Bøker av Matthew Parker

'Marvellous...escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of Empire and sees its full complexity' Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland On Saturday 29 September 1923, the Palestine Mandate became law and the British Empire reached what would prove to be its maximum territorial extent, covering a scarcely credible quarter of the world's land mass, containing 460 million people. But the tide was beginning to turn.This book is a new way of looking at the British Empire. It immerses the reader in the contemporary moment, focusing on particular people and stories from that day, gleaned from newspapers, letters, diaries, official documents, magazines, films and novels: from a remote Pacific Island facing the removal of its entire soil, across Australia, Burma, India and Kenya to London and the West Indies.In some ways, the issues of a hundred years ago are with us still: debates around cultural and ethnic identity in a globalised world; how to manage multi-ethnic political entities; racism; the divisive co-opting of religion for political purposes; the dangers of ignorance. In others it is totally alien. What remains extraordinary is the Empire's ability to reveal the most compelling human stories. Never before has there been a book which contains such a wide spread of vivid experiences from both colonised and coloniser: from Pan-Africanists in West Africa to militant Buddhists in Burma; governors, policemen and nurses. 'An engrossing and wide-ranging account of the zenith of the British Empire - with all the contradictions, brittleness, ambition and hubris that moment entailed. Across Continents and characters, Matthew Parker provides a new, global history of British imperialism which feels both epic and immediate' Tristram Hunt

At the beginning of the 1650s, England was in ruins - wrecked, impoverished, grief-stricken by plague and civil war. What started out as a heaven was soon to become one of the cruellest places on earth. The history of Willoughbyland is a microcosm of empire, its heady attractions and fatal dangers.

Tells the story of Ian Fleming at Goldeneye in Jamaica, where all his novels and stories on James Bond were written. This book includes interviews with Ian's family, his Jamaican lover Blanche Blackwell and many other islanders. It deals with Ian Fleming's life and work.

For 200 years after 1650 the West Indies were the most fought-over colonies in the world, as Europeans made and lost immense fortunes growing and trading in sugar - a commodity so lucrative that it was known as white gold.

Traces a heroic dream that spanned four centuries: to build a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This book explores the fierce geo-political struggle behind the heroic vision of the canal, and the immense engineering and medical battles that were fought.

The compelling account of one of the most ferocious and costly battles of World War Two, including interviews with hundreds of veterans who have never spoken publicly before