In September 1944 the Western Allies mounted an audacious attempt to seize a crossing over the Rhine into Germany in a bid to end the Second World War quickly. Yet despite the deployment of thousands of American, British and Polish airborne troops, in conjunction with the efforts of ground forces to link up with them, ultimately at Arnhem in the Netherlands, the plan failed spectacularly and the war continued well into 1945. Famously depicted in the blockbuster film A Bridge Too Far (1977)...

When General Allenby arrived in Egypt in June 1917, and assumed command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, British prestige in the East was at a very low ebb. The evacuation of Gallipoli in December 1915, followed by the fall of Kut el Amara four months later, and by our two unsuccessful attacks on Gaza in the spring of the following year, had invested the Turkish arms with a legend of invincibility which was spreading rapidly in all Moslem countries. For the first time in seven centurie...

Jake Crabtree is an unwilling volunteer for his granddad’s inventions. They’re supposed to cure the twelve-year-old of his stammer, but more often than not he’s lucky to escape with all of his limbs intact.He has an accident at a local science fair when his secret formula spills onto his neighbour’s harmless picnic basket. This creates a creature that starts to abduct the villages of Little Codswallop, replacing them with not so perfect copies.Jake and his family have to co...

This book argues that although relations between China and Europe are strained in many areas, including trade, human rights and views about political systems, nevertheless established linkages, especially when considered in the context of long-term historical linkages, development trajectories and intellectual cultures, offer good prospects for future progressive collaborative exchanges. Approaching the subject in a balanced way, giving equal weight to the perspectives of both sides, the b...

With a large and growing economy and a leadership dedicated both to domestic reform and the further integration into international society and the world economy, China is facing and posing important challenges at the local, national, regional and wider international level. This book analyses the developmental trajectories of China up to and into the new millennium. Focusing on the substance and underlying forces of change, it considers issues and developments in monetary policy, foreign ex...

The theme of this work, first published in 1985, is the exchange between issues of development and problems of social theory. They provide preliminary analysis of the multiplicity of social-theoretic arguments in development theory and their implications for social theory in general.The book will be of interest to all those interested in the contemporary ‘restructuring’ of social theory and to theorists of development who are rethinking their concerns in a period of pessimism and d...

`The expression of human experience it embodies ... includes all personal history'.Saul Bellow's view of the city is far from that of classic geographical descriptions which look at growth or decline, demographic patterns, traffic flows and economic potential: these empirically conceived models of urban geography fail to accommodate the crucial human aspect of city life.Located at the interface of geography and literature, Writing the City visualizes the cit...

First published in 1987, this volume stresses the importance of development studies for sociology, as P. W. Preston argues that this field of study is emerging from the technical social scientific ghetto back into the mainstream of the ‘classical tradition’ of social theorizing, represented by Marx, Weber and Durkheim.Preston discusses the position of development studies in relation to the wider group of the social sciences in general and to sociology in particular. Using examples ...

Dr Preston’s book, first published in 1982, presents a critical history of development studies since the Second World War, linking the recent, neo-Marxist, debate with the whole tradition in the field, going back to the work of economists like Arthur Lewis.He identifies a series of ‘schools’ and evaluates their contribution, supplying in each case a careful analysis, informed by the sociology of knowledge, of the work of its leading theorists. His final assessment draws on the crit...

This book tracks the phases of Singapore’s economic and political development, arguing that its success was always dependent upon the territories links with the surrounding region and the wider global system, and suggests that managing these links today will be the key to the country’s future. Singapore has followed a distinctive historical development trajectory. It was one of a number of cities which provided bases for the expansion of the British empire in the East. But the Pacific War ...

"Reveals much of what history has tended to gloss over . . . should be a must read for all who have an interest in this operation" ( Airborne Quarterly).After Normandy, the most spectacular Allied offensive of World War II was Operation Market Garden, which planned to join three divisions of paratroopers dropped behind German lines with massive armored columns breaking through the front. The object was to seize a crossing over the Rhine to outflank the hea...

The prizewinning historian and bestselling author of D-Day, Stalingrad, and The Battle of Arnhem reconstructs the Battle of the Bulge in this riveting new accountOn December 16, 1944, Hitler launched his ‘last gamble’ in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes in Belgium, believing he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp and forcing the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were do...