I.B.Tauris

The Spanish Armada conjures up images of age-old rivalries, bravery and treachery. However the same Spanish monarch who sent the Armada to invade England in 1588 was, just a few years previously, the King of England and husband of Mary Tudor. This important new book sheds new light on Philip II of Spain, England's forgotten sovereign. Previous accounts of Mary's brief reign have focused on the martyrdom of Protestant dissenters, the loss of English territory, as well as Mary's infamous personality, meaning that her husband Philip has remained in the shadows. In this book, Harry Kelsey uncovers Philip's life — from his childhood and education in Spain, to his marriage to Mary and the political manoeuvrings involved in the marriage contract, to the tumultuous aftermath of Mary's death which ultimately led to hostile relations between Queen Elizabeth and Philip, culminating in the Armada. Focusing especially on the period of Philip's marriage to Mary, Kelsey shows that Philip was, in fact, an active King of England and took a keen interest in the rule of his wife's kingdom. Casting fresh light on both Mary and Philip, as well as European history more generally, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the Tudor era.

Where does the Protestant work ethic come from? And how did America achieve such dominance in management for so long? «The Puritan Gift» traces the origins and the characteristics of American managerial culture which, in the course of three centuries, turned a group of small colonies into the greatest economic and political power on earth. It argues that the drive, energy and acceptance of innovation, competition, growth and social mobility, all of which lie at the root of America's management culture, have their origins in the discipline and ethos of America's first wave of European immigrants: the Puritans.And, the authors warn, as Americans distance themselves from the core values which produced their business and economic successes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they put their future prosperity and security at risk. This is an original exploration of the dramatic and far-reaching consequences of the Puritans' 'gift' to America — the ethos which produced the early success of America and what came to be known as the American dream.

In Rory MacLean's groundbreaking debut travel book, Winston the pig drops on to Uncle Peter's head and kills him dead. Unwilling to be left alone in her house Aunt Zita, a faded Austrian aristocrat and a vivacious eccentric, hijacks her nephew and, together with Winston, sets out on one last ride. The Berlin Wall has fallen only weeks before and Zita is determined to reach across the reopened borders and rediscover her remarkable east European family.In a rattling Trabant the unlikely trio puff and wheeze across the changing continent, following the threads of memory. Zita's relations — the angel of Prague, the Hungarian grave digger who buried Stalin's nose, a dying Romanian propagandist — help tie together the loose ends of her life. They picnic at Auschwitz. They meet Lenin's embalmer. They carry a long-lost corpse over the Carpathian mountains. Through war and revolution, decay and regeneration, «Stalin's Noseis» a surreal and darkly comic ride and a portrait of Europe like no other.

Far more than just a military conflict, the 'War on Terror' has been a struggle over values and meanings, a desperate contest for hearts and minds in which language has become the battlefield. In this highly original book, Fred Halliday takes us on a tour of this new war-zone, its artillery and trenches, minefields and booby-traps. Drawing on years of painstaking collation, Halliday shows how the 'War on Terror' has brought us not just new words, such as 'Gitmo', and new imports, such as 'jihad', but also new ways of using existing language, such as 'extraordinary rendition'. Scanning the pock-marked semantic landscape of the post 9/11 world, he uncovers hidden twists of phrasing and word associations, which in themselves tell a story about the violent clash of ideologies that has marked the opening of the 21st century. Part indispensable reference, part polemic, part entertaining snapshot of our times, «Shocked and Awed» is a bristling arsenal of the 21st century's most potent weapons: words.

Peace and democracy in the Middle East have been the aim of world leaders for generations, yet the US, UK or their closest allies in the region have been behind nearly every war in the Middle East in the last century. How did the West get everything so wrong? In this concise and readable book Stephen Kinzer takes the reader on a tour of modern Middle Eastern history, highlighting the errors, alliances and betrayals all acted out for what was shortsightedly seen as being in the interest of Western states. His insight and historical knowledge culminate in the startling conclusion that the US has allied with the wrong Middle Eastern states. Rather than Israel and Saudi Arabia, America's natural allies — according to Kinzer's controversial but closely reasoned analysis — should be Iran and Turkey.

