{"title":"Books by Frederick Taylor","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781408840184","title":"The Downfall of Money","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA timely narrative account of the biggest financial crisis in modern history and its human consequences by the author of \u003ci\u003eDresden \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Berlin Wall.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Excellent … This is a dramatic story, well told'\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany theorists believed a hundred years ago, just as they did at the beginning of our twenty-first century, that the world had reached a state of economic perfection, a never before seen condition of beneficial human interdependence that would lead to universal growth and prosperity. And yet the early years of the Weimar Republic in Germany witnessed the most complete and terrifying unravelling of a major country's financial system to have occurred in modern times. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  The story of the Weimar Republic's financial crisis has a clear resonance in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when the world is anxious once more about what money is, what it means and how we can judge if its value is true. The Downfall of Money will tell anew the dramatic story of the hyperinflation that saw the once-solid German mark, worth 4.2 to the dollar in 1914, trading at over four trillion by the autumn of 1923. It is a trajectory of events uncomfortably relevant for today's uncertain world. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003eThe Downfall of Money \u003c\/i\u003ewill reveal the real causes of the crisis, what this collapse meant to ordinary people, and also trace its connection to Germany's subsequent catastrophic political history. By drawing on a wide range of sources and making sense for the general reader of the vast amount of specialist research that has become available in recent decades, it will provide a timely, fresh and surprising look at this chilling period in history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204372332722,"sku":"9781408840184","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781408840184_2264dfcf-51ad-467a-a17d-27796b2b0823.jpg?v=1786019862"},{"product_id":"9780747570844","title":"Dresden","description":"At 9.51 p.m. on Tuesday 13 February 1945, Dresden's air-raid sirens sounded as they had done many times during the Second World War. But this time was different. By the next morning, more than 4,500 tons of high explosives and incendiary devices had been dropped on the unprotected city.  At least 25,000 inhabitants died in the terrifying firestorm and thirteen square miles of the city's historic centre, including incalculable quantities of treasure and works of art, lay in ruins. In this portrait of the city, its people, and its still-controversial destruction, Frederick Taylor has drawn on archives and sources only accessible since the fall of the East German regime, and talked to Allied aircrew and survivors, from members of the German armed services and refugees fleeing the Russian advance to ordinary citizens of Dresden.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56296609186165,"sku":"9780747570844","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780747570844_9449a54c-6280-492f-a0a1-6ef6b560c922.jpg?v=1786015315"},{"product_id":"9781408822128","title":"Exorcising Hitler","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe first major history of what happened in Germany immediately after the Second World War\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Frederick Taylor is one of the brightest historians writing today.' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Taylor's book is popular history at its best, essential reading for anyone who is interested in the Nazis and wants to know what happened next.' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Germany had entered the twentieth century united, prosperous, and strong, admired by almost all humanity for its remarkable achievements. By 1945 it was a broken shell: its great cities lay in ruins and its shattered industries and cultural heritage seemed utterly beyond saving. The Germans themselves had come to be regarded as evil monsters. After six years of warfare how were the exhausted victors to handle the end of a horror that to most people seemed without precedent?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eExorcising Hitler\u003c\/i\u003e, Frederick Taylor tells the story of Germany's year zero and what came after. As he describes the final Allied campaign, the hunting down of the Nazi resistance, the vast displacement of peoples in central and eastern Europe, the attitudes of the conquerors, the competition between Soviet Russia and the West, the hunger and near starvation of a once proud people, the initially naive attempt at expunging Nazism from all aspects of German life and the later more pragmatic approach, we begin to understand that despite almost total destruction, a combination of conservatism, enterprise and pragmatism in relation to former Nazis enabled the economic miracle of the 1950s. And we see how it was only when the '60s generation (the children of the Nazi era) began to question their parents with increasing violence that Germany began to awake from its 'sleep cure'.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56299157881205,"sku":"9781408822128","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781408822128_d139e806-1a0a-4b07-a2dc-ea9857f7aba7.jpg?v=1786019759"},{"product_id":"9781408802564","title":"The Berlin Wall","description":"The appearance of a hastily-constructed barbed wire entanglement through the heart of Berlin during the night of 12-13 August 1961 was both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had started to metamorphose into a structure that would come to symbolise the brutal insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. A city of almost four million was cut ruthlessly in two, unleashing a potentially catastrophic East-West crisis and plunging the entire world for the first time into the fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse. This threat would vanish only when the very people the Wall had been built to imprison, breached it on the historic night of 9 November 1989.  