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When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the forces of resistance were disparate and divided mujahideen groups, as interested in fighting each other and competing for Western arms as opposing the Russians. The exception was Ahmed Shah Massoud, the military strategist and political operator who solidified the resistance and undermined the Russian occupation by leading its members to a series of defensive victories.Sandy Gall was embedded with Massoud during Soviet offences and reported on the war in Afghanistan for a number of years. He has now written an illuminating biography of this charismatic guerrilla commander, which contains excerpts from the surviving volumes of Massoud's diaries. Massoud's prolific diary-keeping was little known during his lifetime, and his entries detail crucial moments in his life and throw fascinating light on his struggles, both in the resistance and in his personal life. Born into an ostensibly liberalising Afghanistan in the 1960s, Massoud ardently opposed communism and Mohammed Daoud, Afghanistan's puppet leader. He quickly rose to prominence and distinguished himself by coordinating the defence of the Panjshir Valley against repeated Soviet offensives. As the occupation wore on, Massoud became the resistance's unifying force.Massoud's assassination in 2001 presaged the attack on the Twin Towers just two days later and it is widely believed to have been ordered by Osama bin Laden. Forever the underdog in a life dominated by conflict, Massoud's attempts to build political consensus in Afghanistan were ultimately frustrated. Despite that, he is recognised today as a national hero.

This monumental and authoritative biography of one of the most intriguing and complexfigures of the 20th century, written by his grandson, gives a complete and balanced accountof Gandhi's remarkable life, the development of his beliefs, his political campaigns,and his complex relationships with his family. Gandhi's life was one of contrasts andcontradictions: the westernised Middle Temple lawyer who wore the clothes of India's poorest and spun cotton by hand; the apostle of non-violence who led an Indian ambulance corps in the Boer War and urged Indians to enlist in the First World War; the champion of Indian independence who never hated the British.Written with unprecedented insight and access to family archives, this definitive biography of Gandhi sheds new light on the life of a man who was far more complicated and conflicted than his received public image suggests. For the first time, this book gives us the true Gandhi, the man as well as the legend.

Biographical writing about Eliot is in a more confused and contested state than is the case with any other major twentieth-century writer. No major biography has been released since the publication of his early poems, "Inventions of the March Hare," in 1996, which radically altered the reading public's perception of Eliot. There have been attempts to turn the American woman Emily Hale into the beloved woman of Eliot's middle years; and Eliot has also been blamed for the instability of his first wife and declared a closet homosexual. This biography frees Eliot from such distortions, as well as from his cold and unemotional image. It offers a sympathetic study of his first marriage which does not attempt to blame, but to understand; it shows how Eliot's poetry can be read for its revelations about his inner world. Eliot once wrote that every poem was an epitaph, meaning that it was the inscription on the tombstone of the experience which it commemorated. His poetry shows, however, that the deepest experiences of his life would not lie down and die, and that he felt condemned to write about them.

It's a pitch black, rainy night in a small Iranian town. Inside his house the Colonel is immersed in thought. Memories are storming in. Memories of his wife. Memories of the great patriots of the past, all of them assassinated or executed. Memories of his children, who had joined the different factions of the 1979 revolution. There is a knock on the door. Two young policemen have come to summon the Colonel to collect the tortured body of his youngest daughter and bury her before sunrise. The Islamic Revolution, like every other revolution in history, is devouring its own children. And whose fault is that? This shocking diatribe against the failures of the Iranian left over the last fifty years does not leave one taboo unbroken.

In November 1913, three German shipbuilders, led by master shipwright Anton Ru ter, were ordered by Kaiser Wilhelm II to dismantle a steam ship, send the parts to German East Africa, and reassemble it on Lake Tanganyi- ka. Their initial aim of getting the task done quickly and returning home to claim an excellent salary is quickly eclipsed by the enchantment of the exotic landscape, the governor's beautiful wife, and the violent machinery of colonialism. At the same time, Winston Churchill sends Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson to transport two dilapidated and incongruously named gun-boats, Mimi and Toutou, to the other side of the lake. When World War I breaks out the Germans and British are facing each other, and the boat-builders reluctantly find themselves having to fight under the unsympathetic Captain-Lieutenant Gustav von Zimmer.

