{"title":"Books by Peter Green","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780241705391","title":"The Prime of Life","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe second volume in Simone de Beauvoir’s celebrated autobiography recalls her formative years in Paris when she began to emerge as a public figure\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst published in 1960, \u003ci\u003eThe Prime of Life\u003c\/i\u003e offers an intimate, captivating picture of Simone de Beauvoir in her twenties, thirties and forties. Beginning as a recent graduate from the Sorbonne teaching high-school girls, we see de Beauvoir revel in the freedom her new financial independence brings. We see her and Jean-Paul Sartre recognise the powerful romantic and intellectual partnership they have found in one another, as they fall in love and define their own unconventional parameters. The Second World War comes, bringing austerity, violence and questions of the reality of freedom and individual responsibility into de Beauvoir’s life. As relevant and penetrating as when first published, \u003ci\u003eThe Prime of Life\u003c\/i\u003e offers rare insight into a truly fascinating mind.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44583423082674,"sku":"9780241705391","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241705391_70a2b527-369d-498e-b64a-f3ed35bcacdb.jpg?v=1786012863"},{"product_id":"9780520275867","title":"Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 BC – A Historical Biography","description":"Until recently, popular biographers and most scholars viewed Alexander the Great as a genius with a plan, a romantic figure pursuing his vision of a united world. His dream was at times characterized as a benevolent interest in the brotherhood of man, sometimes as a brute interest in the exercise of power. Green, a Cambridge-trained classicist who is also a novelist, portrays Alexander as both a complex personality and a single-minded general, a man capable of such diverse expediencies as patricide or the massacre of civilians. Green describes his Alexander as \"not only the most brilliant (and ambitious) field commander in history, but also supremely indifferent to all those administrative excellences and idealistic yearnings foisted upon him by later generations, especially those who found the conqueror, tout court, a little hard upon their liberal sensibilities.\" This biography begins not with one of the universally known incidents of Alexander's life, but with an account of his father, Philip of Macedonia, whose many-territoried empire was the first on the continent of Europe to have an effectively centralized government and military.   What Philip and Macedonia had to offer, Alexander made his own, but Philip and Macedonia also made Alexander form an important context for understanding Alexander himself. Yet his origins and training do not fully explain the man. After he was named hegemon of the Hellenic League, many philosophers came to congratulate Alexander, but one was conspicuous by his absence: Diogenes the Cynic, an ascetic who lived in a clay tub. Piqued and curious, Alexander himself visited the philosopher, who, when asked if there was anything Alexander could do for him, made the famous reply, \"Don't stand between me and the sun.\" Alexander's courtiers jeered, but Alexander silenced them: \"If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.\" This remark was as unexpected in Alexander as it would be in a modern leader. For the general reader, the book, redolent with gritty details and fully aware of Alexander's darker side, offers a gripping tale of Alexander's career. Full backnotes, fourteen maps, and chronological and genealogical tables serve readers with more specialized interests.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291495903605,"sku":"9780520275867","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780520275867_d9f44915-b424-4718-a37d-7fe637e71c92.jpg?v=1786014195"},{"product_id":"9781399088374","title":"Captured at Arnhem","description":"For the British 1st Airborne Division Operation Market Garden in September 1944 was a disaster. The Division was eliminated as a fighting force with around a half of its men were captured.   The Germans were faced with dealing with 6,000 prisoners in a fortnight; many of them seriously wounded. Somehow the men were processed and despatched to camps around Germany and German occupied eastern Europe. Here the men experienced the reality of the collapsing regime - little food and shrinking frontiers.   Once liberated in 1945 returning former prisoners were required to complete liberation questionnaires. Some refused. Others returned before 'Operation Endor' to handle released men and their repatriation to Britain was in place. Around a third did. However the questionnaires that do exist give an picture of every day experience for the 2,357 of these elite troops' time in captivity from capture to release.   They show that German procedures still operating, but that men were often treated inhumanely, when moved to camps by closed box cars and when camps were evacuated. Although their interrogators were interested in Allied aircraft and airfields, their interrogators were also concerned the effect of the new miracle weapons and with politics, how Germany would be treated after an Allied victory?Nevertheless the airborne men's morale remained high; carrying out sabotage at artificial oil plants, railway repairs, factories and mines. Some overcame their guards when being evacuated at the end of the War, in some cases joining the Resistance. They record help received from Dutch, French and German civilians.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56298707517813,"sku":"9781399088374","price":28.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781399088374_9da09b25-ca72-4cb4-849e-d1fc56a0d43a.jpg?v=1786019873"},{"product_id":"9781803999395","title":"The March East 1945","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDuring the final days of the Second World War, for 900 Allied officers held by the Germans, freedom was still a world away.\u003c\/strong\u003e Marched east by their captors, away from the liberating American forces, March and April 1945 was a time of great trials, at the mercy of vengeful Nazis and Allied air raids. Amongst their number were men whose names would become famous post-war, such as actor Desmond Llewellyn, cabinet minister Frederick Corfield and Major Bruce Shand, father of the Duchess of Cornwall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe March East 1945\u003c\/em\u003e draws on official and eyewitness accounts, as well as over 30 diaries and memoirs. With more than 120 photographs and exceptional illustrations taken and drawn by PoWs as well as the German instructions for camp evacuation, it reveals the human story that unfolded in Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony, and explains how the prisoners survived until their final liberation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56307442057589,"sku":"9781803999395","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781803999395_c1b92fad-2f05-410e-8616-48ffa5ba3724.jpg?v=1786027458"},{"product_id":"railways-of-portugal","title":"Railways of Portugal","description":"A 144 page hardback illustrated album showcasing 40 years of change on Portugal's railways, from the late 1970s to the present. Includes steam and diesel, broad and narrow gauges, English Electric 1400s and 1800s, and lots of other interesting details.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57510035849589,"sku":"9781900340816","price":29.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781900340816.jpg?v=1787130292"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-peter-green.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}