Title: Lenin, Stalin and Hitler

Author: Robert Gellately

Publisher: Vintage

Price: £10.99

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Joesph Stalin

Category: 20th Century History

This remarkably ambitious book tells the story of the great social and political catastrophe that enveloped Europe between 1914 and 1945. In a period of almost continuous upheaval society was transformed by two world wars, the Russian Revolution, the Holocaust and the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Combining a powerful narrative with profound analysis, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately argues that these tragedies are inextricably linked and that to consider them as discrete events is to misunderstand their genesis and character. Central, of course, to the catastrophe were the dictators Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler and this book makes unprecedented use of recently opened Russian and German sources to explain how their pursuit of utopian - and dreadfully flawed - ideals led only to dystopian nightmare.

Title: Who Killed Bobby?

Author: Shane O'Sullivan

Publisher: Union Square Press

Price: £14.99

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Robert Kennedy

Category: 20th Century History

On June 5th, 1968, at L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel, Robert F. Kennedy celebrated his victory in the California Democratic primary with a rousing victory speech anticipating a successful run for the presidency. Moments later, gunshots shattered that dream: like his brother before him, Bobby Kennedy lay mortally wounded at the hand of an assassin. The police quickly apprehended Sirhan Sirhan, who the world believed had single-handedly masterminded the shooting. Shockingly, that may not be so, as documentary filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan presents powerful new evidence to the contrary.

Title: Imperial Germany 1871-1918

Author: James Retallack

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Price: £50.00

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Germany 1900-45

Category: German History

The German Empire was founded in January 1871 not only on the basis of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's 'blood and iron' policy but also with the support of liberal nationalists. Under Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany became the dynamo of Europe. Its economic and military power were pre-eminent; its science and technology, education, and municipal administration were the envy of the world; and its avant-garde artists reflected the ferment in European culture. But Germany also played a decisive role in tipping Europe's fragile balance of power over the brink and into the cataclysm of the First World War, eventually leading to the empire's collapse in military defeat and revolution in November 1918. With contributions from an international team of twelve experts in the field, this volume offers an ideal introduction to this crucial era, taking care to situate Imperial Germany in the larger sweep of modern German history, without suggesting that Nazism or the Holocaust were inevitable endpoints to the developments charted here.

Title: European Aristocracies and the Radical Right, 1918-1939

Author: Karina Urbach

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Price: £60.00

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: The Right Club

Category: 20th Century History

This volume brings together the most recent research on European aristocracies in the first half of the twentieth century. An international array of social and political historians analyses the aristocracies of eleven countries at a particularly testing time: the interwar years. After the First World War aristocrats were confronted with revolutions, republics, and an influx of 'Bolshevist' ideas. Debates about a new order in which aristocrats would play a leading part took place in all countries after 1918. The Mussolini model, in particular, seemed an ideal solution and had an impact on aristocrats all over Europe. Here the exchange of ideas between networks of related aristocratic families played a part in spreading pro-fascist ideas. Anti-Semitism, anti-Bolshevism, and a belief in charismatic leadership also led to admiration of leaders such as Horthy and Franco. In all countries radical right-wing movements tried to recruit aristocrats as symbolic if not strategic figureheads. Is it possible, therefore, to speak of a last flourishing of the aristocracy in countries where fascist or authoritarian regimes were successful? Or are we falling for a left-wing conspiracy theory by overestimating the aristocracy's political prowess and failing to see that they often stood as a conservative bulwark against the radical right? The book shows that if radical right-wing parties could not offer new avenues to power centres, aristocrats, despite a natural predisposition, were not tempted to join, or soon lost interest. Yet their flirtations and short-term entanglements with these movements show that they played a destructive role in the great crisis years of parliamentarism.

Title: Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy

Author: Eric D. Weitz

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Price: £17.95

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Weimar Republic

Category: Travel Writing

Weimar Germany still fascinates us, and now this complex and remarkably creative period and place has the history it deserves. Eric Weitz's new book reveals the Weimar era as a time of strikingly progressive achievements - and even greater promise. With a rich thematic narrative and detailed portraits of some of Weimar's greatest figures, this comprehensive history recaptures the excitement and drama as it unfolded, viewing Weimar in its own right - and not as a mere prelude to the Nazi era. "Weimar Germany" tells how Germans rose from the defeat of World War I and the turbulence of revolution to forge democratic institutions and make Berlin a world capital of avant-garde art. Setting the stage for this story, Weitz takes the reader on a walking tour of Berlin to see and feel what life was like there in the 1920s, when modernity and the modern city - with its bright lights, cinemas, "new women," cabarets, and sleek department stores - were new. We learn how Germans enjoyed better working conditions and new social benefits and listened to the utopian prophets of everything from radical socialism to communal housing to nudism. "Weimar Germany" also explores the period's revolutionary cultural creativity, from the new architecture of Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut, and Walter Gropius to Hannah Hoch's photomontages and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's theater. Other chapters assess the period's turbulent politics and economy, and the recipes for fulfilling sex lives propounded by new "sexologists." Yet "Weimar Germany" also shows how entrenched elites continually challenged Weimar's achievements and ultimately joined with a new radical Right led by the Nazis to form a coalition that destroyed the republic. Thoroughly up-to-date, skillfully written, and strikingly illustrated, "Weimar Germany" brings to life as never before an era of creativity unmatched in the twentieth century-one whose influence and inspiration we still feel today.