The environmental, the economic — and indeed the political — impact of the catastrophic 2010 blowout of BP's well in the Gulf of Mexico has highlighted the central part played by oil in the modern world. The fate of millions now depends on the ever-shifting value of petroleum and on the fortunes of the corporations that deliver it. The story of oil — how it came to play such a dominant role in the world economy, who controls its extraction, pricing and supply — is essential to an understanding of contemporary world politics. In this acclaimed book, Francisco Parra draws on his long experience in the oil world, including as the Secretary General of OPEC, to tell it. Oil Politics surveys the tumultuous history of the international petroleum industry, from its extraordinary growth between 1950 and 1979, presided over by the seven major oil companies, to the price revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, to the re-emergence of Russia as an important but uncertain supplier. Parra charts the changing power dynamics amongst the major oil suppliers and examines their relationships with the major oil importing countries, and how these concerns have impacted on foreign policy. Oil politics in the twenty-first century remain fraught with tensions, and this book offers a uniquely accessible guide to understanding this complex but vitally important subject.

6 June, 1944. 156,000 troops from 12 different countries, 11,000 aircraft, 7,000 naval vessels, 24 hours. D-Day — the beginning of the Allied invasion of Hitler's formidable 'Fortress Europe' — was the largest amphibious invasion in history. There has never been a battle like it, before or since. But beyond the statistics and over sixty years on, what is it about the events of D-Day that remain so compelling? The courage of the men who fought and died on the beaches of France? The sheer boldness of the invasion plan? Or the fact that this, Rommel's 'longest day', heralded the beginning of the end of World War II. One of the defining battles of the war, D-Day is scored into the imagination as the moment when the darkness of the Third Reich began to be swept away. This is the story of D-Day, told through the voices of over 1,000 survivors — from high-ranking Allied and German officers, to the paratroopers who landed in Normandy before dawn, the infantry who struggled ashore and the German troops who defended the coast. Cornelius Ryan captures the horror and the glory of D-Day, relating in emotive and compelling detail the years of inspired tactical planning that led up to the invasion, its epic implementation and every stroke of luck and individual act of heroism that would later define the battle. In the words of its author, The Longest Day is a story not of war, but of the courage of man.

Over the course of several months during 1931 and 1932, Robert Byron journeyed to three countries teetering on the brink of change. In Russia, which was stricken by famine, Lenin had just died, Stalin's dictatorship was in its infancy and the Great Terror was yet to begin. Having taken the first commercial flight to India, which took a week, Byron was thrown into the tumultuous last years of the British Raj. Gandhi was imprisoned while rioting and clashes between Hindus and Muslims had become commonplace. Finally Byron entered Tibet, the forbidden country. Exploring the Land of Snows, he saw Tibet as it was when the then Dalai Lama was still ensconced in the Potala Palace, twenty years before China's invasion. Blending classic travel writing with passionate observations on the deeper political and social issues of the time, Byron writes with uncanny prescience of the eventual horrors of the Soviet Union and the downfall of the Raj. As a piece of travel literature, «First Russia, Then Tibet» is compelling and beautifully-written. As a portrait of these countries in the 1930s, it is invaluable. Ultimately, it illuminates the constant quest for meaning that underscored Robert Byron's life and travels.

Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN), terrorism and the 'war on terror' are major features of international relations and global concern. Terrorist threats and actual violence have become increasingly dangerous and lethal since the 1970s. However, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 heralded a new era in terrorist action and were the culmination of a terror campaign against American targets world-wide. «The Changing Face of Terrorism» evaluates the continuing threat and counter-measures since 9/11 and into the 21st century. It is a sober and measured evaluation of the CBRN threat and argues that continuing terror attacks are inevitable and the 'war on terror' will be a continuing feature in international politics and military action. Benjamin Cole shows how effective counter-terrorist measures must be measured and based not only on effective police and military intelligence and action but on careful evaluation of the politics, motivations, scientific and technical abilities of groups — no terrorist group has made a nuclear device — and religious and personal motivation.

