C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd strana 2 z 8

In 1971, the Shah of Iran threw what was declared the Party of the Century. Before it was over, it had been written off as a disaster and helped to precipitate his downfall. The Shah’s Party colourfully captures Iran’s oil-rich boom years. In 1971, eight years before the dynasty fell, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his glamorous wife, Farah Diba, hosted one of the largest gatherings of world leaders ever, celebrating the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy. But this stranger-than-fiction event, staged in a tented city by the ancient ruins of Persepolis, came amidst a rise in leftist agitation and a turn towards political Islam. Ruhollah Khomeini, an exiled mullah, began a relentless campaign against the Shah. A skilled populist, Khomeini tapped into growing inequalities and resentments to push his theocratic vision, particularly among those who had left the countryside in search of work. The Shah’s autocratic style played poorly in a world increasingly concerned with human rights. The Persepolis party became a symbol of Iran’s regime, allowing the Shah’s critics to portray him as repressive and out of touch with the struggles of ordinary people. Khomeini’s novel religious populism and his mastery of messaging steamrollered the Shah; he left it too late to move towards democracy, losing the support of his army, his people and his allies. In 1971, trickles of dissent started to build into a revolutionary torrent that, within a decade, would end the dynasty.

Decades before Race Across the World, six friends made the epic journey from London to Singapore and back in two Land Rovers. Why not? No-one had ever done it: one of the longest of all overland journeys, from the English Channel to Singapore. Several expeditions had tried. Some had reached the Persian deserts; a few, the Indian plains. But none had gone further: over the jungle-clad Assamese mountains, across northern Burma, to Thailand and Malaya. It was 1955. For the final 3,000 miles, it seemed, there were ‘too many rivers and too few roads’. But no-one really knew... They were undergraduates with no money, no cars—no nothing, except cool audacity. They wheedled and cajoled, coaxing the BBC into supplying film for a possible series; ‘persuading’ Rover to lend them two factory-fresh off-road vehicles; sweet-talking a book publisher into offering an advance. By the time they set off, their eighty-plus sponsors ranged from whiskey distillers to collapsible bucket–makers. Seven months and 12,000 miles later, two weary, police-escorted Land Rovers rolled into Singapore to flash-bulbs and champagne. Here, their bestseller is republished, with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough. He had given them that film, after all.

A long overdue re-evaluation of the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald?Ramsay MacDonald was born and brought up in the county of Moray in north-east Scotland, the illegitimate son of a ploughman. When he left school at the age of fourteen he seemed bound to follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead he would be Prime Minister of Great Britain, the first Labour Prime Minister, a friend of his sovereign, George V, a world star on the stage of international diplomacy.How did he get there from his Highland bothy and why is he now forgotten, blanked out of political memory? The Cancelled Prime Minister answers that question. It also exonerates this man of the left from the charge that he went on to lead the Conservative-dominated National Government for reasons of treacherous ambition.While MacDonald’s was a political life, it was also a personal and poignant odyssey, undertaken for half its span beneath the weight of undying grief over the loss of a wife who died young. Similarly, this biography is more than a political one. MacDonald’s was an elusive, Celtic personality and it has been easier to criticise him than to understand him. Making extensive use of MacDonald’s private diaries, Walter Reid reveals for the first time the full essence of a complex individual, a man not without faults, but able and honourable and with deep and widespread interests.History has been unkind to MacDonald. It has been written in general from political standpoints hostile to him. Reid’s book is not uncritical but it reveals the true importance of this hugely significant figure, whose detractors have sought to eliminate him from the record of his century.

A new perspective on immigration: through the eyes of children?Often absent from historical accounts and narratives, migrant children were instrumental not only in shaping Indian national and diasporic identities during the time of the British Empire, but British identity too. They were marginalised by their political status, their race, and their age, and yet they were fundamental to historical change.Focusing on a crucial aspect of British and South Asian history, Imperial Footprints explores the history of migration from the Indian subcontinent to Britain through the eyes of its youngest migrants. Sumita Mukherjee vividly explains how the immigration of South Asian children to Britain was instrumental in shaping new Indian national identities and shaping ideas of race and belonging within Britain. From the children sent to boarding schools, to runaway servants and sailor children, to the refugees of war and partition, interweaving informed reflections on postcolonial legacies, Imperial Footprints offers an important history of imperial migration before the larger waves of migration to Britain from the post-war period.Imperial Footprints challenges the assumptions of the historical voices that we foreground and in doing so rewrites the history of migration and empire.

