Bøger af Ian Colvin

This is a riveting account of the life and work of Sir Stewart Menzies, who served as the head of British intelligence during World War II. The book draws on previously unpublished sources to provide a detailed portrait of Menzies as a strategist, diplomat, and master spy.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is a history of South Africa that starts with the Age of Discovery and the European exploration of the region. From the intro: "If we would understand how South Africa came to be discovered, we must go back a very long time-to the days before either England or Holland was a power on the sea. Every one has heard of Christopher Columbus, and most people know the name of Vasco da Gama; but not so many, perhaps, realise the springs of action that led these sailors to make their great voyages, and some may be surprised to hear that the search for the road to the Indies was a move in the great struggle between the Cross and the Crescent, and Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama were just as much Crusaders as Richard Coeur de Lion. In the middle of the fifteenth century Portugal was engaged in a truceless war with the Moors of North Africa. In this, the little country was only taking a part in the general war between Christians and Mahomedans that was waged all along the Mediterranean from east to west. Spain also took part in it, and so did Genoa and Venice, and the Knights of St. John at Malta, and even little England away in the rear of Christendom, sent her troops to defend the frontier. In those days Christendom was one nation, with one emperor and one pope, and all the European peoples knew that the war concerned not the part but the whole. For the Crescent had penetrated into Europe as far as France, and the Holy Sepulchre, which was then the shrine of all Christians, was in the hands of the Infidels. In their part of the battlefield the Portuguese carried on a desperate war. They sent army after army into the north of Africa, they took the Moorish town of Ceuta, but they were beaten back from the walls of Tangier. Scimitar against sword, both sides fought with desperate valour, and the deeds of the heroes are still remembered in song and legend. On the Christian side, among the chief of these paladins was Prince Henry, one of the Royal Infants of Portugal."

An accessible and vividly written wartime mystery story. New introduction and notes from private papers reveal hitherto suppressed facts on top secret sources drawn on by the author.

The Unkown Courier tells the true story of the events that inspired Ben MacIntyre's bestselling Operation Mincemeat. When British Intelligence mislead German High Command by planting a corpse with false top secret plans, it achieved one of the greatest wartime deceptions in history and changed the course of World War Two.