Britain's Best Kept Secret


Book Description

This book traces the Park's early history and provides a guide to the key wartime buildings and what went on behind the scenes. In this fully revised new edition, Enever describes the Bletchley Park Trust's battle to acquire the Park and thus preserve this historic site for the nation.




The Hidden History of Bletchley Park


Book Description

This book is a 'hidden' history of Bletchley Park during the Second World War, which explores the agency from a social and gendered perspective. It examines themes such as: the experience of wartime staff members; the town in which the agency was situated; and the cultural influences on the wartime evolution of the agency.




Secret Britain


Book Description

- An exploration of the most fascinating and beautiful corners of Great Britain, including obscure and less-visited places that receive little coverage in more conventional guides. - Reveals little-known gems that add to the heritage of England, Wales and Scotland. - Discover breath-taking landscapes and buildings, wild hills and spectacular coastlines, ancient castles and stately homes, wide estuaries and hidden valleys. - Every chapter is accompanied by lively commentary, a full-color map, and beautiful photography that captures the unique character of each site. - Includes suggestions for places to stay and nearby attractions




Gordon Welchman


Book Description

“Enigma’s ‘forgotten genius’ . . . [the] story of Alan Turing’s spymaster boss who led the team that cracked Hitler’s WWII codes” (Daily Mail). The Official Secrets Act and the passing of time have prevented the Bletchley Park story from being told by many of its key participants. Here at last is a book that allows some of them to speak for the first time. Gordon Welchman was one of the Park’s most important figures. Like Alan Turing, his pioneering work was fundamental to the success of Bletchley Park and helped pave the way for the birth of the digital age. Yet, his story is largely unknown to many. His book, The Hut Six Story, was the first to reveal not only how they broke the codes, but how it was done on an industrial scale. Its publication created such a stir in GCHQ and the NSA that Welchman was forbidden to discuss the book or his wartime work with the media. In order to finally set the record straight, Bletchley Park historian and tour guide Joel Greenberg has drawn on Welchman’s personal papers and correspondence with wartime colleagues that lay undisturbed in his son’s loft for many years. Packed with fascinating new insights, including Welchman’s thoughts on key Bletchley figures and the development of the bombe machine, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the clandestine activities at Bletchley Park. “A magnificent biography which finally provides recognition to one of Bletchley’s and Britain’s lost heroes.” —Michael Smith “Reveals a man equally as fascinating equally as important as Turing, and tells us even more about what went on in this most secret of establishments during the war years.” —Books Monthly




The Last Ditch


Book Description

Novelists, historians, and theorists have often toyed with the question: what would have happened if the Germans had occupied Britain in 1940? Based on years of persistent detective work, The Last Ditch investigates the German plans and the countermeasures undertaken through the specially formed British Resistance Organization. The very existence of this Resistance movement remained a secret for more than two decades until the silence was finally broken by Lampe. Few would have escaped oppression and inevitable gruesome consequences would have followed. There was to be mass deportation; wholesale appropriations of the country’s agricultural, mineral, and industrial produce; and widespread arrests, as revealed in the notorious Gestapo Arrest List—reprinted here in full. Lampe captures the mood of the post-Dunkirk period, setting the tone and immersing the reader in the challenging physical and psychological environment of those critical weeks and months. Although they never went into action, the Resistance was ready and waiting: the last ditch of Britain’s defense. So successful was their organization that they became the model for the Resistance and underground movements that were to arise all over occupied Europe. Included within are chilling interviews with key players that modern works cannot duplicate. In telling their story, Lampe relates one of the best-kept secrets of World War II and presents insight into what might have been.