Why has Russia’s military struggled to adapt to the challenges of contemporary warfare? Despite years of attempts to improve its military capabilities, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 revealed a crippling lack of skill, discipline and equipment. Non-material factors, in particular the power struggle between military and civilian leaderships, have hindered reform of its armed forces: with officers dominating defence policy, the Kremlin has struggled to implement the necessary changes. Kirill Shamiev explores the political reasons behind Russia’s poor military preparedness for the war in Ukraine. He demonstrates how a seemingly obedient military has frequently blocked civilian reforms, taking advantage of weak oversight mechanisms. The Kremlin’s efforts to centralise control and make the armed forces personally accountable to President Vladimir Putin harmed institutional learning, cementing a conservative civil–military status quo. While this protected the military from civil society interference and ensured Putin’s autocratic rule, it ultimately limited the pace and scope of change. Analysing three cases of reform between 2000 and 2021, Imperfect Equilibrium offers critical insights into the relationship between civilian control and military effectiveness in Russia. Drawing on extensive qualitative and quantitative evidence—including interviews, parliamentary speeches, media reports and surveys—it shows how unchecked autonomy can undermine military development, even in authoritarian contexts.

For much of the twentieth century, relations between Britain and the Soviet Union were defined by mutual hostility and distrust. From the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution until the last days of the Cold War, the British establishment was greatly concerned about the threat of Soviet-inspired subversion and secretly monitored thousands of citizens because of their real or perceived links to communism, the Soviet Union, or both. Enemy of the State reveals the story of how Britain''s intelligence services watched individuals on the grounds of protecting democracy. Using phone taps, hidden microphones, mail interception and covert break-ins, this covert surveillance led them to investigate, amongst others, trade unionists, scientists, politicians, anti-nuclear protesters, and those campaigning against apartheid. The culture of secrecy permeating British institutions has meant that the extent of the activities of British security and intelligence establishments has often been unknown. Drawing on files of the British government and intelligence agencies, Oliver Price argues that whilst communism had little impact on British politics, the fear of it led to the widespread monitoring of political and protest groups in Britain. Britain was long considered a country in which so-called ''political policing'' and the surveillance of civilians was resisted. As Enemy of the State shows, the events of the twentieth century reshaped official attitudes and normalised widespread surveillance.

The first general history of the archipelago available in English, set within a broader regional, oceanic and global tapestry.The Cabo Verde Islands are now a popular tourist destination but, guide books apart, there is little in print in English that covers their history and culture. This book offers a readable account not only of the islands’ past, but also of their place in the wider story of the South Atlantic’s Portuguese-speaking communities.First settled in the fifteenth century, the inhabitants of Cabo Verde were of diverse origins. Some came from Portugal, others arrived as slaves from mainland Africa, and a third element comprised Jewish exiles from the Iberian Peninsula. From the earliest days, the islanders developed a mixed Creole culture with its own Creole Portuguese language. They had close relations with people of the upper Guinea coast, where many of them settled, and with the Guinea islands. Meanwhile the archipelago became a hub of the Atlantic slave trade.Cabo Verde has also had a strategic importance— its history has to be seen in a global context, broader than simply that of the Portuguese imperial story. Malyn Newitt also fills a major gap in the bibliography of Atlantic history, slavery and the history of the African diaspora in the Atlantic.

The Somali people are fiercely nationalistic. Colonialism split them into five segments divided between four different powers. Thus decolonisation and pan-Somalism became synonymous.In 1960 a partial reunification took place between British Somaliland and Somalia Italiana. ''Africa Confidential'' wrote at the time that the new Somali state would never be beset by tribal division but this discounted the existence of powerful clans within Somali society and the persistence of colonial administrative cultures. The collapse of parliamentary democracy in 1969 and the resulting army—and clanic— dictatorship that followed led to a civil war in the ‘perfect’ national state. It lasted fourteen years in the ‘British’ North and is still raging today in the ‘Italian’ South.Somaliland ‘re-birthed’ itself through an enormous solo effort but the viable nation so recreated within its former colonial borders was never internationally recognised and still struggles to exist economically and diplomatically.This book recounts an African success story where the peace so widely acclaimed by the international community has had no reward but its own lonely achievement.

