Book picks similar to
The Connolly Column by Michael O'Riordan
spanish-civil-war
ireland
spain
history
Inside Story: Politics, Intrigue and Treachery from Thatcher to Brexit
Philip Webster - 2016
He has been at the centre of all the big stories of the past four decades – the fall of Labour in 1979, the rise and fall of Margaret Thatcher, the emergence and fall of John Major, the rise and fall of Tony Blair and his wars with Gordon Brown, the aftermath of 9/11, the war in Iraq, the fall of Brown, the rise and rise of David Cameron, and the shock election of Jeremy Corbyn.Beautifully illustrated with Peter Brookes’ cartoons, Webster offers fresh insight into the great stories of his time. He gives a frank and revelatory insider’s account of great political events since Michael Heseltine brandished the Mace, the night the Callaghan government fell, the day Sir Geoffrey Howe brought down Margaret Thatcher, the day Tony Blair said farewell, the night MPs voted for war in Iraq; and every Budget and autumn statement for 40 years.With the wit and geniality that has made him so many friends in politics, he reveals how stories came into his hands and how political journalism influences events as they unfolded. He has witnessed what he terms a golden age of political journalism and this book offers an intimate account of his trade. The essential handbook for anyone interested by the craft of journalism, ‘Inside Story’ reviews three decades of lead stories and the many politicians, great and small, that he has encountered.
The Baby Snatchers
Mary Creighton - 2017
You've sowed the seed of Satan. You are nothing.'Mary Creighton was just 15 when she found herself pregnant out of wedlock, in 1960s Ireland. She dreamed of a happy life with her child, but that was shattered when she was sent away to Castlepollard - a home for mothers and their unborn babies.Stripped of their clothes and forced into gruelling work whilst pregnant, those who survived childbirth were made to force-feed their children for adoption into wealthy families. Babies were ripped out of their mother's hands, but Mary refused to let that happen to her. She managed to escape only to later lose her beautiful daughter to social services and the meddling nuns... who always managed to catch up with her. After spending time in an infamous Magdalene Laundry, and having another two children snatched away, Mary sought to find her lost children, and demand answers for the atrocities committed supposedly in God's name.This is a haunting account of a mother's worst nightmare, as Mary continues to fight for justice for the mothers who suffered there and the babies of Castlepollard: hundreds of which died and are still buried in the grounds today.
Holy Smoke: How Christianity Smothered the American Dream
Rick Snedeker - 2020
This is completely contrary to the Founding Fathers’ original vision of America; it was designed by them to be a secular democratic republic built on evidence-based Enlightenment values, emphatically not religious faith.Indeed, the Founders purposefully intended that a high, strong “wall of separation” keep church and state apart in the new nation, while allowing individual religious freedom untrammeled by government—and vice versa. But Christians with theocratic dreams keep trying to breach the wall. Through their efforts, God is now in evidence everywhere in the country—on our money, in our schools, even in high-level-government officials’ speeches. Freedom of — and from — religion is the American promise to all its people whatever their belief—or disbelief. This is how the Founding Fathers wanted it to be, not the undemocratic theocracy zealous evangelicals are trying to force on American society.
Contact
A.F.N. Clarke - 1983
This edition has additional material previously left out of the hardbacks and paperback version first published by Martin Secker & Warburg, PAN Books and Schocken Books.
Final Witness: My journey from the holocaust to Ireland
Zoltan Zinn-Collis - 2006
In Bergen-Belsen concentration camp he survived the inhuman brutality of the SS guards, the ravages of near starvation, disease, and squalor. All but one of his family died there, his mother losing her life on the very day the British finally marched into the camp. Discovered by a Red Cross nurse who described him as ‘an enchanting scrap of humanity’, Zoltan was brought to Ireland and adopted by one of the liberators, Dr Bob Collis, who raised him as his own son on Ireland’s east coast. Now aged 65, Zoltan is ready to speak. His story is one of deepest pain and greatest joy. Zoltan tells how he lost one family and found another; of how, escaping from the ruins of a broken Europe, he was able to build himself a life – a life he may never have had.
