Bøger udgivet af Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

It's the night before Hogswatch. And it's too quiet. Superstition makes things work in the Discworld, and undermining it can have consequences. It's just not right to find Death creeping down chimneys and trying to say 'Ho Ho Ho.'It's the last night of the year, the time is turning, and if Susan, gothic governess and Death's granddaughter (sort of), doesn't sort everything out by morning, there won't be a morning. Ever again.Adapted by Terry Pratchett's long-time collaborator Stephen Briggs, this play text version of Pratchett's bestselling Discworld novel Hogfather wittily and faithfully reimagines the story for the stage.

The classic satire about what would happen if the Second Coming of Christ occurred in South Africa

Drawing on dozens of exclusive interviews in Russia, where he worked for a time as a Kremlin insider advising Putin on press relations, as well as in the US and Europe, the author also argues that the West threw away chances to bring Russia in from the cold, by failing to understand its fears and aspirations following the collapse of communism.

'Brilliant, Fantastic and Significant' - Dr George McGavinAnts are seemingly everywhere, and this familiarity has led to some contemptuous and less than helpful stereotypes. In this compelling insight into the natural and cultural history of ants, Richard Jones helps to unravel some of the myths and misunderstanding surrounding their remarkable behaviours. Ant aggregations in large (often mind-bogglingly huge) nests are a complex mix of genetics, chemistry, geography and higher social interaction. Their forage trails - usually to aphid colonies but occasionally into the larder - are maintained by a wondrous alchemy of molecular scents and markers. Their social colony structure confused natural philosophers of old and still taxes the modern biologist today. Beginning the book with a straightforward look at ant morphology, Jones then explores the ant species found in the British Isles and parts of nearby mainland Europe, their foraging, nesting, navigating and battle instincts, how ants interact with the landscape, their evolution, and their place in our understanding of how life on earth works. Alongside this, he explores the complex relationship between humans and ants, and how ants went from being the subject of fables and moral storytelling to become popular research tools. Drawing on up-to-date science and featuring striking colour photographs throughout, this book presents a convincing case for why ants are worth our greater recognition and respect.

As the ice around the Arctic landmass recedes, the territory is becoming a flashpoint in world affairs.

The deliciously sharp new novel from Ferdinand Mount, author of the Sunday Times Book of the Year Kiss Myself GoodbyeFerdinand Mount's stinging satire plunges into the dubious world of London PR firms, the back rooms of Westminster and the campaign trail in Africa and America. We follow the hapless Dickie Pentecost, redundant diplomatic correspondent for a foundering national newspaper, together with his stern oncologist wife Jane, and their daughters Flo, an aspiring ballerina, and the quizzical teenager Lucy. The whole family find themselves entangled in an ever more alarming series of events revolving around the elusive Ethel (full name Ethelbert), dynamic founder of the soaring public relations agency Making Nice.With echoes of Evelyn Waugh and The Thick of It, Making Nice is a masterly take on the madness of contemporary society and the limitless human capacity for self-deception.

Using the parallel stories of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and Joseph "Smokey Joe" Foss, the two top-scoring US Marine Corps fighter aces of all time, this fascinating new book explores US Marine Corps aviation over the South Pacific.America''s Few delves into the history of US Marine Corps aviation in World War II, following the feats of the Corps'' top-scoring aces in the skies over Guadalcanal. Marine Corps aviation began in 1915, functioning as a self-contained expeditionary force. During the interwar period, the support of USMC amphibious operations became a key element of Marine aviation doctrine, and the small force gradually grew. But in December 1941 came the rude awakening. Within hours of Pearl Harbor, heroic Marine aviators were battling the Japanese over Wake Island. In the South Pacific, the aviators of the US Marine Corps came out of the shadows to establish themselves as an air force second to none. In the summer of 1942, when Allied airpower was cobbled together into a single unified entity ΓÇô nicknamed "the Cactus Air Force" ΓÇô Marine Aviation dominated, and a Marine, Major General Roy Geiger, was its commander. Of the twelve Allied fighter squadrons that were part of the Cactus Air Force, eight were USMC squadrons. It was over Guadalcanal that Joe Foss emerged as a symbol of Marine aviation. As commander of VMF-121, he organized a group of fighter pilots that downed 72 enemy aircraft; Foss himself reached a score of 26. Pappy Boyington, meanwhile, had become a Marine aviator in 1935. Best known as the commander of VMF-214, he came into his own in late 1943 and eventually matched Foss''s aerial victory score. Through the parallel stories of these two top-scoring fighter aces, as well as many other Marine aces, such as Ken Walsh (21 victories), Don Aldrich (20), John L. Smith (19), Wilbur Thomas (18.5), and Marion Carl (18.5), many of whom received the Medal of Honor, acclaimed aviation historian Bill Yenne examines the development of US Marine Corps aviation in the South Pacific.

