Richard Davenport-Hines

The RMS Titanic was built as one of the world's largest and most luxurious liners. A marine Ritz, it was a 45,000-tonne hotel of thin steel plates, travelling at a speed of 21 knots across the North Atlantic. On the night of 14 April 1912, midway through her maiden voyage, the seemingly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg, sustaining a 300-feet gash as six compartments were wrenched open to the sea. In little over two hours, the palatial Titanic nose-dived to the bottom of the ocean. Over 1,500 people perished in the freezing waters. Who were the people who by a cruel twist of fate happened to be travelling on the ship? In this original and timely book, Richard Davenport-Hines views the great liner as a paradigm of Edwardian soceity. At the bottom of the ship was the steerage class, filled with emigrants hoping for a better life in the New World. Above them were hundreds of second-class passengers buoyed up by their prosperous respectability. On the upper decks were the hereditary rich and those of inconceivable wealth - Americans like John Jacob Astor IV, who was found with £2000 and $4000 in sodden notes in his pockets. Bringing together over 2,000 passengers and crew from every class and every continent, TITANIC LIVES tells their stories, re-creating the complexities, disparities and tensions of life one hundred years ago.

History in the House pulls back the curtains on Christ Church Oxford and reveals its great and lasting historical significance

A Spectator Best Book of the Year An Aspects of History Best Book of the Year An Engelsberg Ideas Best Book of the Year

The most important study on this subject in years, perhaps ever Phillip Knightley, SUNDAY TIMESA history of drug-taking, telling the story across five centuries of addicts and users: monarchs, prime ministers, great writers and composers, wounded soldiers, overworked physicians, oppressed housewives, exhausted labourers, high-powered businessmen, playboys, sex workers, pop stars, seedy losers, stressed adolescents, defiant schoolchildren, the victims of the ghetto, and happy young people on a spree.It is also the history of one bad idea, prohibition.Youll find almost everything you ever wanted to know about drugs in this work, except how to get hold of themSimon Garfield, FINANCIAL TIMESEveryone with any influence on government policy should read this book and wake up before it is too latePhillip Knightley, SUNDAY TIMES

WINNER OF THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo scandal, An English Affair is a sharp-focused snapshot of a nation on the brink of social revolution. Britain in 1963 Harold Macmillan was the Prime Minister of a Conservative government, dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and, above all, old-fashioned morality. But a breakdown of social boundaries saw nightclub hostesses mixing with aristocrats, and middle-class professionals dabbling in criminality. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia gripped the public imagination. The Profumo Affair was a perfect storm, and when it broke it rocked the Establishment. In An English Affair, the author of the critically-acclaimed Titainic Lives Richard Davenport-Hines brings Swinging London to life. The cast of players includes the familiar louche doctor Stephen Ward, good-time girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, and Secretary for War John Profumo himself. But we also encounter the tabloid hacks, property developers and hangers-on whose roles have, until now, never been fully revealed. Sex, drugs, class, race, chequebook journalism and the criminal underworld the Profumo Affair had it all. This is the story of how Sixties England cast off respectability and fell in love with scandal.

Audens dedication as a writer was matched only by his commitment to challenging the received view of political and personal life. The definitive biography goes beyond a study of the great poet to create a vibrant and masterful commentary on Audens work, ideas and life within the context of the wars, ideologies, spiritual quests and sexual attitudes of this century.

Like his mother Queen Victoria, Edward VII defined an era. Both reflected the personalties of their central figures: hers grand, imperial and pretty stiff; his no less grand, but much more relaxed and enjoyable. This book conveys Edwards distinct personality and significant influences. To the despair of his parents, he rebelled as a young man, conducting many affairs and living a life of pleasure. But as king he made a distinct contribution to European diplomacy and - which is little known - to London, laying out the Mall and Admiralty Arch. Richard Davenport-Hiness book is as enjoyable as its subject and the age he made.

From the bestselling and award-winning author of An English Affair, a dazzlingly original thematic biography which throws fresh light on the greatest economist of the twentieth century. John Maynard Keynes saved Britain from financial crisis twice over the course of two World Wars, and instructed Western industrialised states on how to protect themselves from revolutionary unrest, economic instability, high unemployment and social dissolution. In the wake of the recent global financial crisis, economists worldwide have once again turned to his ideas to confront their problems. In this entertaining and edifying new biography, Richard Davenport-Hines introduces the man behind the economics; a connoisseur, intellectual, economist, administrator and statesman who was equally at ease socialising with the Bloomsbury Group as he was when influencing the policies of Presidents. By exploring the desires and experiences that made Keynes think as he did, or compelled him to innovate, Davenport-Hines reveals the aesthetic basis of Keynesian economics, and explores why this Great Britons ideas continue to instruct and encourage us seventy years after his death.