The protests unleashed by Iran's disputed presidential election in June 2009 brought the Islamic Republic's vigorous cyber culture to the world's attention. Iran has an estimated 700,000 bloggers, and new media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were thought to have played a key role in spreading news of the protests. The internet is often celebrated as an agent of social change in countries like Iran, but most literature on the subject has struggled to grasp what this new phenomenon actually means. How is it different from print culture[unk] Is it really a new public sphere[unk] Will the Iranian blogosphere create a culture of dissidence, which eventually overpowers the Islamist regime[unk] In this groundbreaking work, the authors give a flavour of contemporary internet culture in Iran and analyse how this new form of communication is affecting the social and political life of the country. Although they warn against stereotyping bloggers as dissidents, they argue that the internet is changing things in ways which neither the government nor the democracy movement could have anticipated. «Blogistan» offers both a new reading of Iranian politics and a new conceptual framework for understanding the politics of the internet, with implications for the wider Middle East, China and beyond.

I.B.Tauris is delighted to announce the reissue in paperback in three volumes of the definitive, most comprehensive edition, in the finest translations and fully annotated, of the writings of this great filmmaker, theorist and teacher of film -- and one of the most original aesthetic thinkers of the twentieth century. Now in paperback for the first time, Volume 1 documents from the definitive Russian texts the complex course of Sergei Eisenstein's writings during the revolutionary years in the Soviet Union. It presents Eisenstein the innovative aesthetic thinker, socialist artist and humourist, passionately engaged in the debates over the art forms of the future. Importantly, this was also the period of Eisenstein’s great silent masterpieces, The Strike, The Battleship Potemkin, October and The General Line, and of his controversial sojourns in Hollywood and Mexico.

I.B.Tauris is delighted to announce the reissue in paperback in three volumes of the definitive, most comprehensive edition, in the finest translations and fully annotated, of the writings of this great filmmaker, theorist and teacher of film -- and one of the most original aesthetic thinkers of the twentieth century. Volume 3 follows on from the 1922-34 writings of Volume 1 and parallels Volume 2's essays on the theory of montage. In the period covered by this volume, Eisenstein's film-making ran into the difficulties generated by the Soviet authorities’ increasingly restrictive definition of Socialist Realism, by the show trials and the purges, the Second World War, and the post-war proclamation of rigid cultural orthodoxy by Stalin’s henchman, Zhdanov. Here we experience Eisenstein’s reaction to this hostile environment, as filmmaker, theorist and teacher, from his public obeisance over Bezhin Meadow to his private defiance with Ivan the Terrible.

I.B.Tauris is delighted to announce the reissue in paperback in three volumes of the definitive, most comprehensive edition, in the finest translations and fully annotated, of the writings of this great filmmaker, theorist and teacher of film — and one of the most original aesthetic thinkers of the twentieth century. The name of Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) is synonymous with the idea of montage, as exemplified in his silent classics such as 'The Battleship Potemkin' (1925) and 'October' (1927). In the 1930s his style changed, partly to accommodate the arrival of sound, and his ideas on audio-visual counterpoint developed. Between 1937 and 1940 he elaborated his ideas on montage in a series of essays, most of which remained unpublished until after his death and which are published in English for the first time in this volume. They present the essence of Eisenstein's thinking on cinema and aesthetics more generally and reveal him as one of the most significant philosophers of art of the twentieth century.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) is often proclaimed as the greatest Briton in history and one of the world's eminent leaders. Born into a dazzling political family, Churchill was awkward and eccentric as a young man but flourished in the army, where he served in the North West Frontier, Sudan and during the Second Boer War as a successful war correspondent. As a politician he was brash and petulant, but succeeded in holding most of the major offices of state, acting as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for War.On the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister and led Britain through one of its darkest moments. Charismatic and adventurous, egotistical, visionary and unconventional, Churchill was an enigma, his life one of paradox. A child of his time, the years of his life spanned two world wars and the rise and fall of the Victorian British Empire. His death marked the end of a British era which gave way to the American century. In this, the definitive biography, Norman Rose brilliantly illuminates the man behind the myth, producing a fresh, balanced and incisive portrait of an extraordinary life and of the legacy that remains undimmed to this day.

