Churchill's failures are less well known than his victories, but his obsession with the lands surrounding the Aegean Sea persisted throughout two world wars. In both wars the prize was Turkey's cooperation in opening up the Balkans, and in both wars this objective failed. In World War I it led to Churchill's resignation following the carnage of the Gallipoli campaign. In 1939 the Dodecanese complex of small islands was held by Italy, and when Italy joined the war in 1940, Hitler diverted troops from Norway to bolster Benito Mussolini in the Eastern Mediterranean. Spearheaded by the Long Range Desert Group and the Special Boat Squadron, British garrison troops were dispatched to the Aegean with the support of naval units, but with little or no air cover. Within three months German forces had seized nearly all of the Dodecanese, which would remain under occupation until the end of the war. An attack by British commandos supported by the Sherwood Foresters failed, and the Allies turned their attention to north Africa. By October 1942 the Eighth Army had put the German Afrika Korps into retreat. This was Churchill's chance to seize the Dodecanese and Rhodes, which he planned in tandem with the invasion of Sicily. The fight for the islands of Kos and Leros was bloody and ultimately doomed to failure, as the SBS commander Lord Jellicoe admits with hindsight in his Foreword to the book. When news of the Italian armistice broke, Churchill's plan had to be modified and it was decided that Jellicoe would parachute into Rhodes. He was met in a friendly manner by the governor Campioni, but as Jellicoe notes it is not easy to swap sides overnight in warfare, and Campioni was eventually executed. The author covers the subsequent invasion campaign day to day from original sources, following key fighters as they attempted to escape rather than be captured, for instance Colonel Prendergast's party, some wounded and with only a couple of tins of bully beef between them, who finally reached safety. Meanwhile Jellicoe struggled to Turkey by boat with 90 men. 288pp, paperback, maps, photos.

Sir Horace Wilson was chief adviser to the PM Neville Chamberlain at the time of the Munich crisis, and the policy of appeasing Hitler is always associated with the names of the two men. Wilson was a civil servant with no official cabinet role, reflecting Chamberlain's preference for seeking the advice of those outside official government decision-making. The chief enemy of appeasement was Winston Churchill, an unpopular figure in the Conservative party. Chamberlain's policy of averting war at all costs is often ascribed to the fact that he was buying time to allow Britain to rearm sufficiently to present a credible military challenge to the might of Germany, but the author's examination of the papers of the period reveals that Chamberlain and Wilson were together seeking to avert war entirely. When Wilson was sent to deliver a personal letter and encountered a shrieking rant from Hitler, he refused to be intimidated and Hitler told Wilson, "England could wish for no better friend than the Führer". At the time of Hitler's Nuremberg rally, as Wilson and Chamberlain agreed to try to avert the coming war by sacrificing the claim of Czechoslovakia to its provinces in the Sudetenland, Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, began to realise that appeasement was futile. The abandonment of the Czechs under the Munich agreement created a conflict in the Conservative party which was finally resolved by the invasion of Poland and subsequent war. Wilson lost his job with Chamberlain's demotion and was subsequently unemployable. 448pp, photos.

A detailed and insightful picture of a troubled region and why its heritage remains important today. Until WWI, the Ottoman Empire had dominated the Middle East for four centuries. Its collapse, coupled with the subsequent clash of European imperial policies, unleashed a surge in political feeling among the people as they vied for national self-determination. Over the century that followed, the region has become almost synonymous with conflict and unrest, but why? In this accessible survey of the last century, T. G. Fraser analyses the fault lines of the tension - the damaging legacies of imperialism, the creation of the State of Israel, the competition between secular, autocratic rulers and emerging democratic and theocratic forces, and the rise and fall of Arab Nationalism in the face of fraying regional alliances and the Islamic revival. Against this backdrop comes the 21st century, marked first by the tragedy of 9/11, then the Arab Spring, and now Syria's civil war and much more recent events, amidst all of this, a complex social and economic change has transformed the region. Fraser untangles the threads of history in the Middle East so we can better understand this complex situation and diplomatic developments that continue to shape the Middle East and the world. An incisive and thoughtful guide and an engaging historical study. 246pp, illus.