This is a coming-of-age story, based on a recent shocking chapter of Argentine history, about a young woman who makes a devastating discovery about her origins with the help of an enigmatic house guest. Perla Correa grew up a privileged only child in Buenos Aires, with a cold, polished mother and a straitlaced naval officer father, whose profession. She learned early on not to disclose in a country still reeling from the abuses perpetrated by the deposed military dictatorship. Perla understands that her parents were on the wrong side of the conflict, but her love for her papa is unconditional. Yet when Perla is startled by an uninvited visitor, she begins a journey that will force her to confront the unease she has suppressed all her life, and to make a wrenching decision about who she is, and who she will become.

December 1905: Foreign Minister Edward Grey enters into secret talks with the French about sending British forces to their aid in the event of a German attack. The details were only revealed to the Cabinet and Prime Minister in 1911, by which point the 'hidden perspective' was firmly entrenched, and Britain all but obliged to stand by France in the event of a war. Yet dissenting voices remained, and diplomatic missions to Germany were still underway as late as August 1914. In this scholarly and eloquent work, former Foreign Secretary David Owen argues that the outbreak of war in 1914 was far from inevitable, instead representing eight years of failed diplomacy. The importance of transparent government is particularly relevant in a year in which Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry is published.

The Silk Road is a route from the edges of the European world to the central plains of China. For thousands of years, its history has been a traveller’s history, of brief encounters in desert towns, snowbound passes and nameless forts. It was the conduit that first brought Buddhism, Christianity and Islam into China, and the site of much of the ‘Great Game’ between the empires of Britain and Russia.The ‘Silk Road’ is a modern term, dating from 1877. Only a handful of men and women ever travelled the entire length. For many, the ‘road’ led only to the next town or oasis. Artefacts and articles meandered along the route from China to the Mediterranean, but only in stops and starts, traded back and forth, buffeted by changing conditions and markets.Jonathan Clements takes the reader through the trackless wastes of the Taklamakan Desert, its black whirlwinds and dead lakes, its shimmering mirages, lost cities and mysterious mummies. He explains the truth behind odd tales of horses that sweat blood, defeaced statues, missing frescoes, and Marco Polo’s tales of black gold that seeps from the earth.

Ninety years ago the League of Nations convened for the first time hoping to settle disputes by diplomacy not war. This book looks at how the League was shaped and the multifaceted body that emerged, and how it was used in ensuing years to counter territorial ambitions and restrict armaments, as well as its role in human rights and refugee issues. The failure of the League to prevent the Second World War would lead to its dissolution and the subsequent creation of the United Nations. Can the UN's fate be ascertained by reading the history of its predecessor?

Otto von Bismarck (1815-98) has gone down in history as the Iron Chancellor, a reactionary and militarist whose 1871 unification of Germany set Europe down the path of disaster to World War I. But as Volker Ullrich shows in this new edition of his accessible biography, the real Bismarck was far more complicated than the stereotype. A leading historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history, Ullrich demonstrates that the "Founder of the Reich" was in fact an opponent of liberal German nationalism. After the wars of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck spent the rest of his career working to preserve peace in Europe and protect the empire he had created. Despite his reputation as an enemy of socialism, he introduced comprehensive health and unemployment insurance for German workers. Far from being a "man of iron and blood," Bismarck was in fact a complex statesman who was concerned with maintaining stability and harmony far beyond Germany's newly unified borders. Comprehensive and balanced, Bismarck shows us the post-reunification value of looking anew at this monumental figure's role in European history

Dmitri Shostakovich was the most popular Soviet composer of his generation. Internationally esteemed, he is widely considered to have been the last great classical symphonist, and his reputation has continued to increase since his death in 1975. Shostakovich wrote his First Symphony aged only nineteen and soon embarked on a dual career as concert pianist and composer. His early avant-gardism was to result in the triumph of his 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Though at first highly praised by Stalin, Shostakovich would later suffer from a complex and brutalising relationship with the Soviet dictator and the governments that followed him. In spite of this persecution, his Seventh Symphony was embraced as a potent symbol of Russian resistance to the invading Nazi army in both the USSR and the West. Though his later years were marked by ill health, his rate of composition remained prolific. His music became increasingly popular with audiences as he established himself as the most popular composer of serious art music in the middle years of the twentieth century.