This is the true story of a remarkable man who pulled off a seemingly impossible espionage mission in Tokyo, before and during World War II. Richard Sorge, born to a Russian mother and a German father, ran a network of Japanese and Europeans under the noses of Japan's dreaded secret police. From 1933 until he was caught in late 1941, he transmitted priceless secrets to Red Army intelligence. Sorge's espionage group — perhaps the most successful operating in this critical period — kept the Russians informed about Japanese and German intentions, and also helped influence decisions made by these governments.; Sorge's biggest coup was to inform Stalin of the German attack on Russia in 1941, weeks before it occurred — with details of troop deployments, movement of armaments and the actual date of the attack. Abandoned to his fate by Stalin, Sorge became the first European sentenced to death by a Japanese court. After a prolonged ordeal, he was executed in Sugamo prison in 1944.

Far from Moscow and St Petersburg, there lies another Russia. Overlooked by the new urban elites and almost unknown to the West, in the great provincial hinterlands of the Volga River and Siberia, Russians struggle to reconcile their old traditions with the new ways of living. Returning again and again to the deep heartland of this rapidly evolving country from 1992 to the present, Susan Richards struck up some extraordinary friendships. With Anna, a questing journalist struggling to express her passionate spirituality within the rules of the new society. And Natasha, a restless spirit, transplanted from Siberia in a bid to escape the demands of her upper class family and her own demons. And Tatiana and Misha, whose business empire has blossomed from the ashes of the Soviet Union but who, despite all their luxury, seem uneasy in this new world. Through their stories and her own experiences Susan Richards demonstrates how in Russia the past and the present cannot be separated. 'Lost and Found in Russia' is a magical and unforgettable portrait of a society in transition. 'Once again, Susan Richards gives a rare and wonderful evocation of ordinary lives in Russia. People fall in love, fall ill, make money, lose money; some are nobly defeated, some shamelessly successful. Each one tells us more about the lethal tides of recent Russian history than years of newspaper reports.' — Philip Marsden; 'Russia exerts a peculiar pull for English travellers...Susan Richards's version shines because she knows her subjects very well. These are stories of friendships across the miles, not just brief encounters plundered for material...This traveller's tale, with all the absorption and detail of the genre, is also the story of an entire country.' — Anne McElvoy, Evening Standard; 'Lost and Found in Russia is intense reading...bursting with good material...For a rich portrait of the new Russia, grab this off the shelf and skip all those biographies of Vladimir Putin.' — Thomas de Waal, Sunday Times; 'wonderful...Lost and Found in Russia is beautifully written, with arresting images on almost every page... It is a travelogue as rich and compelling as a novel' — Lesley Chamberlain, Independent; 'fascinating...You should buy the book to find out how [the] story ended, as well as what happened when Richards hopped on a cruise down the Volga organised by a mafia boss she had never met.. there is a human optimism that shines out of these hard lives and this loving account of them — an optimism that defies the rational. But then if there is one thing you learn from this book, it is that we must all live beyond the rational.' — Angus MacQueen, Guardian; 'moving, sometimes perplexing, even distressing...Susan Richards combines fluency in Russian with great tact, curiosity and a capacity for friendship which overcomes the barriers that defeat most foreign attempts to chronicle post-Soviet Russia...her book, being a bottom-to-top account, is perhaps equally important (as Anna Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia)...as admirable as it is honest'. — Donald Rayfield, Literary Review

