In Mask Off, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into. Using examples of non-Western cultural traditions, music and sport, he shines light on historical narratives around manhood, debunking popular myths along the way. He explores how LGBTQ men, men of colour, and male refugees experience masculinity in diverse ways, revealing its fluidity, how it's strengthened and weakened by different political contexts, such as the patriarchy or the far-right, and perceived differently by those around them. At the heart of love and sex, the political stage, competitive sports, gang culture, and mental health issues, lies masculinity: Mask Off is an urgent call to unravel masculinity and redefine it.

    He was the first Cuban Caudillo - the man who freed his country from dependence on the USA and who lead his people to rediscover their national identity and pride. Castro has outlived generations of American presidents and Soviet leaders. He has survived countless assassination attempts by the CIA, the Mafia, and Cubans living in exile. He has become one of the greatest politicians of the 20th Century. His biography, and the history of his country exemplify the tensions between East and West, North and South, rich and poor. As Castro's life draws to a close, the question as to what will become of Cuba is more important that ever. Will Castro open Cuba to economic reform and democratization, or stick to his old slogan socialism or death?In this remarkable, up-to-date reconstruction of Castro's life, Volker Skierka addresses these questions and provides an account of the economic, social, and political history of Cuba since Castro's childhood. He draws on a number of little-known sources, including material from the East German communist archives on Cuba, which were until recently inaccessible.This is an exciting, painstakingly researched, and authortiative account of the life of one of the most extraordinary political figures of our time.

    The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished.From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this handsome volume from Osprey recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to life by a combination of previously unseen testimony and astute strategic analysis recognizing a conflict of unprecedented horror and terrible suffering. Author Prit Buttar spins a mesmerizing tale accompanied by rare photographs and informative maps.

    H. Liddell Hart's last work as well as his magnum opus, embodies the fruits of twenty years of research and a lifetime of thinking on war. It abounds with controversial judgments, including provocative assertions about the true causes behind France's defeat in 1940, Hitler's failed invasion of Russia, and Japan's stunning victory at Pearl Harbor; the effectiveness of the Allies' strategic bombing of Germany; the questionable necessity of detonating atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and much more. This monumental history is both a crowning achievement and a final summation by one of the greatest military thinkers of the twentieth century.

    Protesting in the name of principles Hitler thought he had killed forever, Sophie Scholl and other members of the White Rose realized that the ‘Germanization’ Hitler sought to enforce was cruel and inhuman, and that they could not be content to remain silent in its midst.From its inception to its end, the captivating story of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose is an uplifting and enlightening account of German resistance to the Third Reich. With detailed chronicles of Scholl’s arrest and trial before Hitler’s Hanging Judge, Roland Freisler, as well as appendices containing all of the leaflets the White Rose wrote and circulated exhorting Germans to stand up and fight back, this volume is an invaluable addition to World War II literature and a fascinating window into human resilience in the face of dictatorship.

    When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730's held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the 18th century version of "Little Red Riding Hood" did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton attempts to answer in this dazzling series of essays that probe the ways of thought in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment."

    When he died in 323 BC aged thirty-two, his vast empire comprised more than two million square miles, spanning from Greece to India.His achievements were unparalleled - he had excelled as leader to his men, founded eighteen new cities and stamped the face of Greek culture on the ancient East. The myth he created is as potent today as it was in the ancient world.Combining historical scholarship and acute psychological insight, Alexander the Great brings this colossal figure vividly to life.'So enjoyable and well-written ... Fox's book became my main guide through Alexander's amazing story'  Oliver Stone, director of Alexander'I do not know which to admire most, his vast erudition or his imaginative grasp of so remote and complicated a period and such a complex personality'  Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times'An achievement of Alexandrian proportions'  New StatesmanRobin Lane Fox was the main historical advisor to Oliver Stone on his film Alexander, and took part in many of its most dramatic re-enactments. His books include The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome, The Unauthorised Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer and Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine.

    Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians--from the zealous Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II. Drawing together the many strands of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and ranging widely across Europe and the New World, MacCulloch reveals as never before how these dramatic upheavals affected everyday lives--overturning ideas of love, sex, death, and the supernatural, and shaping the modern age.

    Len Deighton brings to bear all the skills of a best-selling novelist in this compelling study.In Blitzkrieg, Len Deighton turns a searchlight on the rise of Hitler, the lightning dash of his armies to the Channel coast in 1940 and on the debacle of Dunkirk, where — in a mistake that was to trigger his eventual downfall — a quarter of a million British troops were allowed to escape.