Quiet, dutiful and shy, Princess Mary born at Sandringham on 25th April 1897, and would grow to become one of the most respected senior members of the royal family. Anyone with an interest in the Great War will surely have heard of her, and of the brass box that carries her image and her Christmas Gift Fund of 1914. Aged just 17, Mary was engaged with the London Needlework Guild, a focus of activity with her mother. A combination of her interest and empathy undoubtedly led her to desire to develop her own gift for the Sailors and Soldiers of the Empire. The book is the remarkable story of the Princess's Christmas Gift, a simple appeal to the nation which began on 16th October 1914 in the Daily Mirror the Press Notice Announcement. The appeal was designed to provide a mark of recognition of the sacrifices being made by the armed forces and some way of providing comfort to them under challenging circumstances in that first Christmas in the First World War. The contents of the gifts varied depending on the town or village who had gathered sufficient funds for the 5,481 parcels that were sent out in time for Christmas Day. Subscribers rich and poor made their donations. For example the generous parcels from the people of Nottingham contained much of value to the average man on active service. They included the inevitable Christmas plum pudding, chocolate, woollen mittens, cigarettes, booklets of greetings, plain postcards, pencils, tins of Meloids, tins of peppermints, tablets of soap, caramels, tins of boric ointment, laces, tins of dubbin, tins of Vaseline and all together no fewer than 130,844 articles were packed and despatched 'as a token of appreciation of the services of those undertaking the hardships and risking the dangers of the great conflict.' Each gift was provided with a specially produced Christmas booklet that carried the message 'With most cordial Christmas Greetings from the people of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire' together with portraits of the King and Queen, the Prince of Wales, and Princess Mary. Set against the backdrop of the Christmas Truce of 1914, the book is the first time the full story of the Princess's gift has been told. It is lavishly illustrated with surviving artefacts, archive records, letters and newspaper reports and the full contents of the gift and its many variants, the design and manufacturer of the gift box, as well as the meaning of the gift to many of its recipients. It also covers gifts for the Indian Army, nurses and non-smokers and a look at those in the Colonies and also casualties of 1914. Glamorous first edition, 320 glossy pages packed with colour and archive images.

Turing said 'If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.' Spring 1940, the Battle of the Atlantic rages. Vulnerable merchant convoys are at the mercy of German U-boats controlled by a cunning system of coded messages created by a machine called Enigma. Only one man believes that these codes can be broken - mathematician and Bletchley Park cryptanalyst Alan Turing. Winston Churchill later describe Turing's success in breaking the Enigma code as the single biggest contribution to the victory against Nazi Germany. Unheralded during his lifetime, he is now recognised as the father of modern computer science and as possessing one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Here his ground-breaking work and his private side lifts the veil of secrecy, particularly with regard to his post-war contribution to computing science with the Americans and his work as Manchester Computing Machine Laboratory. Only in 1974 was the official ban on any mention of Ultra lifted. Watched by MI5, Turing died of cyanide poisoning. A vat of cyanide was found in the 'nightmare room' between his bedroom and the bathroom, and the coroner ruled that Turing had committed suicide 'while the balance of his mind was disturbed'. Yet no evidence was given about the state of his mind and the verdict has been questioned ever since. Slim illustrated biography, New full price paperback128pp.

In his foreword to this book Prof Christopher Andrew makes a poignant observation. In 1946 the White House was made publicly aware of US decryption of Japanese coded messages, so it was difficult for GCHQ to understand why, for 30 years, no historian had posed the rather obvious question of whether German ciphers had been cracked in WWII, and by whom. The answer was that all involved had been sworn to secrecy for life and all who either took part or who had discovered the truth had kept to their oaths and it was not until 1975 that the government acknowledged the facts and the amazing story of the codebreakers of Bletchley Park began to emerge. Perhaps the most prominent of them was Alan Turing and it is his nephew Dermot, author of many other volumes on codebreaking and early computing, that provides us with rather excellent "Who's Who" of the entire Bletchley Park operation - not just those who worked in the huts, but also the US, French, Polish and British government officials involved. Turing narrates the story from its beginnings Room 40 in the Old Admiralty Building in Whitehall in 1914. As Britain woke up to the threat of Hitler it was decided that the codebreakers needed a new home - out of town, big enough to accommodate a rapidly growing staff, good communications and not too obvious to enemy spies. In 1938 Bletchley Park came onto the market and was snapped up and "Captain Ridley's Shooting Party", the first group of spies and codebreakers, moved in. As the story progresses, Turing provides potted biographies of all who feature, both famed and less well-known, bringing to life the stories of these dedicated men and women who toiled day and night in the service of their country. With many b/w photos and plenty of delightful asides and anecdotes, here is the human face of one of our greatest wartime achievements. 256pp paperback.

