{"title":"Books by Patrick Marnham","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780099542247","title":"Snake Dance","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe terrifying first use of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was the most controversial act of warfare in history, dramatically ending the Second World War but ushering in the age of mass destruction. Yet it was also the climax of a story that extends beyond Japan and Washington: the culmination of decades of scientific achievement and centuries of colonial exploitation.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSnake Dance\u003c\/i\u003e is the account of a journey that turned into a quest to discover how humanity reaches this point. Patrick Marnham travels from the opulent nineteenth-century palaces of King Leopold II of Belgium, built with riches plundered from the Congo, to the lethally derelict nuclear reactor of modern-day Kinshasa. He follows the shipment of Congolese uranium to the deserts of New Mexico for the Manhattan Project’s secret test detonation. Here he uncovers the legacies of Robert Oppenheimer and Aby Warburg, two ‘mad geniuses’ who confronted the devastating power of twentieth-century science in very different ways. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth men travelled to New Mexico.  Oppenheimer was honoured for buiding a bomb, the ancestor of weapons that have enslaved humanity.  Warburg, condemned to obscurity and confined to a mental hospital, regained his sanity by studying the rituals of the Native Americans of the Southwest who, for thousands of years, practiced the ritual of the 'snake dance' in an attempt to harness the power of lightening.  And it was in New Mexico, at Los Alamos, that the ultimate act of playing God was realised.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe circle is closed in Japan.. Faced with the catastrophe at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in March 2011, scientific man, like the snake dancers, is faced with a power beyond his control. Spanning three continents and the history of civilisation, \u003ci\u003eSnake Dance\u003c\/i\u003e is at once an intrepid intellectual adventure and a wake-up call for mankind.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223285117301,"sku":"9780099542247","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099542247_47520d42-a50d-458c-a044-cf0b3c1d6297.jpg?v=1786011518"},{"product_id":"9780099498179","title":"Wild Mary: The Life Of Mary Wesley","description":"\u003cp\u003eMary Wesley published her first novel at seventy and went on to write a further nine bestsellers, including the legendary \u003ci\u003eThe Camomile Lawn\u003c\/i\u003e, in a style best described as arsenic without the old lace. Many of her stories were inspired by her experiences during the Blitz, and by her marriages: the first to an aristocrat, a brief and conventional affair, and the second to a penniless writer she adored.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA remarkable book about a remarkable woman, Patrick Marnham's brilliantly researched and wonderfully impartial book disentangles truth from rumour, highlighting the links between Wesley's real life and her fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223644057973,"sku":"9780099498179","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099498179_6c0cd63b-9f02-42ac-902b-471326a970f9.jpg?v=1786011467"},{"product_id":"9780755647828","title":"Army of the Night","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDiscover the truth behind one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of World War II.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho was the enigmatic Jean Moulin, a man as skilled in deception as he was in acts of heroism? The memory of this French Resistance hero, who was betrayed to the Gestapo and tortured by Klaus Barbie, the infamous ‘Butcher of Lyon’, is revered alongside that of other national icons. But Moulin’s story is full of unanswered questions and the truth of his life is far more complicated than the legend. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePatrick Marnham, winner of the Marsh Prize for biography, thrillingly tells the epic story of France’s greatest war hero, bringing to light the shadowy and often deceitful world of the French Resistance, and offers a shocking conclusion to one of the great unsolved mysteries of World War II.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294633767285,"sku":"9780755647828","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780755647828_b11a850c-b40f-4110-bddf-b06740fa9aa4.jpg?v=1786015689"},{"product_id":"9780861540587","title":"War in the Shadows","description":"\u003cb\u003e‘One of our very best writers on France.’ Antony Beevor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAfter publishing an acclaimed biography of Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance, Patrick Marnham received an anonymous letter from a person who claimed to have worked for British Intelligence during the war. The ex-spy praised his book but insisted that he had missed the real ‘treasure’. The letter drew Marnham back to the early 1960s when he had been taught French by a mercurial woman – a former Resistance leader, whose SOE network was broken on the same day that Moulin was captured and who endured eighteen months in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Could these two events have been connected? His anonymous correspondent offered a tantalising set of clues that seemed to implicate Churchill and British Intelligence in the catastrophe.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDrawing on a deep knowledge of France and original research in British and French archives, \u003ci\u003eWar in the Shadows\u003c\/i\u003e exposes the ruthless double-dealing of the Allied intelligence services and the Gestapo through one of the darkest periods of the Second World War. It is a story worthy of Le Carré, but with this difference – it is not fiction.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e‘A melange of \u003ci\u003eLe Grand Meaulnes\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Spy Who Came in from the Cold\u003c\/i\u003e. It is unforgettable.’ Ferdinand Mount, \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e, Books of the Year\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e‘A masterly analysis, impeccably presented.’ Allan Mallinson, \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e‘Fascinating… Marnham has a vast and scholarly knowledge of this often treacherous world.’ Caroline Moorehead, \u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56295148749173,"sku":"9780861540587","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780861540587_4d0a32a9-9764-4ad3-910f-76eff5f7987e.jpg?v=1786016090"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-patrick-marnham.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}