This highly illustrated title details the history of the Panzer III throughout World War II, from its early development in the pre-war years through its pivotal role in the Blitzkrieg campaigns in Poland and Western Europe and its eventual obsolescence on the Eastern Front.The Panzer III was the mainstay of the German armored force in the early years of World War II, and spearheaded the victories in Poland, Western Europe, and the Balkans. Designed and developed in the mid-1930s, it was originally equipped with a 3.7cm gun and with 30mm thick armor. Early combat in Poland and France saw the need for this to be upgraded, and later models were armed with a 5cm KwK L/42 gun and had the frontal armor reinforced to 60mm by adding extra plating. This later version proved to be particularly effective during the campaigns in the Balkans and against British armor in the North African desert campaign. However, in the first months of Operation Barbarossa -- the German invasion of the Soviet Union -- it became obvious to battlefield commanders that the Panzer III had become obsolete as a main battle tank and it began to be replaced by the Panzer IV as the main front-line battle tank. The Panzer III was relegated to a secondary role, but its chassis proved the basis for the Sturmgeschutz III, which became the most widespread German armored vehicle of World War II.

Focusing on the invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky, and the advance up the Italian Peninsula. With a host of new units, special rules and Theater Selectors this supplement for Bolt Action contains everything players need to refight these important battles and strike at the underbelly of Axis-controlled Europe.

A study of the Soviet and NATO armored forces that faced each other off in Central Europe in the early Cold War, and how their technology, tactics, and doctrine were all rapidly developed.For 45 years, the most disputed point in the World was the dividing line between East and West in Europe; here the use and development of tanks was key. In this fully illustrated study, author Steve Zaloga, describes how Soviet and NATO tanks were deployed in the early years of the Cold War, and how a generation of tanks such as the Soviet T-44/T-54 and IS-3, British Centurion, US Army M26/M46 Pershing (all developed during World War II) saw extensive service after the war had ended. Initial post-war generation tanks including the Soviet T-54A, T-10 heavy tank, British late-model Centurions, Conqueror, US Army M41, M47, M48 and the French AMX-13 are examined in detail alongside the most important technical trends of the era: the development of shaped-charge anti-tank projectiles, the influence of anti-tank missiles, and the introduction of chemical/nuclear protection and night fighting equipment. The book also considers the influence of post-war doctrine and tactics on tank technology and the effect of regional conflicts such as the 1950 Korean War, the war in Indo-China, and the 1956 Mid East War on tank warfare.

In late January 1968, some 84,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops launched a country-wide general offensive in South Vietnam, mounting simultaneous assaults on 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and five of the six autonomous cities (including the capital city of Saigon). The longest and bloodiest battle occurred in Hue, the most venerated place in Vietnam. The bitter fighting that raged there for more than three weeks drew the attention of the world.Hue was the ancient capital of Vietnam, and as such, had been previously avoided by both sides; it had not seen any serious fighting prior to 1968. All that changed on the night of January 31 that year when four North Vietnamese battalions and supporting Viet Cong units simultaneously attacked and occupied both parts of the city straddling the Perfume River. The Communist forces dug in and prepared to defend their hold on the city. US Marines and South Vietnamese soldiers were ordered to clear the city, supported by US Army artillery and troops. A brutal urban battle ensued as combat raged from house to house and door to door. It was a bloody fight and resulted in large-scale destruction of Hue. Eventually, the Marines and the South Vietnamese forces retook Hue, but it turned out to be one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Tet Offensive, and led to a sea change in US policy in Vietnam.