The city of Herat in western Afghanistan long sat at the edge of empires and served as a hub for trade and a conduit for armies. Yet it has been much more than simply a staging post or plaything of political ambition. It has been an imperial capital, a city of extraordinary wealth, and has played host to a cultural renaissance to rival that of Florence. The Pearl of Khorasan tells the history of this storied oasis city, from the invasions of Chingiz Khan in 1221 to the present day. An epilogue assesses the challenges Herat faces in the wake of Afghanistan''s recent turmoil.Throughout Herat''s cycles of conquest and habitation, several patterns emerge: the primacy of geography; the city''s strong identification with the fertility of the banks of the Hari River; and its reputation as a place of theological excellence, tolerance and cultural refinement. From the luminescent genius of the Timurid century to the destruction and cultural vandalism associated with the Taliban''s rule of Afghanistan and the post-9/11 conflict, Herat has hosted empires and experienced the cupidity and lust for power of foreign agents. Using Persian, Pashto and British sources, the author paints a vivid picture of a city in which he has lived, presenting a personal vision of its tumultuous history.

Challenging the received wisdom, this candid portrait of three cities reveals a history of co-existence between Muslims, Christians and Jews from the nineteenth century until the present day. Most books dealing with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict see events through the eyes of policy-makers, generals or diplomats. Menachem Klein offers an illuminating alternative by telling the intertwined histories, from street level upwards, of three cities — Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron — and their intermingled Jewish, Muslim and Christian inhabitants, from the nineteenth century to the present. Each of them was and still is a mixed city. Jerusalem and Hebron are holy places, while Jaffa till 1948 was Palestine’s principal city and main port of entry. Klein portrays a society in the late Ottoman period in which Jewish-Arab interactions were intense, frequent, and meaningful, before the onset of segregation and separation gradually occurred in the Mandate era. The unequal power relations and increasing violence between Jews and Arabs from 1948 onwards are also scrutinised. Throughout, Klein bases his writing not on the official record but rather on a hitherto hidden private world of Jewish-Arab encounters, including marriages and squabbles, kindnesses and cruelties, as set out in dozens of memoirs, diaries, biographies and testimonies. Lives in Common brings together the voices of Jews and Arabs in a mosaic of fascinating stories, of lived experiences and of the major personalities that shaped them over the last 150 years.

Global economic power is shifting, liberal market-oriented democracies face growing domestic turmoil, and international trade and financial integration is crumbling. How did we get here??In The Doom Loop, economist Eswar Prasad argues that the very forces that we long believed could stabilize the world order are fueling its destabilization. Rather than promoting shared prosperity, globalization has instead deepened economic inequality, stoked political backlash, and prompted escalating trade wars. Institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, founded to foster international cooperation, have failed to adapt to twenty-first-century realities. The rise of ‘middle power’ countries like India, Brazil, and Indonesia once suggested a stable multipolar future, but today, such nations are increasingly forced to pick sides as the United States and China fight for global dominance.Prasad argues that we are caught in a destructive feedback loop between economics, domestic politics, and geopolitics. The Doom Loop offers a clear-eyed and bracing account of a world spiraling into disorder, and makes it clear that old solutions cannot pull us out—we need radically new solutions to solve the world’s problems

The epic story of a man born into Caribbean slavery, who defeated Napoleon’s armies and crowned himself a free black king.How did a man born enslaved on a plantation triumph over Napoleon’s invading troops and become king of the first free black nation in the Americas? This is the forgotten, remarkable story of Henry Christophe.Christophe fought as a child soldier in the American War of Independence, before serving in the Haitian Revolution as one of Toussaint Louverture’s top generals. Following Haitian independence, Christophe crowned himself King Henry I. His attempts to build a modern black state won the support of leading British abolitionists—but his ambition helped to plunge his country into civil war.Christophe saw himself as an Enlightenment ruler, and his kingdom produced great literary works, epic fortresses and opulent palaces. He was a proud anti-imperialist and fought off French plots against him. Yet the Haitian people chafed under his authoritarian rule. Today, all that remains is Christophe’s mountaintop Citadelle, Haiti’s sole World Heritage site—a monument to a revolutionary black monarchy, in a world of empire and slavery.