Marking the centenary of the Titanic disaster, Titanic Lives is an utterly compelling exploration of the lives of the passengers and crew on board the most famous ship in history. The RMS Titanic was built as one of the worlds largest and most luxurious liners. A marine Ritz, it was a 45,000-tonne hotel of thin steel plates, travelling at a speed of 21 knots across the North Atlantic. On the night of 14 April 1912, midway through her maiden voyage, the seemingly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg, sustaining a 300-feet gash as six compartments were wrenched open to the sea. In little over two hours, the palatial Titanic nose-dived to the bottom of the ocean. Over 1,500 people perished in the freezing waters. Who were the people who by a cruel twist of fate happened to be travelling on the ship? In this original and timely book, Richard Davenport-Hines views the great liner as a paradigm of Edwardian society. At the bottom of the ship was the steerage class, filled with emigrants hoping for a better life in the New World. Above them were hundreds of second-class passengers buoyed up by their prosperous respectability. On the upper decks were the hereditary rich and those of inconceivable wealth Americans like John Jacob Astor IV, who was found with 2000 and $4000 in sodden notes in his pockets. Bringing together over 2,000 passengers and crew from every class and every continent, Titanic Lives tells their stories, re-creating the complexities, disparities and tensions of life one hundred years ago.

What pushed Blunt, Burgess, Cairncross, Maclean and Philby into Soviet hands? With access to recently released papers and other neglected documents, this sharp analysis of the intelligence world examines how and why these men and others betrayed their country and what this cost Britain and its allies. Enemies Within is a new history of the influence of Moscow on Britain told through the stories of those who chose to spy for the Soviet Union. It also challenges entrenched assumptions about abused trust, corruption and Establishment cover-ups that began with the Cambridge Five and the disappearance of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean on the night boat to Saint-Malo in 1951. In a book that is as intellectually thrilling as it is entertaining and illuminating, Richard Davenport-Hines traces the bonds between individuals, networks and organisations over generations to offer a study of character, both individual and institutional. At its core lie the operative traits of boarding schools, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Intelligence Division, Foreign Office, MI5, MI6 and Moscow Centre. Davenport-Hines tells many stories of espionage, counter-espionage and treachery. With its vast scope, ambition and scholarship, Enemies Within charts how the undermining of authority, the rejection of expertise and the suspicion of educational advantages began, and how these have transformed the social and political temper of modern Britain.

A Spectator Best Book of the Year; An Aspects of History Best Book of the Year; An Engelsberg Ideas Best Book of the YearFive hundred years ago, Thomas Wolsey endowed in Oxford a foundation he called Cardinals College. Henry VIII, the monarch who dismissed and ruined him, re-established it as Christ Church later in his reign as an institution rich, spacious and imposing beyond any other. It would help young men of Tudor England and beyond to study history, improve their minds, enlarge imaginations and broaden experience for the benefit of the realm under the tutelage, of course, of some remarkable dons. Generations of students had their intellects and world perspectives shaped by Oxford. It was believed that the study of history touching the ancient world at one end and modern politics at the other interlaced with geography, economics, political science, law and modern languages, would demonstrate the reasons for the success or failure of states. The student would be taught in Sir Isaiah Berlins memorable phrase to spot the bunk! In this book, acclaimed historian Richard Davenport- Hines examines the intimate connections between British politics, statecraft and the Oxford University history course. He explores the temperaments, ideas, imagination, prejudices, intentions and influence of a select and self-regulated group of men who taught modern history at Christ Church: Frederick York Powell, Arthur Hassall, Keith Feiling, J. C. Masterman, Roy Harrod, Patrick Gordon Walker, Hugh Trevor-Roper and Robert Blake; by turns an unruly Victorian radical, a staunch legitimist of the Protestant settlement, a Tory, a Whig, a Keynesian, a socialist, a rationalist who enjoyed mischief and a student of realpolitik. These dons, with their challenging and sometimes contradictory opinions, explored with their pupils the wielding of power, the art of persuasion and the exercise of civil and political responsibility. Intelligent, strenuous and aware of the treachery and uncontrollability of things in the world, they studied the crimes, follies, misfortunes, incapacity, muddle and disloyalty of humankind in every generation. History in the House offers an unforgettable portrait of these men, their enduring influence and the significance of their arguments to public life today.

1670. Un marino mercante costea las tierra de Bengala. Uno de los miembros de la tripulación, Thomas Bowrey, describe por escrito los efectos de lo que los nativos llamaban el bhang. Este escrito, el primer testimonio del uso -y ya entonces el abuso- del