The former Guardian royal correspondent "wisely explores a host of issues surrounding the royals, from the monarchy's role to the legacy of Diana" ( Get Surrey).It was an amazing feat in the twenty-frst century that Queen Elizabeth II, a small woman in her late-eighties, was one of the most recognisable people on the planet. The world had utterly, irreversibly, and radically evolved since she ascended the throne in 1952 and yet, in an era of instan...

A set of antique photographic plates is the key to uncovering hidden truths of the Civil War, Great Depression, and 9/11 eras in this "unflinching" novel ( Publishers Weekly).A teenage boy and his grandfather travel across America to attend that last great reunion of Civil War veterans at Gettysburg in 1938, where secrets and lies are revealed about the old man's past. Perhaps he was not the hero his grandson thought, but he still has a valuable treasure to...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION'METICULOUSLY RESEARCHED ... A GLORIOUSLY ENGAGING ROMP' JANICE HALLETT, THE SUNDAY TIMES'IMMERSIVE AND COMPELLING' DAVID KYNASTON'A PAGE-TURNER' ROBERT LACEY'CAREFUL AND COMPELLING' KATE MORGAN'YOU WILL READ IT IN ONE SITTING' MARC MULHOLLAND'A REAL-LIFE GOLDEN-AGE CRIME NO...

'There have been scores of books about the monarchy but few, if any, as fearless and perceptive as this is... Bates tells it like it is, covering every aspect with rare humour and intelligence. I couldn't recommend it more highly.' LITERARY REVIEW on ROYALTY INCAmidst the turbulence and invasions, upheaval and dissent that characterise British history, one thing has remained remarkably stable. Although there are other monarchies, Britain's Crown stands out due to the continuity of its trad...

The story behind the 1940s Commission on Freedom of the Press—groundbreaking then, timelier than ever now"A well-constructed, timely study, clearly relevant to current debates."—Kirkus, starred reviewIn 1943, Time Inc. editor-in-chief Henry R. Luce sponsored the greatest collaboration of intellectuals in the twentieth century. He and University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins summoned the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, the Pulitzer-winning poet Archibald MacLeish, ...

Paying for a peerage - an illegal practice - feels like a very modern form of corruption, one that both the Labour and Conservative parties have been happy to indulge in at times during the early twenty-first century. Except, of course, it was happening almost a century ago.Meet Maundy Gregory, actor, journalist, publishing proprietor, conman, embezzler, MI5 spy - and the man you went to see if you had the money to pay for a peerage in the post-First World War years.Cutting...

Asquith's administration laid the foundation of Britain's welfare state, but he was plunged into a major power struggle with the House of Lords. The budget of 1909 was vetoed by the hereditary upper chamber, and in 1910 Asquith called and won two elections on this constitutional issue. The Lords eventually passed the 1911 Parliament Act, ending their veto of financial legislation. Asquith was Prime Minister on the outbreak of World War I, but his government fell in 1916 as a result of the ...

1815 was the year of Waterloo, the British victory that ended Napoleon's European ambitions and ushered in a century largely of peace for Britain. But what sort of country were Wellington's troops fighting for? And what kind of society did they return to?Stephen Bates paints a vivid portrait of every aspect of Britain in 1815. Overseas, the bounds of Empire were expanding; while at home the population endured the chill of economic recession. As Jane Austen busied herself with the w...

Britain in 1846 was a nation in the grip of dramatic change.As the Industrial Revolution reached its height, people were flooding from countryside to city; the railways were spreading; starvation and destitution existed alongside immense wealth and power, generating profound social tensions.And seismic change was afoot in the world of politics. Parliament's repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws eroded the powers of the landowners and ushered in an age of free trade that wou...

Right-wing evangelical Christianity has come to dominate American political and social life in recent years, dividing the country and sparking cultural and moral battles. High politics and low tactics frame a fierce debate which goes much further back in the country's history than the accession of George W. Bush in 2001. It's a battle that sears America's soul and affects the world. In this book Stephen Bates explains why what happens in the Bible Belt matters to us and how there are those...

A brilliant narrative investigation into the 1920s case that inspired Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham.In 1922, Major Herbert Armstrong, a Hay-on-Wye solicitor, was found guilty of, and executed for, poisoning his wife, Katharine, with arsenic.Armstrong's case has all the ingredients of a classic murder mystery, from a plot by Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers (indeed some aspects of his story appear in Sayers' Unnatural Death). It is a near-perfect who...

**"By turns moving, evenhanded and lyrical in its evocation of time and place."—**Seattle TimesIn this rigorously researched and incisively written account, historian and journalist Cassandra Tate challenges generations of received wisdom about the 1847 killing of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and eleven others at their Presbyterian mission on Cayuse land near present-day Walla Walla.Far from a simple story of martyrdom and savagery, the Whitman inci...