The home guard

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Saul Kelly, Anthony Gorst

"Suez 1956 was the greatest political crisis of the 1950s, which tested the impartiality of the British Civil Service almost to breaking point. Yet there has been no proper or systematic study of the role of Whitehall in the Suez Crisis. This volume seeks to remedy this deficiency by focusing on the parts played by key individuals in vital posts at crucial times in order to show how the policy process worked during the crisis.". "Each contribution deals with a key 'Whitehall warrior' and seeks to define their private and public attitudes to events in order to determine what influence they had on policy making and to highlight any dilemmas they may have faced."--BOOK JACKET.

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David Delison Hebb

Piracy and the English Government, 1616-1642, explores two main themes. First, it explodes the myth that England was 'a nation of pirates'. In fact, the English people were far more often victims of piracy. The costs to the economy and society resulting from piracy are critically examined for the first time here. This investigation reveals that not only were hundreds of English ships lost to pirates in the period studied, but an astonishing number (approximately 8,000 men, women and children) were carried away to Barbary by pirates and sold into slavery. Losses from piracy posed significant political problems for the early Stuart government, and the response of the government to the problem is the second theme of this study. At times naval force was employed; on other occasions a policy of appeasement was favoured. The reasons behind the adoption of various policies are explored and related to broader political concerns and influences. In this sense, the book is an extended essay on policy-making in Early Stuart England.

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David Marquand

David Marquand's account of how the Labour Party made itself electable and why it remained in the wilderness for so many years now has a new introduction and controversial new chapters on Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair.

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Richard English

Looks at the history of the Irish Republican Army, from the 1916 Easter Rising until the present day, discussing such topics as the IRA's core beliefs and philosophy, the partition of Ireland, and the split of the IRA.