Author: Saul Kelly
Publisher: John Murray Publishers
ISBN: 9780719561627
Category : Intelligence service
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
This is a study of the true story behind The English Patient, one of the least known and most extraordinary episodes of World War II.;In the 1930s, the Zerzura Club (named after a lost oasis in the Libyan desert) met once a year for dinner at the Cafe Royal in London. Ostensibly, its members were cosmopolitan adventurers indulging a craze for desert travel by motor car and aeroplane, and searching for the lost oases and ancient cities of a vanished civilization. In reality they were mapping the desert for military reasons, marking vital wells and checking terrain. The Club's members were drawn from countries that would soon be enemies, and fellowship masked a vicious rivalry.;Mussolini hoped to make Egypt the centrepiece of a new Italian empire, but the British - for whom the Suez Canal was strategically vital, were determined to hold onto that country. When war broke out in 1939, Ralph Bagnold founded the Long Range Desert Group to spy on and disrupt the Axis powers' advance on Cairo under Rommel, while his fellow club member Count Almasy tried to spirit the Egyptian Chief of Staff out of Cairo, and succeeded in inserting German spies. Both of them were using knowledge and desert craft drawn from the hazardous hunt for the Zerzura Oasis, where each had deceived the other about his true purpose.;In telling this story, Saul Kelly draws on interviews with surviviors as well as previously unknown documentary material in Britain, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Egypt. His book reads like a thriller by John Buchan or Frederick Forsyth - with one key difference: it is true.

Author: Saul Kelly
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786747242
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The Lost Oasis tells the true story behind The English Patient. An extraordinary episode in World War II, it describes the Zerzura Club, a group of desert explorers and adventurers who indulged in desert travel by early-model-motor cars and airplanes, and who searched for lost desert oases and ancient cities of vanished civilizations. In reality, they were mapping the desert for military reasons and espionage. The club's members came from countries that soon would be enemies: England and the Allied Forces v. Italy and Germany. When war erupted in 1939, Ralph Bagnold founded the British Long Range Desert Group to spy on and disrupt Rommel's advance on Cairo, while a fellow club member, Hungarian Count Almasy, succeeded in placing German spies there. Ultimately, the British prevailed. Saul Kelly's riveting history draws on interviews with survivors and previously unknown documentary material in England, Italy, Germany, Hungary, and Egypt. His book reads like a thriller -- with one key difference: it's all true.

Author: Don Meredith
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761857230
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
From Venice to Vietnam, from the Welsh coast to Cairo, Don Meredith has traveled in the wake of twentieth-century writers, using their novels and poems as guides, as another wayfarer might turn to Fodor's or the Guide Bleu. He has gone in search of the back streets, basilicas, cafes, piazzas, and countrysides that figured so powerfully in the works of authors who are especially attuned to a sense of place. Part travelogue, part literary study, Varieties of Darkness is Meredith's account of his exploration of Michael Ondaatje's fascinating literary masterpiece The English Patient. Meredith mines the places, the real-life counterparts of the characters, and the curious creative mind of Ondaatje. Varieties of Darkness offers fresh insights into the novel and Ondaatje's prodigious use of scholarly detail.

Author: Justin Marozzi
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786727276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Intrepid travel historian Justin Marozzi retraces the footsteps of Herodotus through the Mediterranean and Middle East, examining Herodotus's 2,500-year-old observations about the cultures and places he visited and finding echoes of his legacy reverberating to this day. The Way of Herodotus is a lively yet thought-provoking excursion into the world of Herodotus, with the man who invented history ever present, guiding the narrative with his discursive spirit.

Author: Andrew Goudie
Publisher:
ISBN: 1900971488
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Desert exploration, like climbing Everest or polar expeditions, is not for the faint-hearted, and many of the vivid tales within this fascinating biographical history end in tragedy. However, the informative and absorbing descriptions of the extraordinary journeys, challenges and achievements of these intrepid figures, are captivating. They risked their lives variously for good old fashioned epic adventure, solitude, fame, the answer to mythical questions and some were even spies. They experienced fear, excitement and hardship in their journeys into the unknown. There are many books on exploration but remarkably few on desert exploration. Moreover, some of the great desert explorers of the last three hundred years are now very little remembered or appreciated in comparison, say, with those who ventured to the poles, climbed Everest, or sought the source of the Nile. Yet, crossing unknown deserts is no less challenging. This volume finally brings these Great Desert Explorers into the limelight, with short, illustrated biographies of around 60 of the most interesting, intrepid and important explorers of the world’s greatest deserts. There is also a brief introduction to each desert region. The many original quotations, illustrations and maps, contemporary figures, as well as plates of a range of desert landscapes make this a colourful, lively and informative read.

