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Berlin in 1933 is in upheaval. Eleven-year-old Carla von Ulrich struggles to understand the tensions disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany. Into this turmoil steps her mother's formidable friend and former British MP, Ethel Leckwith, and her student son, Lloyd, who soon learns for himself the brutal reality of Nazism. He also encounters a group of Germans resolved to oppose Hitler - but are they willing to go so far as to betray their country? Such people are closely watched by Volodya, a Russian with a bright future in Red Army Intelligence. The international clash of military power and personal beliefs that ensues will sweep over them all as it rages from Cable Street in London's East End to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, from Spain to Stalingrad, from Dresden to Hiroshima. At Cambridge Lloyd is irresistibly drawn to dazzling American socialite Daisy Peshkov, who represents everything his left-wing family despise. But Daisy is more interested in aristocratic Boy Fitzherbert - amateur pilot, party lover and leading light of the British Union of Fascists. Back in Berlin, Carla worships golden boy Werner from afar. But nothing will work out the way they expect as their lives and the hopes of the world are smashed by the greatest and cruellest war in the history of the human race.

'The feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world ... this prospect frightens me much more than bombs'On the 70th anniversary of George Orwell's death, a new collection of his brilliant essays written during the Second World WarFascism and Democracy collects five brilliant examples of Orwell's writing during the darkest days of World War Two. Grappling with the principles of democracy and the potential of reform, the meaning of literature and free speech in times of violence, and the sustainability of objective truth, Orwell offers a compelling portrayal of a nation where norms and ideals can no longer be taken for granted. Like the best of Orwell's writing, these essays also serve as timeless reminders of the fragility of freedom.

GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016 'The most brilliant and fascinating book I have read in my entire life' Dan Snow 'Blitzed is making me rethink everything I've ever seen and read about WWII... terrific!' Douglas Coupland 'A huge contribution... remarkable' Antony Beevor, BBC RADIO 4 'Extremely interesting ... a serious piece of scholarship, very well researched' Ian Kershaw The sensational German bestseller on the overwhelming role of drug-taking in the Third Reich, from Hitler to housewives. The Nazis presented themselves as warriors against moral degeneracy. Yet, as Norman Ohler's gripping bestseller reveals, the entire Third Reich was permeated with drugs: cocaine, heroin, morphine and, most of all, methamphetamines, or crystal meth, used by everyone from factory workers to housewives, and crucial to troops' resilience - even partly explaining German victory in 1940. The promiscuous use of drugs at the very highest levels also impaired and confused decision-making, with Hitler and his entourage taking refuge in potentially lethal cocktails of stimulants administered by the physician Dr Morell as the war turned against Germany. While drugs cannot on their own explain the events of the Second World War or its outcome, Ohler shows, they change our understanding of it. Blitzed forms a crucial missing piece of the story.

When Hitler's war ended in 1945, the war over Hitler--who he really was, what gave birth to his unique evil--had just begun. Hitler did not escape the bunker in Berlin but, half a century later, he has managed to escape explanation in ways both frightening and profound. Explaining Hitler is an extraordinary quest, an expedition into the war zone of Hitler theories. This is a passionate, enthralling book that illuminates what Hitler explainers tell us about Hitler, about the explainers, and about ourselves.

Within days of the D-Day lanings, the 'Das Reich' 2nd SS Panzer Division marched north through France to reinforce the front-line defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Veterans of the bloodiest fighting of the Russion Front, 15,000 men with their tanks and artillery, they were hounded for every mile of their march by saboteurs of the Resistance and agents of the Allied Special Forces. Along their route they took reporisals so savage they will live for ever in the chronicles of the most appalling atrocities of war. Max Hasting's powerful account of their progress is a true military classic.

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER AWARD A magisterial and acclaimed history of post-war Europe, from Germany to Poland, from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, selected as one of New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year Europe in 1945 was drained. Much of the continent was devastated by war, mass slaughter, bombing and chaos. Large areas of Eastern Europe were falling under Soviet control, exchanging one despotism for another. Today, the Soviet Union is no more and the democracies of the European Union reach as far as the borders of Russia itself. Postwar tells the rich and complex story of how we got from there to here, demystifying Europe's recent history and identity, of what the continent is and has been. 'It is hard to imagine how a better - and more readable - history of the emergence of today's Europe from the ashes of 1945 could ever be written...All in all, a real masterpiece' Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler

The most eloquent and expressive statesman of his time - phrases such as 'iron curtain', 'business as usual', 'the few', and 'summit meeting' passed quickly into everyday use - Winston Churchill used language as his most powerful weapon at a time when his most frequent complaint was that the armoury was otherwise empty. In this volume, David Cannadine selects thirty-three orations ranging over fifty years, demonstrating how Churchill gradually hones his rhetoric until the day when, with spectacular effect, 'he mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle' (Edward R. Murrow).

Half a century after their deaths, the dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler still cast a long and terrible shadow over the modern world. They were the most destructive and lethal regimes in history, murdering millions. They fought the largest and costliest war in all history. Yet millions of Germans and Russians enthusiastically supported them and the values they stood for. In this first major study of the two dictatorships side-by-side Richard Overy sets out to answer the question: How was dictatorship possible? How did they function? What was the bond that tied dictator and people so powerfully together? He paints a remarkable and vivid account of the different ways in which Stalin and Hitler rose to power, and abused and dominated their people. It is a chilling analysis of powerful ideals corrupted by the vanity of ambitious and unscrupulous men.

Nine-year-old Anna was too busy with schoolwork and friends in 1933 to take much notice of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in her native Germany. But when her father is suddenly, unaccountably missing, and her family flees Berlin in secrecy, Anna is forced to learn the skills needed to be a refugee and finds she's much more resilient than she thought.192 pp.

Fascism is a political ideology which has been identified with totalitarianism, state terror, fanaticism, orchestrated violence, and blind obedience. Fascism was directly associated with the Second World War, the most devastating annihilation of human lives in the history of mankind which left more than 40 million dead around the globe and introduced notions of inhumanity the extent of which was heretofore unknown. The mere term stirs up visions of atrocities and wanton cruelty even today, fifty years after the end of the Last European War Yet once again fascism is in the ascendant, suggesting that it is time for us to renew our understanding of its ideas, ideals, and iniquities. This anthology tries to show why fascism holds such strong appeal to many people. With a wide selection of texts written by fascist thinkers and propagandists as well as prominent anti-fascist criticism from both inside and outside Europe, before and after the Second World War, this collection offers a chilling portrait of the most feared political doctrine in modern history. Some of the topics covered in this volume include fascism in Germany and Italy, pre-1922 precursors of fascism, theories of fascism, the abortive fascist movements in the period 1922-1945, anti-fascist movements and reaction, Marxist criticism of fascist ideology, and post-war fascism. With contributions from writers as diverse as Benito Mussolini and Primo Levi, Joseph Goebbels and George Orwell, Martin Heidegger and Max Horkheimer, this insightful book evokes the pernicious effects of fascist ideology.