Charles de Gaulle, saviour of France's honour in 1940 and founder of the Fifth Republic, was a man and leader of deep contradictions. A conservative and a Catholic from a monarchist family, he restored democracy on his return to France in 1944, bringing the Communists into his government. An imperialist, he oversaw the final stages of France's withdrawal from its last colonies in the 1960s. As a soldier, he spent much of his career in opposition to France's military establishment.Yet, as Julian Jackson shows, it was precisely because of these contradictions that De Gaulle was able to reconcile so many of the conflicting strands in French politics. In 1958, and in response to a coup by the French military in Algeria, De Gaulle introduced a new political system, the Fifth Republic, ushering in a period of stability that has held to the present day.

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was an artist of his time, but he also stood out among his peers - not just because of his towering physical height but for his artistic range. Using both brush and pen to work against the tide, he wrote plays and stories as well as essays on art and politics, playing a major role in the development of twentieth-century European art.A rebel of the art world, he was used to controversy, and Rüdiger Görner's accomplished biography traces the dark, unsettling aspects of Kokoschka's life alongside his more celebrated achievements: from the eerie doll he had made in the image of a former lover to the unconventional art school he founded in the aftermath of the Second Word War.Taking us from his birthplace of Pöchlarn across Europe and to the United Kingdom, where he became a naturalised British citizen in 1947, this first English-language biography does more than show Kokoschka as a maverick artist; it is the definitive interpretation of an extraordinary life.

Dear Leonard Cohen,Could I ask you something, just between us? How was it that you never changed your name? You could have been Lawrence Cole. You could have been Lindsay Kohl, or Lionel Cone...So begins the story of an everyman Leonard Cohen, a would-be artist, a would-be lover, a would-be tragic figure, yet a man haunted by the greatness of his namesake. He struggles to compete. He struggles to be more than a punchline in his own mind. He struggles, in particular, to write one song as great as the least of the great Leonard Cohen's songs.At the center of Leonard's life is Daphne. In their meeting on a Greek island, a contemporary fable of Daphne and Apollo plays out. But even with her, Leonard is shadowed by the "other" Leonard Cohen. The ancient myth haunts the fated lovers of this novel, in which art, love, and fame all fatefully intertwine.

Tarbush was born in British Mandate Palestine. As an infant, he and his family are forced to evacuate their village together with its entire population, after the Zionist victory that led to the establishment of the State of Israel. As now landless refugees in the West Bank, the family sinks into poverty. When the teenage Palestinian refugee announced to his parents that he wanted to take a bus to visit relatives in Jordan for a few days, little did they know he would actually set off on a one-year hitchhiking journey to Europe, where he would eventually become a highly successful international banker and a key behind-the-scenes promoter of the Palestinian cause. In My Palestine, Tarbush combines poignant personal memoir with incisive political and economic commentary on the tumultuous events that shaped the history of Israel, Palestine, and the modern Middle East.

Who was Arminius Vambéry? A poverty-stricken, Jewish autodidact; a linguist, traveller, and writer; or a sometime Zionist, inspiration for Dracula’s nemesis, and British secret agent?Vambéry wrote his own story many times over. And it was these often highly embroidered accounts of journeys through Persia and Central Asia that saw him acclaimed in Victorian England as an intrepid explorer and daring adventurer. Against the backdrop of the ‘Great Game’, in which Russia and Britain jostled for territory, influence, and control of the borders and gateways to Central Asia and its wealth, Vambéry played the roles of hero and double-dealer, of fascinated witness and imperial charlatan.The Dervish Bowl is the story of these competing narratives, a compelling investigation of the ever-changing persona Vámbéry created for himself, and of the man who emerges from his private correspondence and the accounts of both his friends and his enemies, many of whom were themselves major players in the geopolitical adventures of the volatile nineteenth century – a time when Britain’s ambitions for her empire were at their height, yet nothing and no one was quite as they seemed.

