{"title":"Books by Richard Knott","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781526770318","title":"The Secret War Against the Arts","description":"\u003cp\u003eDuring the 1930s, the British Intelligence agencies became increasingly concerned about Communist influence in the country. They reacted by spying on thousands of ordinary British citizens. Amongst them were many artists and writers who, in tune with the spirit of the times', had become sympathetic to left-wing causes, most notably the Spanish Civil War. Telephones were bugged, post opened, homes searched and people encouraged to report suspicious behaviour - all reminiscent of the East German Stasi.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book has been written in the light of previously secret files, now available in The National Archives, which indicate the extent of the surveillance and the consequences for those being watched. It focuses on a significant number of writers and artists who were either members of the Communist Party of Great Britain or were suspected of being fellow travellers'.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey include: George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Olivia Manning, Storm Jameson, W.H. Auden, Sylvia Townsend Warner, J.B. Priestley, Doris Lessing, Julian Trevelyan, Randall Swingler, Paul Hogarth, Clive Branson and James Boswell. \u003ci\u003eThe Secret War Against the Arts\u003c\/i\u003e is a unique account of a dramatic period of modern history, from the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War to the Hungarian uprising in 1956, revealing how MI5 was systematic, unrelenting and uncompromising in its pursuit of artists and writers throughout the period, while failing to see the much more disturbing treachery of others - Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess and Kim Philby, for example.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303111569781,"sku":"9781526770318","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526770318_3c9fd32e-0c53-4cc7-a84a-8b243bbc0c69.jpg?v=1786021791"},{"product_id":"9781801503884","title":"All-India and Down Under","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAll-India and Down Under \u003c\/em\u003eis the dramatic story of two cricket tours undertaken in the aftermath of the Second World War. For seven years the war had put the careers of England’s cricketers on hold. Then, in 1946, England played three Tests against ‘All-India’. However, it proved to be the last such tour: by mid-1947, Indian partition had cut the country in two, a process that was violent and bloody. While the tourists were in England, struggling in a cold, wet summer, their own country was in turmoil. As that tour drew to a close in September, the MCC sent a party of war-weary cricketers to Australia to play the first Ashes series since 1938. The English were ill-prepared, some scarcely out of uniform, while others carried the physical and mental scars of the war years. For the aging captain, Walter Hammond, it would prove a tour too far. The book follows the cricketing drama of both tours amid the political uncertainty of the time, with a Labour government struggling to disentangle Britain from its Empire.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56306802262389,"sku":"9781801503884","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781801503884_02f466ee-b66b-4ed5-bda8-82df06943a17.jpg?v=1786026990"},{"product_id":"far-from-lords","title":"Far from Lord's","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFar from Lord’s\u003c\/i\u003e follows England’s demanding overseas tours between 1953 and 1969, a period when cricketers – and the writers who shadowed them – spent months at a time far from home. These were politically fraught years. The weather could be punishing, the opposition fiercely competitive and the crowds sometime riotous. The story builds toward the dramatic 1969 tour of Pakistan, when two England batters fled as a mob surged on to the field, and the team escaped by air that night with the situation threatening war. Along the way we meet a rich cast of cricketing legends – Hutton, May, Cowdrey, Dexter – and the journalists who captured both the cricket and the cultures they encountered, including Alan Ross, Ian Peebles and Jim Swanton. \u003ci\u003eFar from Lord’s\u003c\/i\u003e also explores the captaincy and selection, England’s cautious tactical style, player behaviour and the management of long tours, the D’Oliveira affair, the toll of illness and injury, plus the heated debate over whether wives should accompany the team.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57507741892981,"sku":"9781836804727","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781836804727.jpg?v=1787042881"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-richard-knott.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}