Brits: The War Against The IRA
Peter Taylor - 2001
Third part of trilogy documenting modern-day Northern Ireland, by the author of Provos and Loyalists
The Litvinenko File
Martin Sixsmith - 2007
He was Alexander Litvinenko, Sasha to his friends, a boy from the deep Russian provinces who rose through the ranks of the world's most feared security service. Litvinenko was the man who denounced murder and corruption in the Russian government, fled from the wrath of the Kremlin, came to London and took the shilling of Moscow's avowed enemy... Now he was a martyr, condemned by foes unknown to an agonised death in a hospital bed thousands of miles from home.Martin Sixsmith draws on his long experience as the BBC's Moscow correspondent, and contact with the key London-based Russians, to dissect Alexander Litvinenko's murder. Myriad theories have been put forward since he died, but the story goes back to 2000 when hostilities were declared between the Kremlin and its political opponents. This is a war that has blown hot and cold for over six years; a war that has pitted some of Russia's strongest, richest men against the most powerful president Russia has had since Josef Stalin.The Litvinenko File is a gripping, powerful inside account of a shocking act of murder, when Russia's war with itself spilled over onto the streets of London and made the world take notice.
The Long Range Desert Group 1940-1945: Providence Their Guide
David Lloyd Owen - 1980
This classic insider's account has been updated and supplemented with rare photographs from the LRDG collection in the Imperial War Museum.
Fidel Castro
Robert E. Quirk - 1994
The story provides a new account of Castro's relations with the United States and the Soviet Union, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 Missile Crisis, and an analysis of the successes and failures of his regime to the present day.In its breadth and drama, Fidel Castro is more than the story of one ambitious man steering his nation on a dangerous and doomed course. It is also a parable of a small country caught up in the throes of international rivalries and world revolution.
The World's 100 Greatest Speeches
Terry O'Brien - 2016
These speeches−by kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, freedom fighters and political leaders, dictators and writers−have made a mark in world history. These speeches not only give us an insight into the past, but also inspire us with their demands for equality, cries of freedom, a call to arms, rooting for the cause of the individual or the nation.Learn from the inspirational words of King Charles, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Mohandas K. Gandhi, George Washington, Rabindranath Tagore, Anne Besant, Theodore Roosevelt and Subhas Chandra Bose, among many others.
John F. Kennedy: A Life
New Word City - 2012
Kennedy’s assassination has been the subject of public and cultural fascination (a film by Oliver Stone, a novel by Stephen King, endless conspiracy theories) for nearly 50 years. It’s time, this brief biography argues, to give equal consideration to Kennedy’s life.
The Unfinished Revolution: How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Party
Philip Gould - 1998
Blair's majority was the culmination of a long struggle to modernize the party, and the politics of his country. Philip Gould is a political strategist and polling adviser who has worked with the Labour leadership since the 1980s. In this book he describes its rise and explains how the transformation was achieved, at the same time exploring the changed political climate in Britain.
A Force for Justice: The Maurice McCabe Story
Michael Clifford - 2017
However, over the following eight years, he exposed gross incompetence and corruption within An Garda Siochána. It ranged from a violent criminal being free to murder, to country-wide corruption in the policing of road safety.Along the way he paid a terrible price, enduring vilification, bullying and harassment by forces who wanted to silence him and his inconvenient truths. Worse still were the rumours of an extreme nature, which had a devastating effect on his whole family.McCabe's actions ultimately led to some of the biggest reforms of An Garda Siochána since the foundation of the state, caused major political upheaval, and culminated in a Tribunal established in 2017, to examine whether there had been a smear campaign against him within the force.A Force For Justice reveals the story behind the scenes, of one man struggling to survive in the most challenging of circumstances. It is a dramatic account of a garda sergeant's journey from a rural outpost into the heart of the Irish political and legal system.
Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: Royal Family Life
Ruth Binney - 2012
From difficult childhoods to fashion icons, from love matches to divorces, and from unrehearsed coronations to assassination attempts and untimely deaths.Curiosity about Britain’s rulers and their next of kin never seems to wane, and it is this compendium about the lives of the members of the Royal Family that makes this so utterly compelling.
Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
Norman Davies - 2011
We habitually think of the European past as the history of countries which exist today - France, Germany, Britain, Russia and so on - but often this actually obstructs our view of the past, and blunts our sensitivity to the ever-changing political landscape. Europe's history is littered with kingdoms, duchies, empires and republics which have now disappeared but which were once fixtures on the map of their age - 'the Empire of Aragon' which once dominated the western Mediterranean; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for a time the largest country in Europe; the successive kingdoms (and one duchy) of Prussia, much of whose history is now half-remembered at best. This book shows the reader how to peer through the cracks of mainstream history writing and listen to the echoes of lost realms across the centuries.