In the Future of Yesterday offers a refreshing approach to the life and work of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, delving into his considerable contribution to world literature, rooted in the Austro-Jewish tradition.A world traveller from the outset, Zweig liked to uproot himself – but whether he stayed in London, New York, or eventually Brazil, his literary baggage continued to contain the flair of fin de siècle Vienna.Looking anew at Zweig’s influential time in England and offering fresh insights into his final years in the United States and Brazil, Görner discusses Zweig’s prolific literary output in relation to his life and treats his political views on Europe, Zionism, and the world order with great depth and scrutiny.Most importantly, In the Future of Yesterday shows Zweig as a towering figure of a form of writing that was bursting with life and was written in the knowledge that there can only be a future if we remain conscious of the past.

During Admiral Thomas Cochrane’s demolition of imperial Spain’s naval presence in the Pacific during the revolutionary wars for Spanish South America, all the raids were carried out by his marines under a young officer called William Miller. He came from nowhere – one of three sons of a baker in a small village in Kent, with no family influence, money, or even secondary education – but, following his service as a teenaged soldier in Wellington’s Peninsular War, went on to have a meteoric rise in the armies that liberated the nations of Chile and Peru.Inspired by some South Americans’ wish to leave Spain’s colonial empire, Miller went not to join Simón Bolívar in the north (as did many demobilised European soldiers), but to the south, to José de San Martín in Argentina and Chile. By the time of Ayacucho in 1824, the large battle that ended Spanish rule in South America, there were seven generals in the royalist Spanish army and five on the patriot side. Eleven of these generals were Hispanic; Miller was the only foreigner.Miller was passionately anti-imperialist, anti-slavery, and unusually kind to ordinary people and peasant farmers due to his own humble origins. He was highly regarded by all the leaders of independence and popular with his men and fellow officers, and when he died decades after the battles in which he made his name he was buried in the Pantheon of founding fathers of Peru. William (or Guillermo, as he is known in South America) Miller is well recognised and loved particularly in modern Peru, but also across the swathe of nations liberated from Spanish rule during this period.

The first complete account of Emperor Joseph II’s undercover journey through his kingdom It is the middle of the eighteenth century, and across Europe signs of crisis are everywhere. Travelling incognito, and without the customary pomp and entourage, the young emperor Joseph II journeys through the Holy Roman Empire and his Habsburg lands to see with his own eyes how his subjects live, suffer, and starve.Moving between the world of kings and queens and that of ordinary people in their hospitals and factories, he is persuaded by Enlightenment ideas of progress and liberty. Visiting his sister, Marie Antoinette in Versailles, he senses the French Revolution looming and realises that reform is imperative if he is to build a modern state.The Emperor Incognito tells the story of an extraordinary man in an age of great upheaval, who spent a quarter of his twenty-five-year reign on the road. The result of his radical ambition and titanic efforts, despite his own admission (as inscribed on his tombstone) that he ‘failed in everything he undertook’, was the foundation of a more modern Austrian monarchy, in a Europe in which progress would no longer be determined solely by its rulers.

Why did you get yourself into this, Edith? Was it all worth it? Born and raised in a liberal Jewish family in Vienna, Edith Tudor-Hart’s legacy is defined by her pioneering social photography and her pivotal role in the recruitment of Kim Philby as a Soviet agent.Arrested for her involvement with socialist groups, Edith emigrated to England in 1933 to escape political and religious persecution. There, her photography came to reflect her socialist ideals, and her clandestine work for the Soviet Union meant she would spend the rest of her life under the suspicion and close surveillance of MI5.The Darkrooms of Edith Tudor-Hart is the culmination of Peter Stephan Jungk’s enduring fascination with his cousin’s life. His vivid portrait reveals a woman whose life was shrouded in secrecy and whom – in his confession to MI5 a decade before Edith’s death – the Soviet spy Anthony Blunt called ‘the grandmother of us all.’