A new supplement for Frostgrave with expanded rules for vampires and giants, a new soldier type in the huge giant-blooded and guidelines and scenarios for playing Frostgrave with high-level wizards.In the days of ancient Felstad, vampires kept to the shadows, their small numbers no match for the power of the city''s wizards. But when the cataclysm struck the wizards were destroyed, while the deathless vampires went into a frozen hibernation. Now, as the city thaws, so to do its undead inhabitants. The masters of the night are rising again: reoccupying their hidden strongholds, reforming their old cabals and finding new victims to serve as their thralls. The destruction of the old city has brought one other boon to the vampires--giant''s blood. While giants used to live out of reach to the far north, in the intervening millennium, they have descended on the city in large numbers. Their blood is like an elixir to the vampires, filling them with strength and magical power. A new war is forming between these two ancient races, and once again, the wizards of Frostgrave are caught in the middle. This supplement for Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City presents greatly expanded information about the vampires and the giants that occupy the frozen ruins, including rules for vampiric magic and a breakdown of the different tribes of giants. Also included are rules for a new type of soldier, the giant-blooded. These huge men and women have the blood of giants running through their veins, granting them great strength unseen in normal men. Finally, the book contains a section on playing Frostgrave with high-level wizards and includes two mini-campaigns to challenge these experienced spellcasters.

'Manages something only a few books achieve: it makes you happy' Munich Mercury 'A clear-eyed tonic in troubled times' Guardian On a beautiful spring day, a small village in Western Germany wakes up to an omen: Selma has dreamed of an okapi. Someone is about to die. But who?As the residents of the village begin acting strangely (despite protestations that they are not superstitious), Selma's granddaughter Luise looks on as the imminent threat brings long carried secrets to the surface. And when death comes, it comes in a way none of them could have predicted...A story about the absurdity of life and death, a bittersweet portrait of village life and the wider world that beckons beyond, What You Can See from Here is a story about the way loss and love shape not just a person, but a community.The international bestseller which sold over 600,000 copies in Germany

__________________Our Earth is more beautiful and more diverse than we can possibly conceive of.The Book of Vanishing Species is a stunning homage to the planet's most mysterious, bizarre and wondrous creatures and plants. Their stories are captivating, from the eyeless and tiny dragonlike olm to the hawksbill turtle, whose gender will be determined by the temperature of the sand it is born in. These species may have survived for hundreds of thousands of years by cleverly adapting to their environments, but their future remains far from certain. The book brings to life red cranes as they dance and bow for the sheer joy of movement, trees that breathe out a haze of misty atmosphere for insects that only feast on one kind of flower, a deep-ocean snail quietly building its shell from iron... and each one of them is illuminated with an exquisite illustration. As you turn the pages, there emerges a network of life that stretches across and around the planet in a dazzling web of existence.This is both a love letter to life on Earth, and an urgent summons to protect what is precious and lovely in this world.