Title: The Unfinished Peace

Author: Patrick O. Cohrs

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Price: £59.00

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Versailles Treaty

Category: 20th Century History

This is a highly original and revisionist analysis of British and American efforts to forge a stable Euro-Atlantic peace order between 1919 and the rise of Hitler. Patrick Cohrs argues that this order was not founded at Versailles but rather through the first 'real' peace settlements after World War I - the London reparations settlement of 1924 and the Locarno security pact of 1925. Crucially, both fostered Germany's integration into a fledgling transatlantic peace system, thus laying the only realistic foundations for European stability. What proved decisive was that key decision-makers drew lessons from the 'Great War' and Versailles' shortcomings. Yet Cohrs also re-appraises why they could not sustain the new order, master its gravest crisis - the Great Depression - and prevent Nazism's onslaught. Despite this ultimate failure, he concludes that the 'unfinished peace' of the 1920s prefigured the terms on which a more durable peace could be founded after 1945.

Title: 274 Things You Should Know About Winston Churchill

Author: Patrick Delaforce

Publisher: Michael O'Mara

Price: £9.99

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Winston Churchill

Category: 20th Century History

Prime Minister, statesman and wartime leader, master strategist, soldier, historian, orator, journalist, wit, writer and inventor - in short, a true colossus of a man - Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965) was undoubtedly the greatest leader of the Second World War, and unarguably the greatest Briton of his age. Born at the height of British imperial power, and twice elected Prime Minister, he galvanized the British people and their allies to resist the onslaught from Nazi Germany and, later, Japan, and in doing became the architect of the destruction of these unquestionably evil empires. "274 Things You Should Know About Churchill" is a celebration of the man, his life and his monumental achievements, written by Patrick Delaforce, an experienced soldier and military author in his own right. It is perhaps too easy to forget that Churchill was more than an inspirational commander and figurehead to a nation. Indeed, it would be a gross dishonour to his memory to think only this of him, for because - or in spite - of his numerous and varied successes, Churchill was also a full-bloodied human being, with all of the foibles, attitude, distemper, pig-headedness and conceit that are so often the shadows of such greatness. Similarly forgotten, beyond the demands of Parliament he lived a full and varied life in an ebullient and mischievous way; sailing the seas with his wife, Clemmie, on the Admiralty yacht, HMS Enchantress, owning racehorses, playing polo, entertaining friends, all of which, and more, find a place within "274 Things You Should Know About Churchill", retold and recounted. Beautifully packaged, "274 Things You Should Know About Churchill" is, like the best miscellanies, a many-sided work; a great source of anecdotes and memories, an insight into his larger-than-life personality, a record of his often caustic yet brilliant wit, and, by the use of long out-of-print and forgotten sources, a document of his remarkable and inestimable contribution to the modern world. To contain such a man within the pages of a book is a formidable task - a man owed so much by so many, to paraphrase one of his most famous speeches - yet "274 Things You Should Know About Churchill" is, like its subject, a very notable triumph.

Title: Them and Us

Author: Charles Jennings

Publisher: Sutton

Price: £20.00

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Henry Channon

Category: 20th Century History

In 1936, Henry 'Chips' Channon gave a lavish dinner for King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at his house in Belgrave Square. Feasting on blinis, caviare, sole and beef, served by the ruthlessly-drilled precision of Chips' staff, it was a vivid demonstration of just how far the Americans had percolated high society. The British aristocracy, impoverished by death duties, agricultural collapse and higher taxation, as well as morally shattered by the First World War, could only look on. It was as if the world had been turned upside down. As Lady Londonderry observed, it seemed as if London was 'being run by an American syndicate'. What had happened to bring about this change? How had the Americans become so powerful, so rich, so over here? "Them and Us" is a story of social upheaval, of the transformation which took place when British high society - that bastion against the forces of the New - gave in to America. A lively mix of anecdote and social history, Charles Jennings' new book brings to life the most striking characters of the time and the extravagant, high-voltage period in which they lived, giving a real sense of their follies, dramas, tragedies and longings.

Title: In Defence of Atheism

Author: Michael Onfray

Publisher: Serpents Tail

Price: £18.99

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Religion and Society

Category: 20th Century History

In the twenty-first century, religion is making a comeback, bringing in its wake extremism of all kinds. From Christian anti-abortion campaigns to suicide bombers claiming the righteousness of Islam, we are witnessing a resurgence of fundamentalism. Michel Onfray’s response to the threat of a post-modern theocracy is to lay down the principles of an authentic atheism: exposing the fiction that is God, he proposes instead a new philosophy of reason that celebrates life and humanity. In Defence of Atheism demonstrates that organised religion is motivated by worldly, historical and political power; that the three dominant monotheisms – Christianity, Islam and Judaism – exhibit the same hatred of women, reason, the body, the passions; that religion denies life and glorifies death. Onfray exposes some uncomfortable truths: Judaism invented the extermination of a people; Jesus never existed historically; Christianity was enforced with extreme violence by Constantine; Islam is anti-Semitic, misogynist, warlike and incompatible with the values of a modern democracy.

Educational Websites

Standards Site, BBC History, PBS Online, Open Directory Project, Virtual Library,
Education Forum, History GCSE, Design & Technology, Learn History, Music Teacher Resource,
Freepedia, Teach It, Science Active, Geography IST, Brighton Photographers, Sussex Photo History,
Compton History, Universal Teacher, English Teaching, English Online, History Learning Site,
History on the Net, Black History, Greenfield History, School History, HistoryWorld, I Love History,
E-HELP, Ed Podesta Blog, Macgregorish History, Historiasiglo20, Sintermeerten, ICT4LT

News and Search

Guardian Unlimited, Times Online, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, New York Times,
Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Yahoo News, New Scientist, Google News, Channel 4, ZDNet,
Google, Excite, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AOL Search, Hotbot, Metacrawler, Netscape, Ask, Search,
Go, Looksmart, Dogpile, Raging Search, All the Web, Kartoo, Search Engine Watch, About