Author: Lucy Noakes
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441149279
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Few historical events have resonated as much in modern British culture as the Second World War. It has left a rich legacy in a range of media that continue to attract a wide audience: film, TV and radio, photography and the visual arts, journalism and propaganda, architecture, museums, music and literature. The enduring presence of the war in the public world is echoed in its ongoing centrality in many personal and family memories, with stories of the Second World War being recounted through the generations. This collection brings together recent historical work on the cultural memory of the war, examining its presence in family stories, in popular and material culture and in acts of commemoration in Britain between 1945 and the present.

Author: Gavin Mortimer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472819357
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A major illustrated history of the Long Range Desert Group from the foremost expert on British wartime special forces. Formed in June 1940 for the purpose of gathering intelligence behind enemy lines, the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) played a secretive but vital role in North Africa during World War II. Highly trained in mechanized reconnaissance and specializing in desert operations, the unit provided support to the Special Air Service (SAS) in missions across the vast and treacherous terrain of the Western Desert. In this highly illustrated history of the LRDG, Gavin Mortimer reveals the origins and dramatic operations of Britain's first ever special forces unit.

Author: John Davidson
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845455363
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This anthology offers an account of German cinema in the fifties, focusing on popular genres, famous stars and dominant practices, taking into account the complicated relationships between East and West Germany, and by paying attention to the economic and political conditions of film production and reception during this period.

Author: Mawut Achiecque Mach Guarak
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1456723561
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 734

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Book Description
The most comprehensive, profound, and accurate book ever written in the history of modern Sudan, Integration and Fragmentation of the Sudan: An African Renaissance, is an encyclopedia of ancient and modern history as well as the politics of Sudan. It is a library of data that discusses Sudan from its economic, political, and social standpoint since the Arab discovery and use of the term Bilad es Sudan up through the modern republic of the Sudan after which South and North Sudan collided in 1947. Although written to correct fabrications, this book is a foundation on which future Sudans shall live on. It is full of useful information that discusses and provides feasible solutions to the fundamental problem of the Sudan that ruptured the country from the Berlin Conference to the post-independence era. For centuries, Sudanese and the international community have been fed with idealistic information as if Sudan started with the coming of the Arabs in the fourteenth century. This persisted due to the lack of resources and formal education among African natives. Khartoums unreasonable diversion of genuine history is one among the many causes of mistrust and division in Sudan. The indigenous Africans found themselves peripheral to Khartoum where economic and political power is concentrated. Integration and fragmentation of Sudan: An African Renaissance is a great source of knowledge for the public and students of Sudanese politics. With the referendum and popular consultation approaching, this book is a head-start for the marginalized Black Africans to make an informed decision between oppression and liberty. Examples and testimonies provided in the text are reasons for the affected regions to permanently determine their future. For freedom diehards this book lays the foundation on which to celebrate the birth of Africas newest sovereign nation along the Nile River.

Author: Spencer C. Tucker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1851099697
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 2730

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Book Description
With more than 1,700 cross-referenced entries covering every aspect of World War II, the events and developments of the era, and myriad related subjects as well as a documents volume, this is the most comprehensive reference work available on the war. This encyclopedia represents a single source of authoritative information on World War II that provides accessible coverage of the causes, course, and consequences of the war. Its introductory overview essays and cross-referenced A–Z entries explain how various sources of friction culminated in a second worldwide conflict, document the events of the war and why individual battles were won and lost, and identify numerous ways the war has permanently changed the world. The coverage addresses the individuals, campaigns, battles, key weapons systems, strategic decisions, and technological developments of the conflict, as well as the diplomatic, economic, and cultural aspects of World War II. The five-volume set provides comprehensive information that gives readers insight into the reasons for the war's direction and outcome. Readers will understand the motivations behind Japan's decision to attack the United States, appreciate how the concentration of German military resources on the Eastern Front affected the war's outcome, understand the major strategic decisions of the war and the factors behind them, grasp how the Second Sino-Japanese War contributed to the start of World War II, and see the direct impact of new military technology on the outcomes of the battles during the conflict. The lengthy documents volume represents a valuable repository of additional information for student research.