Tim Rees - Böcker

Until the dramatic fall of Communist regimes in the East placed the possibility of revolution on the agenda once again, sudden and decisive political change had appeared a largely anachronistic phenomenon in Europe. Looking back over the twentieth century, it is plausible to argue that the twentieth, rather than the nineteenth, has been the 'most revolutionary of centuries'. In this volume, leading specialists from a variety of disciplines examine the changing and conflicting meanings of revolution in modern and contemporary Europe. Contributions include both broad essays on the global and historical context of European revolution and specific case studies reinterpreting a variety of revolutionary experiences.

A sibling of interwar Europe's other fascist regimes, Franco's Spain survived them all, growing to old age in an era of liberal democracy. It weathered the explosive social movements and student discontents of the 1960s and lingered into the 1970s, its earlier fascist ideology attenuated almost out of recognition, with simple survival its greatest preoccupation. Franco's Spain looks beyond the mythology surrounding the origins of the dictatorship to provide a critical overview of the regime - from its emergence from a bloody uprising against a democratic government; through the 'high period' of francoism with its poverty, hunger and fear, followed by a complex period of change and economic growth; to the final demise of the dictatorship, amid open opposition and internal defections. Economics and society are as integral a part of the story in 'Franco's Spain' as politics, and international relations find their place alongside purely domestic issues. The book also peers beyond the grave, examining the transition to democracy after the dictator's death in 1975.

In Service is the tale of one person's journey into manhood, ultimately finding himself in the theatre of war. It is a journey littered with colourful anecdotes and diverse experience: from military training in the Guards Depot to Trooping the Colour; from academic failure to intelligence work in Northern Ireland; from helping Rudolf Hess out of an ambulance to being tasked with taking the Queen's portrait. Tim Rees colours every experience with profound and often idiosyncratic observations that offer the reader a taste of the sometimes humorous, often arduous and, on too many occasions, brutal reality of service. But, as Tim says, 'The positive effect is the bond of common experience I share with men with whom I served in the army' - a type of bond that, in his opinion, is in danger of being lost in the modern age.