{"title":"Books by Brendan Simms","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780141037172","title":"Europe","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBrendan Simms's formidable, game-changing history of Europe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this marvelously ambitious and exciting book, Brendan Simms tells the story of Europe's constantly shifting geopolitics and the peculiar circumstances that have made it both so impossible to dominate, but also so dynamic and ferocious. It is the story of a group of highly competitive and mutually suspicious dynasties, but also of a continent uniquely prone to interference from 'semi-detached' elements, such as Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain and (just as centrally to Simms's argument) the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224577814901,"sku":"9780141037172","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141037172_6b42d5dd-64a5-4f5d-8969-7382eb0be565.jpg?v=1786011776"},{"product_id":"9780140289848","title":"Three Victories and a Defeat","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Studded with brilliant vignettes and arresting insights, Simms's marvellous narrative presents an original and provocative account not only of the rise and decline of British eighteenth-cetury imperial power, but also of the processes that formed the modern global system' Christopher Clark\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis highly original, extremely enjoyable book tells the story of Britain’s extraordinary scramble to world power in the 18th century and how, through hubris and incompetence, it lost almost everything it had gained.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhilst Britain was an important European power, few would have expected her global preeminence by 1760, but as Brendan Simms shows with great flair and originality, Britain had a crucial card to play.  It was the joining of the British crown to Hanover that gave Britain two empires: one scattered around the world and another – the more important of the two - firmly locked into Germany.   Having created a new empire Britain then spectacularly lost it, this time because of its chaotic failure to maintain its European alliances.  This is an epic and often unexpected story, and Simms tells it brilliantly.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224726843765,"sku":"9780140289848","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780140289848_0cfc62cb-9a8f-4064-a11b-c62a739aabd8.jpg?v=1786011224"},{"product_id":"9780141991849","title":"Hitler's American Gamble","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'History at its scintillating best ... hard-hitting, revelatory and superbly researched' Andrew Roberts, author of \u003ci\u003eChurchill: Walking with Destiny\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'A rare achievement ... sure to become an instant classic' John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eThis gripping book dramatizes the extraordinarily compressed and terrifying period between the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war on the United States. These five days transformed much of the world and have shaped our own experience ever since.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Simms and Laderman's aim in the book is to show how this agonizing period had no inevitability about it and that innumerable outcomes were possible. Key leaders around the world were taking decisions with often poor and confused information, under overwhelming pressure and knowing that they could be facing personal and national disaster. And yet, there were also long-standing assumptions that shaped these decisions, both consciously and unconsciously.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eHitler's American Gamble \u003c\/i\u003eis a superb work of history, both as an explanation for the course taken by the Second World War and as a study in statecraft and political choices.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224893600117,"sku":"9780141991849","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141991849_22421c67-fbc6-4d86-94db-b7bccf172d20.jpg?v=1786011317"},{"product_id":"9780141979267","title":"The Longest Afternoon","description":"\u003cb\u003e'A superb little book that is micro-history at its best' \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The brevity of this remarkable book belies the amount of work that went into it. One can only marvel at how well Professor Simms has gone through the original sources - the surviving journals, reminiscences and letters of the individual combatants - to produce a coherent and gripping narrative' Nick Lezard, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe true story, told minute by minute, of the soldiers who defeated Napoleon - from Brendan Simms, acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eEurope: The Struggle for Supremacy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEurope had been at war for over twenty years.  After a short respite in exile, Napoleon had returned to France and threatened another generation of fighting across the devastated and exhausted continent.  At the small Belgian village of Waterloo two large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnknown either to Napoleon or Wellington the battle would be decided by a small, ordinary group of British and German troops given the task of defending the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte.  This book tells their extraordinary story, brilliantly recapturing the fear, chaos and chanciness of battle and using previously untapped eye-witness reports.  Through determination, cunning and fighting spirit, some four hundred soldiers held off many thousands of French and changed the course of history.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224989675893,"sku":"9780141979267","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141979267_74d410b5-633b-4b1c-ada1-0f6777eb8c2f.jpg?v=1786011763"},{"product_id":"9780141043302","title":"Hitler","description":"\u003cb\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE 2020\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eDAILY TELEGRAPH\u003c\/i\u003e BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA revelatory new biography of Adolf Hitler from the acclaimed historian Brendan Simms\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdolf Hitler is one of the most studied men in history, and yet the most important things we think we know about him are wrong. As Brendan Simms's major new biography shows, Hitler's main preoccupation was not, as widely believed, the threat of Bolshevism, but that of international capitalism and Anglo-America. These two fears drove both his anti-semitism and his determination to secure the 'living space' necessary to survive in a world dominated by the British Empire and the United States. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on new sources, Brendan Simms traces the way in which Hitler's ideology emerged after the First World War. The United States and the British Empire were, in his view, models for Germany's own empire, similarly founded on appropriation of land, racism and violence. Hitler's aim was to create a similarly global future for Germany - a country seemingly doomed otherwise not just to irrelevance, but, through emigration and foreign influence, to extinction. His principal concern during the resulting cataclysm was not just what he saw as the clash between German and Jews, or German and Slav, but above all that between Germans and what he called the 'Anglo-Saxons'. In the end only dominance of the world would have been enough to achieve Hitler's objectives, and it ultimately required a coalition of virtually the entire world to defeat him. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Brendan Simms's new book is the first to explain Hitler's beliefs fully, demonstrating how, as ever, it is ideas that are the ultimate source of the most murderous behaviour.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56225110393205,"sku":"9780141043302","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141043302_14da7b6e-2481-42d5-bf4d-466cac3628fd.jpg?v=1786011019"},{"product_id":"9781541701373","title":"The Silver Waterfall","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEighty years after the stunning and decisive battle, a revelatory new history of Midway\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Battle of Midway was, on paper, an improbable victory for the smaller, less experienced American navy and air force, so much so that it was quickly described as “a miracle.” Yet fortune favored the Americans at Midway, and the conventional wisdom has it that the Americans’ lucky streak continued as the war in the Pacific turned against the Japanese. This new history demonstrates that luck, let alone miracles, had little to do with it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Silver Waterfall\u003c\/i\u003e, Brendan Simms and Steven McGregor show how the efforts of America’s peacetime navy combined with creative innovations made by designers and industrialists were largely responsible for the victory. The Douglas Dauntless Dive Bomber, a uniquely conceived fighting weapon, delivered a brutally accurate attack the Japanese quickly came to dread. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTold through a vivid narrative, Simms and McGregor show how the course of the war in the Pacific was dramatically altered, emphasizing the crucial combination of a culture of innovation, a brilliant contribution from immigrants, and a vital intelligence coup that allowed the navy to orchestrate the devastating attack on the Japanese and dominate the Pacific for good.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304664707445,"sku":"9781541701373","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781541701373_73886f0e-0c24-47ed-97f9-55a5f20c8360.jpg?v=1786023465"},{"product_id":"9780141983905","title":"Britain's Europe","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Dazzling ... a trenchant, provocative account of the intimate relations  of Britain and Europe and how each shaped the other' \u003ci\u003eProspect Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Elegant,  refreshing and wide-ranging ... this is essentially a brief history of  the UK but a deliciously different one' \u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBritain has always had a tangled, complex, paradoxical role in Europe's history. It has invaded and been invaded, changed sides, stood aloof, acted with both brazen cynicism and the cloudiest idealism. Every century troops from the British isles have marched across the mainland in pursuit of a great complex of different goals, foremost among them the intertwined defence of parliamentary liberty in Britain and the 'Liberties of Europe'. Dynastically Britain has been closely linked to countries as varied as Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and France.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this bracing and highly enjoyable book, Brendan Simms describes the highlights and low-points in the Euro-British encounter, from the Dark Ages to the present. The critical importance of understanding this history is shown in the final chapter, which dramatizes the issues around British relations with the European Union.\u003ci\u003e Britain's Europe \u003c\/i\u003eis a vital intervention for our times.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311576232309,"sku":"9780141983905","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141983905_7490a3c6-a2c8-4d36-bb62-d24c31c4c85c.jpg?v=1786011034"},{"product_id":"return-of-the-great-powers","title":"The Return of the Great Powers","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom an acclaimed historian, a sweeping study of the past, present, and future of the Great Powers, revealing the new rules of global leadership.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the dawn of the modern era to the end of the Cold War, global history was defined by rivalries between great powers. In the West, this meant the struggle for supremacy in Europe and the Americas, while in the East, it encompassed those vying for control over the successor states to Genghis Khan's empire. Between 1989 and the year 2000, great power rivalry temporarily gave way to globalization, with liberal democracy on the march and national chauvinism seemingly in retreat. But events of the past decade have made one thing abundantly clear: the great powers are back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Return of the Great Powers\u003c\/i\u003e, renowned historian Brendan Simms offers a new history of the rise, fall, and return of the Great Powers in our time. He shows that over the past ten years or so, the major global actors have already resumed making decisions based on geopolitical rather than global economic considerations. Delivering a clear-eyed reckoning with today's most pressing geopolitical issues, from the Ukraine war to the future of American dominance, \u003ci\u003eThe Return of the Great Powers\u003c\/i\u003e insists that we can only understand the future of the great powers by looking to the history that forged them.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57483264131445,"sku":"9781399816946","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781399816946.jpg?v=1786178388"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-brendan-simms.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}