A fresh look at the ancient general and scholar’s classic History of the Peloponnesian War, from the perspective of modern diplomacy and war. Masterfully crafted and surprisingly modern, History of the Peloponnesian War has long been celebrated as an insightful, eloquent, and exhaustively detailed work of classical Greek history. The text is also remarkable for its deep political and military dimensions, and scholars have begun to place the work alongside Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Clausewitz's On War as one of the great treatises on strategy. The perfect companion to Thucydides' impressive History, this volume details the specific strategic concepts at work within the History of the Peloponnesian War and demonstrates, through case studies of recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the continuing relevance of Thucydidean thought to an analysis and planning of strategic operations. Some have even credited Thucydides with founding the discipline of international relations. Written by two scholars with extensive experience in this and related fields, Thucydides on Strategy situates the classical historian solidly in the modern world of war.

The story behind the unstoppable rise of the French far right— from France’s societal woes to the Trumpian world order. France’s next presidential election is due by 2027, if not sooner; and Marine Le Pen’s far- right Rassemblement National is on course to win it. Such a victory would trigger shockwaves internationally, with profound implications for allies and neighbours including the UK and the US. Founded by the antisemitic Jean-Marie Le Pen, the RN—previously the Front National—was confined to the fringes until his daughter Marine took over in 2011. Together with her telegenic protégé Jordan Bardella, she has modernised the party and ‘detoxified’ its image. The RN has focused on voters’ economic grievances while condemning ‘mass immigration’ of Muslims and foreign ‘criminals’—a strategy starkly reminiscent of Donald Trump’s own route, twice, into the White House. Right-wing nationalists were already gaining ground worldwide and across the EU before Trump’s re-election gave them another boost. Now France—at the core of the European project—is the far right’s next great prize. In both rounds of 2024’s parliamentary elections, the RN won more votes than any other party. In vivid, sharp prose, Victor Mallet explains how the French far right has won over the country and become a government in waiting—one preparing to transform France, Europe and the world.

A Holocaust survivor. A legal visionary. A global voice for justice.?At age nine, Theodor Meron witnessed the unthinkable: ghettos, camps, and the murder of his family during the Holocaust. Decades later, he would shape international law at the highest level, presiding over UN war crimes tribunals and influencing decisions on genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.In this extraordinary memoir, Judge Meron recounts a life marked by survival, scholarship, and an unrelenting pursuit of justice. From his early legal opinions–like his now-famous 1967 memo on Israeli settlements–to his role in reviewing evidence for the International Criminal Court’s 2024 arrest warrant applications in the Israel-Gaza conflict, Meron has been a consistent voice for accountability.Spanning a career that took him from Israel’s Foreign Ministry to courtrooms in The Hague and classrooms at Harvard, Oxford, and NYU, Meron’s story is also the story of modern international justice. Aged 95, he remains one of its most authoritative and principled figures. At a time when the future of global justice hangs in the balance, A Thousand Miracles is both a compelling personal history and a timely reminder of the moral weight of law—and the power of one life dedicated to its pursuit.

A fun and fascinating history of an island best known for tropical rainforests and captivating wildlife—but with a much bigger story to tell.The world’s third-largest island, and the only one administered by three different sovereign nations, Borneo is something of a mystery. Home to an incredibly diverse indigenous population, once infamous for headhunting; a hotbed of military activity during World War II; a poster child for the ecological movement even as its rainforest is destroyed; and the host of Indonesia’s planned new capital city, Nusantara—Borneo’s past, present and future are nothing if not eclectic.But hidden under its enigmatic façade is an extraordinary island at the centre of world affairs in ancient times, yet often aloof from them. From early visitors bringing new religions to the island, to a fluctuating relationship with China, to a time when piracy ruled, Olivier Hein’s sweeping tale uncovers the little-known events that shaped not only Borneo but the whole Malay Archipelago.Linking Indonesian, Malaysian and Bruneian history, Hein brings together, for the first time, all the elements that make this island so unique. With Borneo sitting uncomfortably in the firing line of today’s great global power shift from Trans-Atlantic to Trans-Pacific, and now attracting millions of visitors a year, the story of this rich and complex island has never been more relevant.