A moving and sombre exploration of reality under Hitler's regime. People's fight against censorship, prejudice, beatings, imprisonment and murder are recounted and celebrated as victories against the violence of the Nazi rule, from the 'free university' in Brussels which saw students and teachers setting up underground classes in the face of Nazi 'guest professors' in 1941, to the Danish underground who were unique in seeking the approval of the workers affected by their sabotage. Read about the Nazi's execution of 60,000 people in Poland who were the country's intellectual élite and political and religious leaders, lament the murder of 1,300 civilians and the decimation of two villages in Czechoslovakia after a small group of Czech rebels assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and understand further the violence of the Nazis against Dutch soldiers and workers who decided to strike against the invaders in 1943. In the end the Germans shot 180 strikers dead, wounded 400 more and arrested a further 900 who were transported to concentration and forced labour camps. This historical companion includes tragic diary extracts from Anne Frank which describe how, at any time of night or day, Jewish people were dragged out of their homes and families were torn apart. Photographs include a portrait of an unnamed French resistance fighter from Life magazine in 1944, a picture of a detachment of German troops crossing the river Vlatava in Prague on 23rd March 1939, and a snapshot of the Duke of Windsor visiting a stock factory on 11th October 1937 and sitting beside Robert Ley, whom Hitler liked to mock for his speech defect. Travel from Germany and France, to Denmark, Holland and Norway as you understand the far-reaching, tragic actions of the Nazis and how people stood up against them. Paperback, photographs, 224pp.

True stories of seduction, subterfuge and state secrets, all's fair in love at war, at least the Nazis thought so. They deployed sex like no other weapon to achieve their goal of world domination, and were prepared to go to amazing lengths to gain Allied secrets. This book contains unforgettable but little-known stories featuring the likes of Princess Stephanie Juliane von Hohenlohe, a close friend of Hitler who used her relationship with Lord Rothermere the press baron to try to encourage the Daily Mail to support the Nazis. Here are the murky secrets of the Russian Tea Room in London's South Kensington, and fashion designer Coco Chanel's plans to persuade Winston Churchill to end the war. There are cases from a time when brothels became hotbeds of bugging and blackmail and pillow talk was used to topple nations. We meet La Jana, a dancer and actress who spearheaded the Nazis' attempts to replicate Hollywood rituals, seen in a saucy shot on page 8; blacklisting, liaisons ending in unwanted children, spies like 'Vera' learning Morse code, radio transmission, microphotography and simple sabotage in Operation Hummer Nord, intelligence provided by 'Ruth' the peach of Pearl Harbor and US Naval intelligence, Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS and Swastika swishery, lesbian vices, a right royal scandal and more. 256pp in illustrated paperback.

In 1939, ever increasing numbers of budding cryptanalysts started reporting for wartime duty at a country house in north Buckinghamshire. Musicians, society debutants and novelists were among the women and tweedy, owlish young men, their heads filled with astounding equations and barely comprehensible calculations. The 10,000 men and women who worked at Bletchley Park had to sign the Official Secrets Act and they kept their vow of silence implacably for decades afterwards. Some died without the satisfaction of even their own families knowing about their crucial work breaking the German and Japanese codes. Belatedly however the secret was lifted, and now Sinclair McKay chooses a hundred of Bletchley Park's alumni to tell the stories of their whole lives, and not just the wartime interlude. Sometimes the distinction as chess players, musicians or linguists was what saw these young people selected. For others the intense intellectual crucible seems to have galvanised their ambition and widened their horizons, and sent them out into the post-war world determined to make a difference with their lives. Here then are the historians and archaeologists, novelists and naturalists, but also classics masters, a Nuremberg prosecutor and an associate of Andy Warhol - everyone from Roy Jenkins to the man who wrote the music for the Dracula films, and from the woman who saved St Pancras Station to Prince Philip's first girlfriend, and even those unfairly judged during their lives not to have amounted to much at all. 250pp, eight pages of photos.

Packaged for WH Smith, the DVD entitled Churchill: A Giant In the Century is a fascinating film using rare footage and recordings from the archives. It has been fully digitally remastered and colourised using the latest techniques available and shows Churchill's life for the first time in colour. He was a figure who bestrode the 20th century who held many political and cabinet positions including Home Secretary from 1910, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for War. However it was on 10th May 1940 when Churchill became Prime Minister and took control of Britain's war effort that he finally sealed his place in history. A soldier, an artist, historian and the only British Prime Minister to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sir Winston Churchill was also an Honorary Citizen of the United States. DVD and large softback fully illustrated booklet. 50 minutes running time.