{"title":"Books by John Shields","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781399007528","title":"Air Power in the Falklands Conflict","description":"From the television footage shown in all its stark reality and the daily coverage and subsequent memoirs, the impression delivered from the air battles in the Falklands Conflict was that of heroic Argentine pilots who relentlessly pressed home their attacks against the British. While, by contrast, there is a counter-narrative that portrayed the Sea Harrier force as being utterly dominant over its Argentine enemies. But what was the reality of the air war over the Falkland Islands?While books on the air operations have published since that time, they have, in the main, been personal accounts, re-told by those who were there, fighting at a tactical level, or back in their nation's capital running the strategic implications of the outcome. But a detailed analysis of the operational level of the air war has not been undertaken - until now. At the same time, some analysts have inferred that this Cold War sideshow offers little insight into lessons for the operating environment of future conflicts. As the author demonstrates in this book, there are lessons from 1982 that do have important and continued relevance today.   Using recently released primary source material, the author, a serving RAF officer who spent two-and-a-half years in the Falklands as an air defence navigator, has taken an impartial look at the air campaign at the operational level. This has enabled him to develop a considered view of what should have occurred, comparing it with what actually happened. In so doing, John Shields has produced a comprehensive account of the air campaign that has demolished many of the enduring myths.   This is the story of not why, but how the air war was fought over the skies of the South Atlantic.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56298314137973,"sku":"9781399007528","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781399007528_6ccecb98-2a0d-4263-9abf-c58b8e0cd70b.jpg?v=1786019597"},{"product_id":"9781036105402","title":"Spitfire Pilot Air Commodore Geoffrey Stephenson","description":"\u003cp\u003eUnder cloudless blue skies, the Oakwood Cemetery Annex in Montgomery, Alabama hosts the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the United States. Most of the graves contain young RAF trainee pilots killed during their flying training at nearby Maxwell and Gunter airfields during the Second World War.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHowever, there is another grave, located at the edge of the plot, not from the early 1940s but, from 1954\\. The grave marks the final resting place of a 44-year-old senior RAF officer, Air Commodore Geoffrey Stephenson CBE. It begs the questions who was he and why is he buried there?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book sets out to answer both these questions. As a result, this is the remarkable story of not only Stephenson’s life but the people, planes and places that would leave an indelible mark on a seasoned fighter pilot.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter growing up in Lincolnshire and Ireland, 18-year-old Stephenson joined the RAF in 1928 alongside Douglas Bader who would become a life-long friend. After leaving Cranwell, the pair both joined 23 Squadron. In the 1930s, Stephenson rose through the ranks to command 19 Squadron, a Duxford-based Spitfire unit, that would see his baptism of fire over Dunkirk in late May 1940\\. Following the downing of a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, Stephenson was himself shot down and crash landed on the beach at Sangatte. After a brief period on the run in France and Belgium, Stephenson was taken into captivity, spending the next five years as a prisoner of war, ending up at the iconic Colditz Castle where, ironically, he was reunited with his old friend Bader.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUpon his release in April 1945, Stephenson quickly resumed his RAF career commanding, instructing, and flying the latest jet fighters, both at home and overseas. He was aide-de-camp to two monarchs, including escorting a young Queen Elizabeth II during her 1953 Coronation Review.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHowever, his already eventful career would take a tragic turn. In 1954, Stephenson flew to the United States to review their latest acquisitions, which included a flight in the supersonic F-100 Super Sabre. It would be his last flight.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNevertheless, Stephenson’s legacy lives on at his former base at Duxford in the guise of the Imperial War Museum’s immaculately restored Spitfire Mk. I N3200\\. This was the very aircraft in which he force-landed on 26 May 1940\\. Recovered from the French beach, N3200 was painstakingly rebuilt and returned to flying condition. Today, N3200 is often referred to as a ‘National Treasure’.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the biography of a remarkable pilot, husband and father, revealing the planes he flew, the places he visited, and the incredible people he met along the way.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56312109695349,"sku":"9781036105402","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781036105402_f3336ebb-71e1-4115-89c0-c166049d820e.jpg?v=1786016894"},{"product_id":"9781009520331","title":"Managing Employee Performance and Reward","description":"Managing Employee Performance and Reward: Strategies, Practices and Prospects covers two major components of human resource management: managing the performance of employees and how they are rewarded. The text's holistic approach focuses on two overarching objectives of an effective human resource management system: strategic alignment and employees' psychological engagement. The fourth edition has been streamlined to address more clearly the fundamental concepts, strategies and practices of performance and reward. A new chapter on pay negotiation and communication examines pay transparency policies and explores the factors affecting pay negotiation, with particular reference to gender and cultural identity. Each chapter includes discussion questions and 'reality checks' linking to the book's main themes of strategic alignment and psychological engagement. A new running case study takes students through realistic human resource management scenarios and encourages them to apply what they have learnt. Managing Employee Performance and Reward remains an indispensable resource for students and business professionals.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367836103029,"sku":"9781009520331","price":70.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781009520331.jpg?v=1786017148"},{"product_id":"canadian-non-profit-sector","title":"The Canadian Non-profit Sector","description":"\u003cp\u003eNeoliberal restructuring has left individuals and families scrambling for survival and increasingly reliant on the under-funded and over-regulated non-profit sector to patch over the steadily growing fissures in our society. The book examines the creativity and resilience of nonprofits in maintaining and expanding their services. This book also delves into the vital role of non-profits in advocacy for human rights, anti-racism, Indigenous claims, and improved health and social services.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eThe decades-long turn towards marketized solutions to social needs has created the conditions under which privatized modes of service delivery have become the norm. The extraordinary rise of the non-profit sector is an under-analyzed consequence of neoliberal restructuring in Canada. In this timely corrective, Ted Richmond and John Shields analyze the place of the non-profit sector in neoliberal times in Canada. The authors take a critical political economy approach, providing a vital analysis of the significance of the non-profit sector, and bring clarity to its dimensions and roles in society. The book pays particular attention to the provision of social, human and health services in Canada’s changing welfare state system.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57487770583413,"sku":"9781773636696","price":16.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781773636696.jpg?v=1786354995"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-john-shields.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}