Tides Of Fortune

Biografie van de Britse politicus en staatsman Harold Macmillan (1894-1986).

A biography of Churchill covering his early life, the soldier, the foreign correspondent, the young politician, his wilderness years, his years as Prime Minister at the age of 65 and his subsequent career. The author examines the private man, the journalist, historian, painter and family man.

Clocks became common in late medieval Europe and the measurement of time began to rule everyday life. God's Clockmaker is a biography of England's greatest medieval scientist, a man who solved major practical and theoretical problems to build an extraordinary and pioneering astronomical and astrological clock. Richard of Wallingford (1292-1336), the son of a blacksmith, was a brilliant mathematician with a genius for the practical solution of technical problems. Trained at Oxford, he became a monk and then abbot of the great abbey of St Albans, where he built his clock. Although as abbot he held great power, he was also a tragic figure, becoming a leper. His achievement, nevertheless, is a striking example of the sophistication of medieval science, based on knowledge handed down from the Greeks via the Arabs.

The monumental events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union must be understood, Jan Van Oudenaren argues, in the context of a process of East-West détente begun in 1953 in the aftermath of Stalin's death. Van Oudenaren's comprehensive and timely study examines the development of Soviet-Western détente from the death of Stalin to the unification of Germany. In redefining détente as a process, rather than a code of conduct, Van Oudenaren looks to its origins in Soviet policy earlier than previously identified and analyzes both its history and character. His study explores the restoration of four-power negotiations in Germany and Austria in the mid-1950s, their subsequent breakdown in the Berlin crisis, their unexpected revival in 1990 in the form of "two plus four" talks on German unity, and the future of the Soviet Union as a European power. Among the key elements of détente discussed are diplomacy, particularly the role of summit conferences; cooperation among parliaments, political parties, and trade unions; arms control; economic relations; and links among cultural institutions, churches, and peace movements.

'The best one-volume study of Churchill yet available.' David Cannadine, Observer 'Magisterial.' Vernon Bogdanor, New Statesman 'A tour de force... A masterly chronicle of Churchill as a domestic figure rather than as the bulldog wartime leader, and one of the most subtle portraits of him as a politician. Addison revises the view of Churchill as uninterested and out of his depth in domestic affairs, painting instead a nuanced picture of a canny parliamentarian. Churchill changed parties twice but managed to accomplish the change, writes Addison, 'with exceptional dexterity', making it appear as if he were maintaining his principles while the parties changed theirs... Addison's most interesting assertion is that the rise of Hitler saved Churchill from drifting into right-wing irrelevance. Most impressively, Addison doesn't settle for easy classifications, admitting that 'Churchill... is a man of whom almost everything that can be said is true in part.'' Kirkus Review