Caroline Moorehead - Böcker

'Moorehead paints a wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the women of the Italian Resistance' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMESThe extraordinary story of the courageous women who spearheaded the Italian Resistance during the Second World WarIn the late summer of 1943, in the midst of German occupation, the Italian Resistance was born. Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca were four young women who signed up. Living in the mountains surrounding Turin their contribution was invaluable. They carried messages and weapons, provided safe houses and took prisoners. As thousands of Italians rose up, they fought to liberate their country.With its corruption, greed and anti-Semitism, the fall of Fascist Italy was unrelentingly violent, but for the partisan women it was also a time of camaraderie and equality, pride and optimism. Through the stories of these four exceptional women, the resolve, tenacity and, above all, courage of the Italian Resistance is laid bare. A Spectator Book of the Year

Discover the life of one of the twentieth century's most significant and notorious war correspondents, and the third wife of Ernest Hemingway.Martha Gellhorn's journalism tracks many of the flashpoints of the twentieth century; as a young woman she witnessed the suffering of the American Depression and risked her life in the Spanish Civil War. Her dispatches from the front made her a legend, yet her private life was often messy and volcanic. Her determination to be a war correspondent - and her conspicuous success - contributed to the breakdown of her infamously stormy marriage to Ernest Hemingway. In this mesmerising biography of a life that spanned the twentieth century, Moorehead reveals how passionately Martha fought against injustice, and how determined she was to catch the human story.'A deeply sympathetic portrait... [it shows] an overwhelming sense of what it is to be human' Daily Telegraph

Lucie de la Tour du Pin was the Pepys of her generation. She witnessed, participated in, and wrote diaries detailing one of the most tumultuous periods of history. From life in the Court of Versailles, through the French Revolution to Napoleon's rule, Lucie survived extraordinary times with great spirit. She recorded people, politics and intrigue, alongside the intriguing minutia of everyday life: food, work, illness, children, manners and clothes. Caroline Moorehead's richly novelistic biography sets Lucy and her dairies in their wider context, illuminating a remarkable period of history.Dancing to the Precipice was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award 2009.

A moving and extraordinary book about courage and survival, friendship and endurance – a portrait of ordinary women who faced the horror of the holocaust together.On an icy morning in Paris in January 1943, a group of 230 French women resisters were rounded up from the Gestapo detention camps and sent on a train to Auschwitz – the only train, in the four years of German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp. Of the group, only 49 survivors would return to France.Here is the story of these women – told for the first time. A Train in Winter is a portrait of ordinary people, of their bravery and endurance, and of the friendships that kept so many of them alive.‘A story of stunning courage, generosity and hope’ Mail on Sunday‘Serious and heartfelt...profound’ Sunday Times

A SUNDAY TIMES TOP FIVE BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2014From the author of the New York Times bestseller A Train in Winter comes the extraordinary story of a French village that helped save thousands who were pursued by the Gestapo during World War II.High up in the mountains of the southern Massif Central in France lies a cluster of tiny, remote villages united by a long and particular history. During the Nazi occupation, the inhabitants of the Plateau Vivarais Lignon saved several thousand people from the concentration camps. As the victims of Nazi persecution flooded in – resisters, freemasons, communists and Jews, many of them children – the villagers united to keep them safe. The story of why and how these villages came to save so many people has never been fully told. But several of the remarkable architects of the mission are still alive, as are a number of those they saved. Caroline Moorehead has sought out and interviewed many of the people involved in this extraordinary undertaking, and brings us their unforgettable testimonies. It is a story of courage and determination, of a small number of heroic individuals who risked their lives to save others, and of what can be done when people come together to oppose tyranny.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARDMussolini was not only ruthless: he was subtle and manipulative. Black-shirted thugs did his dirty work for him: arson, murder, destruction of homes and offices, bribes and intimidation. His opponents – including editors, union representatives, lawyers and judges – were beaten into submission. But the tide turned in 1924 when his assassins went too far, horror spread across Italy, and antifascist resistance was born. Among those whose disgust hardened into bold and uncompromising resistance was a family from Florence: Amelia, Carlo and Nello Rosselli. Caroline Moorehead draws readers into the lives of this remarkable family – their loves, their loyalties, their laughter and their ultimate sacrifice.

Born in Paris 1893, a precocious and tough Freya Stark spent her childhood wondering across Europe, speaking three languages by the time she was five. She became one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable and inspirational women. Renowned for her flamboyant and unorthodox behaviour, Freya was also self-disciplined, courageous and remained fearlessly independent throughout her life.As an explorer she was unconventional, always travelling alone, without money or support. Her expeditions in Persia and the Hadhramaut during the thirties established her reputation not only as a great traveller and writer, but also as a geographer, historian and archaeologist.Caroline Moorehead brilliantly captures Freya's extraordinary and eventful life that was tempered by a constant struggle against ill health and loneliness, in this compelling biography.

Iris Origo was one of the twentieth century's most attractive and intriguing women, a brilliantly perceptive historian and biographer whose works remain widely admired. Iris grew up in Italy where she became part of the colourful and privileged Anglo-Florentine set that included Edith Wharton, Harold Acton and the Berensons. When Iris married Antonio Origo, they bought and revived La Foce, a derelict stretch of the beautiful Val d'Orcia valley in Tuscany and created an estate that thrives to this day. During World War II they sided firmly with the Allies, taking considerable risks in protecting children and sheltering partisans and Iris's diary from that time, War in Val d'Orcia, is now considered a modern classic. Caroline Moorehead has drawn on many previously unpublished letters, diaries, and papers to write the definitive biography of a very remarkable woman.