This illustrated study explores, in detail, the RAF's first concentrated air campaign of World War II against one of the hardest and most important targets in Germany - the industrial heartland of the Ruhr that kept Hitler's war machine running.Between March and July 1943, RAF Bomber Command undertook its first concentrated bombing campaign, the Battle of the Ruhr, whose aim was nothing less than the complete destruction of the industry that powered the German war machine. Often overshadowed by the famous 'Dambusters' single-raid attack on the Ruhr dams, the Battle of the Ruhr proved much larger and much more complex. The mighty, industrial Ruhr region contained not only some of the most famous and important arms makers, such as the gunmakers Krupp of Essen, but also many other industries that the German war economy relied on, from steelmakers to synthetic oil plants. Being such a valuable target, the Ruhr was one of the most heavily defended regions in Europe. This book examines how the brutal Ruhr campaign was conceived and fought, and how Bomber Command's relentless pursuit of its objective drew it into raids on targets well beyond the Ruhr, from the nearby city of Cologne to the Skoda works in Czechoslovakia. Drawing on a wide-range of primary and secondary sources, this is the story of the first titanic struggle in the skies over Germany between RAF Bomber Command and the Luftwaffe.

Since the end of World War 2, the tactical air war over Europe has been largely overlooked by historians and authors alike in favour of analysis of the higher profile strategic bombing campaign. Involving just as many aircraft as the daylight heavy bombing campaign, the fighter-bombers (principally of the Ninth Air Force) wreaked considerably more havoc on German ground forces. Indeed, Thunderbolt units undertaking such missions effectively complemented the strategic campaign, ensuring the defeat of Nazi Germany. P-47 pilots paid a high price to achieve this victory, however, as the German flak arm was well equipped (nearly a quarter of all war-related production was devoted to anti-aircraft weaponry) with weapons of various calibres to counter tactical air power's low to medium altitude threat. The USAAF four numbered air forces that saw action over the European continent suffered significant fighter-bomber losses to flak. The principle fighter-bomber from the summer of 1944 through to VE Day was the P-47D, with both dedicated ground attack units and squadrons that had completed their bomber escort tasking seeking out targets of opportunity across occupied Western Europe. While heavy-calibre anti-aircraft fire was intended to both shoot down enemy aircraft and force bombers to drop their ordnance sooner or from higher altitudes, thus reducing bombing accuracy, low-altitude flak batteries put up a virtual 'wall of steel' for enemy fighter-bombers to fly through. Damaging a low-flying fighter-bomber made it easier for other flak gunners to track, engage and destroy it. Innovations like lead-computing gunsights gave gunners a higher probability of intercepting low-altitude fighters. Conversely, the appearance of air-to-ground rockets beneath the wings of P-47s gave pilots better standoff range and a harder-hitting punch when dealing with low and medium altitude flak units.This volume analyses the tactics and techniques used by both P-47 fighter-bomber pilots and German flak gunners, featuring full-colour illustrations to examine the Allied tactical air power in Europe from 1943 and how German defences were overpowered by the air threat.

An in-depth look at the struggle between the charismatic rebel commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, 'The Lion of Panjshir', and the Soviet forces who fought to control the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan.When the Soviets rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, they believed if they took the cities, the country would follow. They were wrong. The Red Army found itself in a bloody stalemate in the Afghan mountains, in the strategically vital Panjshir Valley, where they faced the most able and charismatic of the rebel commanders: Ahmad Shah Massoud, the 'Lion of Panjshir'.Time and again the Soviets and their Afghan counterparts sought to take control of the Panjshir, and time and again the rebels either rebuffed their clumsy attempts or ambushed and evaded them, only to retake the valley as soon as Moscow's attention was elsewhere. Over time, the rebels acquired new weapons and developed their own tactics - as did the Soviets. The Panjshir was not just a pivotal battlefield, it also shaped the subsequent Afghan civil wars that followed Soviet withdrawal, and the military thinking that is still informing the new Russian military. Featuring striking colour artwork battlescenes and detailed maps of the fighting, this is a compelling study of one of the hardest fought struggles of the Soviet War in Afghanistan.

