good-quality colour photographs of the last days of the steam age are rare. Many of those that do exist have been published repeatedly but the 250 colour photographs featured in this book taken between 1958 & 1968 are an exception. It is believed that the photographer & author 76-year-old Gavin Morrison has Britain's largest personal collection of colour slides still in the hands of the original photographer. This attractive large-format book shows steam locomotives at work throughout the country in all weathers & in a year-by-year presentation accompanied by the author's knowledgeable commentary. ...

Elvis Coles girlfriend Lucy is out of town & she has left her young son Ben in Elviss care. Elvis & Lucy have had a few problems lately
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