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Shocks, scandals and defections have emerged over the years as it became clear that British Intelligence had not just been penetrated, but was riddled with Soviet agents and double agents. During the Cold War era, Pincher became notorious as a relentless investigator of spies, uncovering the shocking extent of Soviet infiltration of the British Secret Services – and the collusion and incompetence at the heart of the British Establishment. He presents a compelling case of collusion against Roger Hollis, former head of MI5; that Hollis was a Communist agent and was 'run' by a Moscow-trained womean agent living undetected in the U.K. -
To Sail Beyond The Sunset to find the fabled Great South Land and claim its gold and treasure was the dream of generations of Europeans. In the eighteenth century, a desire to push even further the boundaries of the known world and science added impetus to the exploration of the mysterious southern latitudes. This history begins with the incredulous reactions of Dampier and of the later naturalists that followed - they found not gold, but a vast treasury of bizarre plants and animals that challenged the imagination and existing scientific dogma. Collectors such as George Caley, John Lewin and Allan Cunningham demanded the outlandish specimens. Apart from beautiful colour sketches of flora and fauna, there are also extracts from contemporary logs, journals and letters which give the fascination, bewilderment and enthusiasm at first hand. -
This definitive biography of Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, traces the phenomenon of a first-generation immigrant succeeding in twentieth-century American arts and letters. Drawing upon never-before published letters and documents, the authors describe Gibran's boyhood in Lebanon, his family's impoverished years in turn-of-the-century Boston, and his eventual friendship with that city's intellectual elite. How Gibran survived the cultural shock of the New World, became part of the New York creative avant garde ,and at the same time sought to preserve his ethnic identity by working for justice in the Middle East are recorded in great detail. The younger Kahlil Gibran, co-author of this biography, is a noted Boston sculptor and is the poet's cousin and namesake. Over a forty-year period, he was entrusted with a formidable body of work left by the poet. Illustrated with beautiful sketches and archival photographs. -
What does a man in a New York City hospital, with no idea how he got there, have in common with two homicide detectives, murder, an American hit record, rock festivals, the Toorak library, six air hostesses, a Las Vegas wedding, James Bond's Aston Martin, and Gracelands? Who is this man? The answer is Australian rock legend Billy Thorpe. As Billy lies in his hospital bed, trying vainly to work out how even he managed to get himself into this mess, he wanders through the corridors of his life: the music, mayhem and mind-altering substances; the Sunbury Aztecs; the girls; the characters; the '70s...It doesn't get any better than this. Take the trip. -
Thayer's biography traces the life of Ulysses S. Grant from birth, to failed businessman; to hero of the Union in the Civil War; to two terms of President of the United States. In the 19th century, one of the surest ways to rise to prominence in American society was to be a war hero, like Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison. But few would have predicted such a destiny for Hiram Ulysses Grant. Recently republished as From Tannery To White House. -
The life and times of Billy Connolly. Billy was a battered and neglected child and he turned himself into the classroom clown as a way of survival. As an adult he built on that early experience, his provocative and outrageous brand of humour making him one of the best loved comedians of his generation. On the way up, Connolly has collided with trendies, booze, women, the press, the Royals and even Fyffes bananas. Although he now enjoys that status of a comic institution, Glasgow pundits accused him of 'selling out' and forgetting his roots amid the big houses, smart cars, friendships with royalty and Hollywood. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
An erudite guide to twelve of the most famous sites of myth and legend: Atlantis; Pyramid Hill; Stonehenge; Troy; the Queen of Sheba; King Solomon's Mines; Tintagel and the Round Table; Angkor; Tikal and the Feathered Elephants; Machu Piccu; Nan Matol and Rapa Nui. Each site is described, factual and legendary history is reviewed and theories and controversy examined. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
In colonial times, Australia was considered the perfect prison - the impenetrable bush and wide oceans were a better barrier than any prison walls. But hundreds of convicts did escape. Most were recaptured; some perished in the bush; others returned half-starved and sometimes half-mad from the wilderness to face further punishment. Some survived by living with the Aborigines or becoming bushrangers. Some made their way to distant ports in the Pacific, Asia and South America. A handful even made it all the way back home. Featured in this collection of true tales: John Graham, who lived with the Aborigines, became an expert tracker and was responsible for the rescue of Eliza Fraser; Mary Bryant, who with her two young children, completed a voyage of almost 5,000 kilometres in an open boat from Sydney to Timor and the terrifying tale of Alexander Pearce, who survived a gruelling walk across Tasmania by eating his companions one-by-one. -
Benson looks back over a long and interesting life in this last volume of his memoirs: his youth as the son of Queen Victoria's Archbishop of Canterbury; his family and London snobs, literary sybils and the Lotus Eaters of Capri - where he shared a house with John Ellingham Brooks and Somerset Maugham and where his neighbours included Norman Douglas, Compton Mackenzie, Axel Munthe and Maxim Gorki. He evokes the little world of Rye, immortalised in Mapp and Lucia, where he gloried in the splendid robes of Lord Mayor in 1934, happy to end as "a big fish in a small pond". Final Edition is Benson's own final tribute to those he loved, completed ten days before his death in 1940. Benson wrote biographies, essays, memoirs and fiction, including such novels as Paying Guests and the Mapp and Lucia series, comical novels and ghost stories.
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