The Berlin Wall reveals the strange and chilling story of how the initial barrier system was conceived, then systematically extended, adapted and strengthened over almost thirty years. Patrolled by vicious dogs and by guards on shoot-to-kill orders, the Wall, with its more than 300 towers, became a wired and lethally booby-trapped monument to a world torn apart by fiercely antagonistic ideologies.   The Wall had tragic consequences in personal and political terms, affecting the lives of Germans and non-Germans alike in a myriad of cruel, inhuman and occasionally absurd ways. The Berlin Wall is the definitive account of a divided city and its people.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56299190976885,"sku":"9781408802564","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781408802564_5dc1175b-e9c3-492e-8bee-683e251e9541.jpg?v=1786019661"},{"product_id":"9781509858767","title":"1939","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Taylor has done us a great service in making the personal stories of what it was actually like to live through the  most crucial year of the twentieth century vivid, compelling and salutary.’ - \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eRoland Philipps, author of \u003ci\u003eA Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the autumn of 1938, Europe believed in the promise of peace. Still reeling from the ravages of the Great War, its people were desperate to rebuild their lives in a newly safe and stable era. But only a year later, the fateful decisions of just a few men had again led Europe to war, a war that would have a profound and lasting impact on millions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBestselling historian Frederick Taylor focuses on the day-to-day experiences of British and German people trapped in this disastrous chain of events and not, as is so often the case, the elite. Drawn from original sources, their voices, concerns and experiences  reveal a marked disconnect between government and people; few ordinary citizens in either country wanted war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e1939: A People’s History\u003c\/i\u003e is not only a vivid account of that turbulent year but also an interrogation of our capacity to go to war again. In many ways it serves as a warning; an opportunity for us to learn from our history and a reminder that we must never take peace for granted.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56301602013557,"sku":"9781509858767","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509858767_6811c7c8-3f30-4c78-8358-6f14db6d7f5f.jpg?v=1786022342"},{"product_id":"9781526614278","title":"The Berlin Wall","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe astonishing drama of Cold War nuclear poker that divided humanity - reissued with a new Postscript to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the wall.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring the night of 12–13 August 1961, a barbed-wire entanglement was hastily constructed through the heart of Berlin. It metamorphosed into a structure that would come to symbolise the insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. Frederick Taylor tells the story of the post-war political conflict that led to a divided Berlin and unleashed an East–West crisis, which lasted until the very people the Wall had been built to imprison breached it on 9 November 1989.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWeaving together history, original archive research and personal stories, \u003ci\u003eThe Berlin Wall\u003c\/i\u003e, now published in fifteen languages, is the definitive account of a divided city and its people in a time when humanity seemed to stand permanently on the edge of destruction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302724809077,"sku":"9781526614278","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526614278_372d0cfb-54af-4560-89ad-7a5b416ce608.jpg?v=1786021698"},{"product_id":"9780393868272","title":"1939 – A People′s History of the Coming of the Second World War","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the autumn of 1938, Europe believed in the promise of peace. But only a year later, the fateful decisions of just a few men had again led Europe to a massive world war. Drawing on contemporary diaries, memoirs, and newspapers, as well as recorded interviews, \u003cem\u003e1939\u003c\/em\u003e is a narrative account of what the coming of the Second World War felt like to those who lived through it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrederick Taylor, author of renowned histories of the Berlin Wall and the bombing of Dresden, highlights the day-to-day experiences of ordinary citizens as well as those who were at the height of power in Germany and Britain. Their voices lend an intimate flavor to this often-surprising account of the period and reveal a marked disconnect between government and people, for few people in either country wanted war.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e1939\u003c\/em\u003e is a vivid and richly peopled narrative of Europe’s slide into the horrors of war and a powerful warning for our own time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56368014819701,"sku":"9780393868272","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780393868272_3f29e5bc-a2a3-44d5-a1e8-af2afa03c30d.jpg?v=1786032959"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-frederick-taylor.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}