A thrilling biography of Benito Mussolini's favourite daughter, and a heart-stopping account of the unravelling of the Fascist dream in Italy'Engrossing... Moorehead has a spirited turn of phrase, a keen eye for the telling detail and pungent quote, and a gift for marshaling complex material' Jenny Uglow, New York Times Book ReviewEdda Mussolini was Benito's favourite daughter: spoilt, venal and uneducated but also clever, brave, and ultimately loyal. She was her father's confidante during the 20 years of Fascist rule and married Foreign Secretary Galeazzo Ciano, making them the most celebrated couple in Roman fascist society.Their fortunes turned in 1943, when Ciano voted against Mussolini in a plot to bring him down. In a dramatic story that takes in hidden diaries, her father's fall and her husband's execution, we come to know a complicated, bold and determined woman who emerges not just as a witness but as a key player in some of the twentieth century's defining moments.'Vividly told, engrossing history' CLARE MULLEY, author of The Women Who Flew for Hitler'Precise, empathic . . . a profoundly satisfying, albeit wistful, read and . . . a worryingly relevant one' GUARDIAN

'Books such as this are essential: they remind modern readers of events that should never be forgotten' - Caroline MooreheadOn March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women-many of them teenagers-were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reichsmarks (about £160) apiece for the Nazis to take them as slave labour. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few would survive.The facts of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz are little known, yet profoundly relevant today. These were not resistance fighters or prisoners of war. There were no men among them. Sent to almost certain death, the young women were powerless and insignificant not only because they were Jewish-but also because they were female. Now, acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their poignant stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women's history.

A remarkable story of courage in the face of injustice and brutality in the Second World War Books such as this are essential: they remind modern readers of events that should never be forgotten' - Caroline Moorehead On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. That is not what happened. The young women - many of them teenagers - were sent on their way to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reichsmarks (about £160) apiece for the Nazis to take them as cheap, forced labour. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few would survive.The facts of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz are little known, yet profoundly relevant today. These were not resistance fighters or prisoners of war. There were no men among them. Sent to almost certain death, the young women were rendered powerless and treated as insignificant not only because they were Jewish - but also because they were young women. Now, for the first time, acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their poignant stories. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees, The Nine Hundred sheds crucial light on an overlooked moment in the Holocaust, and in women's history in the twentieth century.

Troy: one of the most captivating and mysterious stories of antiquity...But was Troy an actual place or just a legend of Homer's epic? It took the most unlikely of people, Heinrich Schliemann - a grocer's-apprentice turned self-made archaeologist, courageous and driven - to solve one of the greatest puzzles in history. His extraordinary discovery of the ruins of fabled Troy and the magnificent treasure of King Priam anointed Schliemann as the 'father of pre-history', but was also beset by controversy that persists to this day. The fate of the treasure itself is no less troubled. In 1945 it was spirited out of Berlin by the Red Army, to be hidden for 50 years in the vaults of the Pushkin Museum until the breakup of the Soviet Union. In this fast-paced account, Caroline Moorehead describes one of the most remarkable adventures of the 20th century, tracing Schliemann's footsteps to Troy and the convoluted journey across Europe taken by the treasure itself.

A new edition of this seminal book, now with a new introduction by the author on the current crisisHow can society cope with the diaspora of the twenty-first century? Is there a difference between ‘good’ asylum seekers and ‘bad’ economic migrants? What happens to those whose applications are turned down?Caroline Moorehead has visited war zones, camps and prisons from Guinea and Afghanistan to Australia and Italy. She has interviewed emigration officials and members of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees while investigating the fates of the millions of people currently displaced from their homes. Human Cargo is both a remarkable exploration into the current crisis and a celebration of the courage of ordinary people.

'As much a history of the deeply crooked culture of Italian politics as it is a vivid biography of one man' SUNDAY TIMES'Fascinating' SPECTATOR'Vivid and disturbing but utterly compelling' DAILY MAILCorruption, sleaze and violence were woven into the fabric of twentieth-century Sicilian life, as the Mafia rose to dominance. This is the story of one man who stood in opposition.In 1986, the largest Mafia trial in Italy’s history took place in Sicily: 471 men and 4 women took the stand, accused of horrific crimes. Sitting in the gallery was Leonardo Sciascia. One of the greatest European writers of the twentieth century, he had published the first Mafia novel, The Day of the Owl, in 1961, and was widely seen by Italians as a true moral figure in a country where corruption had seeped into every corner of public and private life.Sciascia had come of age as the Mafia grew to prominence across Sicily. Witnessing the scale of corruption and violence, Sciascia predicted it would soon spread north, and he was right: by the 1980s, the Mafia had infiltrated every level of Italian politics and grown into an international, highly successful business.In A Sicilian Man, prize-winning historian and biographer Caroline Moorehead charts Sciascia’s life against the rise of the Mafia, and lays out the thrilling and devastating struggle that ensued for Italy’s soul.'Magnificent and deeply affecting' PHILIP HENSHER'Vivid and knowledgeable... This feels like the book [Moorehead] was destined to write' LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT