Matthew Parker – författare

''Breathtaking... vital and important. A wonderful read'' PETER FRANKOPAN''Marvellous... escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of Empire and sees its full complexity'' SATHNAM SANGHERA''Excellent... his mastery of detail is impeccable'' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, Sunday Times''Extraordinary... [brings] the world of a century ago to fresh, vivid life'' ALEX VON TUNZELMANNTHE STORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE AT ITS MAXIMUM TERRITORIAL EXTENTOn Saturday 29 September 1923, the Palestine Mandate became law and the British Empire now covered a scarcely credible quarter of the world''s land mass, containing 460 million people. It was the largest empire the world had ever seen. But it was beset by debt and doubts. This book is a new way of looking at the British Empire. It immerses the reader in the contemporary moment, focusing on particular people and stories from that day, gleaned from newspapers, letters, diaries, official documents, magazines, films and novels: from a remote Pacific island facing the removal of its entire soil, across Australia, Burma, India and Kenya to London and the West Indies.In some ways, the issues of a hundred years ago are with us still: debates around cultural and ethnic identity in a globalised world; how to manage multi-ethnic political entities; racism; the divisive co-opting of religion for political purposes; the dangers of ignorance. In others, it is totally alien. What remains extraordinary is the Empire''s ability to reveal the most compelling human stories. Never before has there been a book which contains such a wide spread of vivid experiences from both colonised and coloniser: from the grandest governors to the humblest migrants, policemen and nurses.

The six-month battle for Monte Cassino was Britain''s bitterest and bloodiest encounter with the German army on any front in World War Two.At the beginning of 1944 Italy was the western Allies'' only active front against Nazi-controlled Europe, and their only route to the capital was through the Liri valley. Towering over the entrance to the valley was the medieval monastery of Monte Cassino, a seemingly impenetrable fortress high up in the ''bleak and sinister'' mountains. This was where the German commander, Kesselring, made his stand.MONTE CASSINO tells the extraordinary story of ordinary soldiers tested to the limits under conditions reminiscent of the bloodbaths of World War One. In a battle that became increasingly political, symbolic and personal as it progressed, more and more men were asked to throw themselves at the virtually impregnable German defences. It is a story of incompetence, hubris and politics redeemed at dreadful cost by the heroism of the soldiers.

THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ''Completely fascinating, authoritative and intriguing'' William Boyd''The big bang on Bond books... Beautiful, brilliant'' Tony Parsons Goldeneye: the story of Ian Fleming in Jamaica and the creation of British national icon, James Bond.From 1946 until the end of his life, Ian Fleming lived for two months of every year at Goldeneye – the house he built on a point of high land overlooking a small white sand beach on Jamaica’s north coast. All the James Bond novels and stories were written here. Fleming adored the Jamaica he had discovered, at the time an imperial backwater that seemed unchanged from the glory days of the empire. Amid its stunning natural beauty, the austerity and decline of post-war Britain could be forgotten. For Fleming, Jamaica offered the perfect mixture of British old-fashioned conservatism and imperial values, alongside the dangerous and sensual: the same curious combination that made his novels so appealing, and successful. The spirit of the island – its exotic beauty, its unpredictability, its melancholy, its love of exaggeration and gothic melodrama – infuses his writing.Fleming threw himself into the island’s hedonistic Jet Set party scene: Hollywood giants, and the cream of British aristocracy, the theatre, literary society and the secret services spent their time here drinking and bed-hopping. But while the whites partied, Jamaican blacks were rising up to demand respect and self-government. And as the imperial hero James Bond – projecting British power across the world – became ever more anachronistic and fantastical, so his popularity soared.Drawing on extensive interviews with Ian’s family, his Jamaican lover Blanche Blackwell and many other islanders, Goldeneye is a beautifully written, revealing and original exploration of a crucially important part of Ian Fleming’s life and work.