This detailed study of the naval Spanish Civil War describes how the Spanish Navy, torn in two and comprising a Republican and Nationalist part, fought a civil war at sea involving both Hitler's and Mussolini's navies.In July 1936, a pro-fascist coup orchestrated by General Franco tore Spain apart and plunged the country into a bitter civil war. Like Spain itself, the Spanish Navy was torn in two: crews and most ships remained loyal to the Republican government but many of the Navy's officers joined Franco's rebels, and warships under repair or 'mothballed' in southern ports soon fell to the rebel advance. These formed the basis of Franco's 'Nationalist fleet,' and with both Italian and German help, the rebels were able to contest the Republic's control of Spanish waters. Overall the Republican Navy held its own, despite mounting losses, until the collapse of the Republican Army led to the fleet seeking internment in French North Africa. Packed with contemporary photographs and full colour illustrations, this study examines the composition and organization of the two rival fleets, the capabilities of their ships and submarines, and the performance of their crews. It also covers the warships of the Basque Auxiliary Navy - an offshoot of the Republican Fleet - and other navies who played a part in the conflict, most notably the Italian Regia Marina.

An invaluable resource for fashion students, teachers and designers, this book looks at research sketchbooks and the role they play in the research and design process. This book demonstrates how ideas are constructed, for single garments and entire collections, and looks at how pages and whole sketchbooks are put together.

In 1996 Trainspotting was the biggest thing in British culture. Brilliantly and aggressively marketed, it crossed into the mainstream despite being a black comedy set against the backdrop of heroin addiction in Edinburgh. Produced by Andrew Macdonald, scripted by John Hodge and directed by Danny Boyle, the team behind Shallow Grave (1994), Trainspotting was an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's barbed novel of the same title. The film is crucial for understanding British culture in the context of devolution and the rise of 'Cool Britannia'. Murray Smith unpicks the processes that led to Trainspotting's enormous success. He isolates various factors - the film's eclectic soundtrack, its depiction of Scottish identity, its attitude to deprivation, drugs and violence, its traffic with American cultural forms, its synthesis of realist and fantastic elements, and its complicated relationship to 'heritage' - that make Trainspotting such a vivid document of its time. Although it heralded a false dawn for British film-making,Trainspotting is, Smith concludes, both authentically vernacular and yet transnational in its influences and ambitions.In his afterword to this new edition, Murray Smith reflects on the original film 25 years after its release, and its 2017 sequel T2: Trainspotting also directed by Boyle. Smith also considers Danny Boyle's subsequent directorial career, with highlights including Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.

Action-packed piratical adventure by bestselling and award-winning author Celia Rees

Sally Coulthard explores the miraculous world of the earthworm, the modest little creature without whom life as we know it would not be possible.

Gaius Julius Caesar remains the most famous Roman general of all time. Although he never bore the title, historians since Suetonius have judged him to be, in practice, the very first 'emperor' - after all, no other name in history has been synonymous with a title of imperial rule. Caesar was a towering personality who, for better or worse, changed the history of Rome forever. His unscrupulous ambition was matched only by his genius as a commander and his conquest of Gaul brought Rome its first great territorial expansion outside the Mediterranean world. His charismatic leadership bounded his soldiers to him not only for expeditions 'beyond the edge of the world' - to Britain - but in the subsequent civil war that raised him to ultimate power. What is seldom appreciated, however is that the army he led was as varied and cosmopolitan as those of later centuries, and it is only recently that a wider study of a whole range of evidence has allowed a more precise picture of it to emerge. Drawing on a wide range of new research, the authors examine the armies of Julius Caesar in detail, creating a detailed picture of how they lived and fought.

The second edition of this seminal work includes the original text, first published in 1974, alongside two major new chapters. Power: A Radical View assesses the main debates about how to conceptualize and study power, including the influential contributions of Michel Foucault. Power Revisited reconsiders Steven Lukes' own views in light of these debates and of criticisms of his original argument. With a new introduction and bibliographical essay, this book has consolidated its reputation as a classic work and a major reference point within Social and Political Theory. It can be used on modules across the Social and Political Sciences dealing with the concept of power and its manifestation in the world. It is also essential reading for all undergraduate and postgraduates interested in the history of Social and Political Thought.