The treacherous mountain passes and blasted desert plains of Afghanistan have been the graveyard of every would-be conquering army since the days of Alexander the Great. With America, Britain and NATO committed to a long-term political and military engagement there, it is imperative to understand the country's complex and bloody history. Afghanistan emerged in the mid-eighteenth century from the collapse of the Persian Safavid Empire and the decline of the Mughal dynasty in India. The nineteenth century saw the country ravaged by the rivalry of warring elites, and their great power supporters. In recent times, Afghanistan has experienced the Soviet invasion of 1979, the Pakistan-backed internal conflict of the 1990s, the Taliban regime and then the US invasion after the catastrophe of 9/11. Today, whilst the US-backed government is struggling to expand its control beyond Kabul, narco-warlords, jihadists and Western troops fight out the battle for control of this strategically vital country. Why has Afghanistan's course of development been so turbulent? Why does it remain so vulnerable to domestic instability, foreign intervention and ideological extremism? In reconstructing the tempestuous narrative of modern Afghanistan, Amin Saikal provides a sweeping new understanding of its troubled past. He identifies the country's inability to develop stable political structures as stemming from the inter-dynastic rivalry (exacerbated by polygamy) that scarred successive royal families from the end of the eighteenth century until the pro-Communist coup of April 1978. Outside interventions further weakened the country internally, preventing socio-economic development and leaving the country ripe for the politics of ideological extremism. Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival is the definitive study of Afghanistan and its troubles. It will be vital reading for all those who are interested in the changing politics of the Middle East and Central Asia.

What turned Adolf Hitler, a relatively normal and apparently unexceptional young man, into the very personification of evil? To answer this question, acclaimed historian Brigitte Hamann has turned to the critical, formative, years that the young Hitler spent in Vienna. As a failing, bitter, and desperately poor artist, Hitler experienced only the dark underbelly of Vienna, which was seething with fear, racial prejudice, anti-Semitism and conservatism. Drawing on previously untapped sources — from personal reminiscences to the records of shelters where Hitler slept — Hamann vividly recreates the dark side of fin de siecle Vienna and paints the fullest and most disturbing portrait of the young Hitler to date.

The Middle East is frequently portrayed as a collection of stubbornly authoritarian states, whose behaviour can only be changed by the table-thumping or even the military intervention of the US government. But as Jeremy Jones uncovers in this fascinating book, the region is in fact engaged in a profound and tumultuous process of political change. The movements seeking democracy and reform that have emerged are rooted in local cultures and political traditions. And because of this, they are overlooked, obstructed, or even undermined by the US's pursuit of a one-size fits all Western democratic model. A veteran Harvard Middle East analyst, Jeremy Jones travels from Morocco to Oman, from Egypt to Iran listening to grassroots activists, and interviewing major political leaders, such as Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. He provides a vivid picture of the changing political cultures of the Middle East. He looks at new forms of political Islam, from Hamas in the West Bank to the Justice and Development Party in Turkey to Hizballah in Lebanon, demonstrating how each movement grew out of its local context. He meets women politicians in the Gulf, Hamas leaders in Ramallah and democracy activists in Jordan and Syria, seeking to understand how these new forces relate to each other, to their societies, and to Western policies. In a trenchant critique of the much-vaunted US 'democratisation agenda', Jones concludes that a participatory and accountable political culture is slowly emerging in spite, not because of Western foreign policies.

Far from Moscow and St Petersburg, there lies another Russia. Overlooked by the new urban elites and almost unknown to the West, in the great provincial hinterlands of the Volga River and Siberia, Russians struggle to reconcile their old traditions with a new and unfamiliar world. Returning again and again, for over a decade, to the deep heartland of this rapidly-evolving country, Susan Richards has encountered extraordinary people and forged lasting friendships. Through their unforgettable stories and her own experiences she reveals how in Russia the past and the present cannot be separated. Illuminating a forgotten people and sweeping away traditional assumptions, «Lost and Found in Russia» is a compelling and essential portrait — poignant, yet full of hope for a new future.