Strategic Intelligence


Book Description

While several fine texts on intelligence have been published over the past decade, there is no complementary set of volumes that addresses the subject in a comprehensive manner for the general reader. This major set explains how the sixteen major U.S. intelligence agencies operate, how they collect information from around the world, the problems they face in providing further insight into this raw information through the techniques of analysis, and the difficulties that accompany the dissemination of intelligence to policymakers in a timely manner. Further, in a democracy it is important to have accountability over secret agencies and to consider some ethical benchmarks in carrying out clandestine operations. In addition to intelligence collection and analysis and the subject of intelligence accountability, this set addresses the challenges of counterintelligence and counterterrorism, as well covert action. Further, it provides comparisons regarding the various approaches to intelligence adopted by other nations around the world. Its five volumes underscore the history, the politics, and the policies needed for a solid comprehension of how the U.S. intelligence community functions in the modern age of globalization, characterized by a rapid flow of information across national boundaries.




Directory of World Cinema: Britain 2


Book Description

The first volume of the Directory of World Cinema: Britain provided an overview of British cinema from its earliest days to the present. In this, the second volume, the contributors focus on specific periods and trace the evolutions of individual genres and directors. A complementary edition rather than an update of its predecessor, the book offers essays on war and family films, as well as on LGBT cinema and representations of disability in British films. Contributors consider established British directors such as Ken Loach and Danny Boyle as well as newcomer Ben Wheatley, who directed the fabulously strange A Field in England. This volume also shines the spotlight on the British Film Institute and its role in funding, preservation, and education in relation to British cinema. A must read for any fan of film, the history of the United Kingdom, or international artistic traditions, Directory of World Cinema: Britain 2 will find an appreciative audience both within and outside academia.




The Secret in Building 26


Book Description

For the first time, the inside story of the brilliant American engineer who defeated Enigma and the Nazi code-masters Much has been written about the success of the British “Ultra” program in cracking the Germans’ Enigma code early in World War II, but few know what really happened in 1942, when the Germans added a fourth rotor to the machine that created the already challenging naval code and plunged Allied intelligence into darkness. Enter one Joe Desch, an unassuming but brilliant engineer at the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio, who was given the task of creating a machine to break the new Enigma settings. It was an enterprise that rivaled the Manhattan Project for secrecy and complexity–and nearly drove Desch to a breakdown. Under enormous pressure, he succeeded in creating a 5,000-pound electromechanical monster known as the Desch Bombe, which helped turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic–but not before a disgruntled co-worker attempted to leak information about the machine to the Nazis. After toiling anonymously–it even took his daughter years to learn of his accomplishments–Desch was awarded the National Medal of Merit, the country’s highest civilian honor. In The Secret in Building 26, the entire thrilling story of the final triumph over Enigma is finally told.




Sexual Violence Against Children in Britain Since 1965


Book Description

This book investigates the changes and continuities in the ways in which sexual violence has been interpreted and represented in Britain since 1965. It explores the representational trail of the Moors murders and subsequent trial of 1966, the emergence of age of consent abolitionism in the 1970s, Cleveland’s child sexual abuse crisis of 1987-8, and 2010 and 20s contemplations on the Jimmy Savile scandal. Harnessing research into popular media forms and a huge range of personal, political and professional records, Nick Basannavar carefully parses and illustrates the ways in which journalists, medical workers, politicians, lobbyists and other groups assembled and animated their narratives, revealing complex rhetorical and emotional processes. This book challenges problematic conceptual dichotomies such as silence/noise or ignorance/knowledge. It shows instead that although categories such as ‘child sexual abuse’ and ‘paedophilia’ may be relatively recent linguistic value-constructs, sexual violence against children has existed and been represented across historical moments, in changeable and challenging ways.




Historical Dictionary of World War II


Book Description

This dictionary covers the complex and costly conflict that began when Germany, ruled by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, invaded neighboring Poland on 1 September 1939; and concluded when Germany surrendered on 7–9 May 1945, leaving much of the European continent in ruins and its population devastated. The war against Germany, Italy, and the other European Axis members was fought primarily in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, East and North Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. The Axis powers were defeated by the Allies, led by the “Grand Alliance” of Great Britain, the United States, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Historical Dictionary of World War II: The War against Germany and Italy relates the history of this war through a chronology, an introductory essay, maps and photos, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 300 cross-referenced entries on the countries and geographical areas involved in the war, as well as the nations remaining neutral; wartime alliances and conferences; significant civilian and military leaders; and major ground, naval, and air operations. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about World War II.