Set against the backdrop of the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s, this compelling book provides the first comprehensive history of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, notorious for the abduction of Israeli Olympians by Palestinian terrorists and the hostages’ tragic deaths after a botched rescue mission by the German police. Drawing on a wealth of newly available sources from the time, eminent historian David Clay Large explores the 1972 festival in all its ramifications. He interweaves the...

In the political history of the past century, no city has played a more prominent-though often disastrous-role than Berlin. At the same time, Berlin has also been a dynamic center of artistic and intellectual innovation. If Paris was the "Capital of the Nineteenth Century," Berlin was to become the signature city for the next hundred years. Once a symbol of modernity, in the Thirties it became associated with injustice and the abuse of power. After 1945, it became the iconic City of the Co...

In Germans to the Front, David Large charts the path from Germany’s total demilitarization immediately after World War II to the appearance of the Bundeswehr, the West German army, in 1956. The book is the first comprehensive study in English of West German rearmament during this critical period. Large’s analysis of the complex interplay between the diplomatic and domestic facets of the rearmament debate illuminates key elements in the development of the Cold War and in Germany’s ...

The Grand Spas of Central Europe leads readers on an irresistible tour through the grand spa towns of Central Europe—fabled places like Baden-Baden, Bad Ems, Bad Gastein, Karlsbad, and Marienbad. Noted historian David Clay Large follows the grand spa story from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present, focusing especially on the years between the French Revolution and World War II, a period in which the major Central European Kurorte (“cure-towns”) reached their peak of influence and then slip...

Athletics and politics collide in a critical event for Nazi Germany and the contemporary world.The torch relay—that staple of Olympic pageantry—first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe. Soon after the Wehrmacht would march in jackboots over the same terrain.The Olympic festival was a crucial part of...

In this masterpiece of Holocaust literature, David Clay Large tells the wrenching story of Max Schohl, a German Jew who, in the midst of the Second World War, could not find a government that would allow his family to immigrate, despite wealth, education, and business and family connections. After repeated but fruitless efforts to gain entry first to the United States and then to Britain, Chile, and Brazil, Max died in Auschwitz and his wife and daughters were sent to hard labor in Wiesbad...

Stranded on the beach with the Nazis closing in, the British army managed one of the most unlikely maneuvers in modern military historyIn May of 1940, the remnants of the French and British armies, broken by Hitler’s blitzkrieg, retreated to Dunkirk. Hemmed in by overwhelming Nazi strength, the 338,000 men who gathered on that beach were all that stood between Hitler and Western Europe. Crush them, and the path to Paris and London was clear. And so, unable to retre...

How Churchill Saved Civilization resolves the lingering mysteries surrounding the causes of the Second World War, and what transpired during the war to bring its end result. It proposes answers to such questions as Why were the Allies unprepared?”, Why did France collapse so quickly?”, Why didn’t the British government accept Hitler’s peace proposals?” and Why did the Germans allow Hitler to obtain life and death control over them?”But the book’s main ...

A concise history of the Battle of Isandlwana, the first encounter of the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879.In 1878, H.M. High Commissioner for Southern Africa and the Lieut. General Commanding H.M. Forces, clandestinely conspired to invade the Zulu Kingdom. Drastically underestimating their foe, the invaders had been vanquished within days of entering the Zulu Kingdom, in one of the greatest disasters ever to befall a British army.The author not only dramatically descr...

"Everyone knows about the Home Guard but what about the other Secret Intelligence Services (SIS and M16)? You can read about them in [this book]." — This EnglandWhen Winston Churchill made his "we shall never surrender" speech in 1940, he was speaking in the knowledge that Britain's Secret Intelligence Service was planning a civilian British resistance movement to mobilize after the country had been occupied. Britain's planning for clandestine warfare deve...

The colorful eyewitness-to-history diary of a young man who loved motorcycles—and used these new machines to serve his country in the Great War.This is the skillfully abridged version of the diary of a First World War motorcycle despatch rider, Sergeant Albert Simpkin, who was attached to the HQ 37th Division. The diary entries, and some longer descriptions of the main actions of the Division, provide a fascinating record of the life of a despatch rider on the West...

PREORDER DAVID GILMAN'S THRILLING NEW HISTORICAL NOVEL THE KNIFE MAKER OF VENICE NOW!Amid the carnage of the Hundred Years' War – the bloodiest conflict in medieval history – a young English archer confronts his destiny. The first three novels in the breathtaking Master of War series.England, 1346: For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy – dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or take up his war bow and join t...