In recent years, the world order has been rocked by an explosive, unexpected and extraordinary phenomenon: political Islam. Beginning in the early 1970s, militants revolted against the regimes in power across the Muslim world and exacerbated political conflicts internationally. Their jihad — or 'Holy Struggle' — aimed to establish a global Islamic state based solely on a strict interpretation of the Qur'an. «Jihad» is the first comprehensive attempt to follow the history and spread of this new political-religious phenomenon today, from the rise of Al Qaeda to the explosion of support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in the wake of the Second Palestinian Intifada. It is the definitive work on what the West has called 'Islamic Fundamentalism', and offers the boldest assessment of its past, its present, and where it might lead in the future. «Jihad» is vital reading for everyone concerned with the state of the world today.

As the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq peters out in failure, the historical debate is just beginning. How were we so misled in to such a disastrous war? What were its real goals? What did it achieve? Former UN Weapons inspector Scott Ritter offers a rare first-hand account of the build up to the war, and how the CIA exploited weapons inspections in pursuit of its secret regime-change agenda. The CIA tried to silence him. But in this book, he speaks out. Operating in a fog of espionage and counter-espionage, Ritter and his team were determined to find out the truth about Saddam's WMD after the 1991 Gulf war. The CIA, and Saddam Hussein, were determined to stop them. For the truth, we now know, was that Iraq was playing a deadly game of double-bluff. «Iraq Confidential» charts the disillusionment of a true patriot, who came to realise that his own government was trying to undermine weapons control in the Middle East. A host of characters from MI6 to Qusay Hussein flesh out this powerful story, which is an essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Iraq, the war on terror, and American power.

As the dreadful reality of the Coalition's defeat in Iraq begins to sink in, one question dominates Washington and London: Why? In this controversial new book, award-winning journalist Jonathan Steele provides a stark and arresting answer: Bush and Blair were defeated from the day they decided to occupy the country. Iraq had enough of foreign armies. Steele describes the memories of centuries of humiliations that have scarred the Iraqi national psyche, creating a powerful and deeply felt nationalism. Drawing his unique access to senior Western policymakers, Steele shows how the key players in the occupying coalition totally failed to inform themselves about this smouldering back history of resentment and suspicion.Drawing on hundreds of interviews with ordinary Iraqis, Steele shows for the first time how the staging posts of the conflict so familiar to Western newspaper readers were seen by the Iraqis themselves. Blending vivid reportage, informed analysis and sweeping historical narrative, 'Defeat' is the definitive anatomy of an historic catastrophe.

Despite its efforts to promote peace and instil democracy in the region, America is viewed by many in the Middle East as a dishonest broker waging a 'dark crusade' against its enemies: in covert collaboration with Israel. The crucial hostility to Arab and Palestinian interests of the so-called 'Zionist lobby' in the US has long been recognised. But it is another less familiar element in US politics that increasingly calls the shots on Capitol Hill, directing the course of American foreign policy there: Christian Zionism.Christian Zionists now influence not only the Republican Party, but also the White House and Congress. Protestant fundamentalists anticipating the end of the world, they have long made common cause with the most extreme political elements in the state of Israel. But why? Jews and fundamentalist Christians hardly look like natural allies. Adhering to a feverish apocalyptic ideology, Christian Zionists nevertheless believe that restoration of the entire biblical Holy Land to the Jewish people will result the thousand-year reign of Christ. During his eleven years working in the Senate, the author observed at first hand the deep-seated influence of Christian Zionism on American foreign policy, and is uniquely qualified to assess its significance. «Dark Crusade» offers the most nuanced analysis yet written of this dangerous and complex phenomenon.