    In this brilliantly compact, original, engaging book, Stephen Kotkin shows that the Soviet collapse resulted not from military competition but, ironically, from the dynamism of Communist ideology, the long-held dream for socialism with a human face. The neo-liberal reforms in post-Soviet Russia never took place, nor could they have, given the Soviet-era inheritance in the social, political, and economic landscape. Kotkin takes us deep into post-Stalin Soviet society and institutions, into the everyday hopes and secret political intrigues that affected 285 million people, before and after 1991. He conveys the high drama of a superpower falling apart while armed to the teeth with millions of loyal troops and tens of thousands of weapons of mass destruction. Armageddon Averted vividly demonstrates the overriding importance of history, individual ambition, geopolitics, and institutions, and deftly draws out contemporary Russia's contradictory predicament.

    Stanley Wolpert has condensed more than 4,000 years of India's history into a graceful and engaging text. He discusses modern India's rapidly growing population, industry, and economy, and also considers the prospects for India's future. Wolpert strives to record India's history fairly and truthfully, portraying the brightest achievements of Indian civilization as well as its persistent social inequities and its economic and political corruption. Now entirely redesigned, A New History of India, 7/e, includes photographs for the first time, a full-color map of India and the surrounding area, updated bibliographic material, and a revised final chapter reflecting the significant social, political, and economic issues that have arisen since the year 2000.

    Fussell illuminates a war that changed a generation and revolutionised the way we see the world. He explores the British experience on the western Front from 1914 to 1918, focusing on the various literary means by which it has been remembered, conventionalized and mythologized. It is also about the literary dimensions of the experience itself. Fussell supplies contexts, both actual and literary, for writers who have most effectively memorialized the Great War as an historical experience with conspicuous imaginative and artistic meaning. These writers include the classic memoirists Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden, and poets David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen. In his new introduction Fussell discusses the critical responses to his work, the authors and works that inspired his own writing, and the elements which influence our understanding and memory of war. Fussell also shares the stirring experience of his research at the Imperial War Museum's Department of Documents. Fussell includes a new Suggested Further Reading List.Fussell's landmark study of World War I remains as original and gripping today as ever before: a literate, literary, and illuminating account of the Great War, the one that changed a generation, ushered in the modern era, and revolutionized how we see the world. 14 halftones.

    Offering a uniquely new perspective on the psyches of Germany and Japan after World War II, an expert on those two countries' politics and history explores how each country dealt with its past and their legacies of guilt in light of the atrocities which were committed during the war.

    He introduces characters and incidents with his unusual literary style and grace, bringing to the fore those that have "Puritans as Democrats," "The Monarch's Revolution," "The Artist Prophet and Jester" -- show the recurrent role of great themes throughout the eras.The triumphs and defeats of five hundred years form an inspiring saga that modifies the current impression of one long tale of oppression by white European males. Women and their deeds are prominent, and freedom (even in sexual matters) is not an invention of the last decades. And when Barzun rates the present not as a culmination but a decline, he is in no way a prophet of doom. Instead, he shows decadence as the creative novelty that will burst forth -- tomorrow or the next day.Only after a lifetime of separate studies covering a broad territory could a writer create with such ease the synthesis displayed in this magnificent volume.

    The attempt was masterminded by Count von Stauffenberg, a member of the German General Staff, who had been rushed back from Africa after losing his left eye and right hand. For his injuries, he had been decorated as a war hero. Never a supporter of Nazi ideology, he was increasingly attracted by the approaches of the German resistance movement. After an attempt to assassinate Hitler in November 1943 failed, Stauffenberg developed a new plot to kill him at the Wolf's Lair Headquarters on 20th July 1944. Besides the Fuhrer's assassination, Stauffenberg organized plans to take over command of the Germany forces and sue for peace with the Allies.The attempt ultimately failed. Only one bomb was detonated and Hitler was only injured: his life was probably saved because the bomb, hidden in Stauffenberg's suitcase, had been placed behind a heavy table leg which reduced the impact of the black.In remarkable detail, with photographs, explanatory maps and diagrams, author Nigel Jones dissects the lead up to the attempt, the events of the day in minute-by-minute detail, and the aftermath in which the conspirators were hunted down. No other work on the July Plot contains such accessible detail and full explanation of this attempt on Hitler's life. In addition to a forensic analysis of the day, the book includes short biographies of the key characters involved, the first-person recollections of witnesses, and a 'what if' section explaining the likely outcome of a successful assassination.