A fact-packed illustrated encyclopaedia which charts the exceptional history, the machines and their manufacturers from the early days of J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company and its experimental gasoline tractor of 1892, to the JCB Fastrack, one of the numerous state-of-the-art machines now on the market. Huge sized, and comprehensive in scope, it is a complete history and directory of tractors from around the world covering all the great marques, designers and manufacturers from Agco Allis to Zetor. It also features vintage models restored to their former glory shown alongside their modern-day high-tech equivalents. With fascinating archive material, colour photography, informative text by a leading expert in the industry, specification boxes detailing engine capacity, power, transmission and weight. 650 colour photos, 256 very large glossy pages.

Written and presented by Sir Patrick Moore and with running time approximately 50 minutes in both colour and black and white, the DVD is entitled The Apollo Story. It features official NASA and Science Museum footage of the momentous Apollo 11 Moon landing. It was July 1969 and a little over eight years since the flights of Gagarin and Shepard, followed quickly by President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. It was only seven months since NASA made a bold decision to send Apollo 8 all the way to the Moon on the first manned flight of the massive Saturn V rocket. Now on the morning of 16th July, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins sit atop another Saturn V at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The three-stage 363-foot rocket will use its 7.5 million pounds of thrust to propel them into space and into history. DVD film running time approximately 50 minutes. With large illustrated soft cover magazine enclosed.

Celebrating and commemorating 100 years of the RAF and with access to rare archives, Mike Lepine uses photographs and documents to bring the story of the people, aeroplanes and missions to life as never before. The box set includes the DVD Air Aces, a groundbreaking series that tells the story of the most heroic airborne combat missions in history. Using real vintage aircraft, the series films the impossible by recreating mid-air combat scenes and features Spitfires and Lancaster Bombers. The magazine looks at the men, women and aircraft at the heart of this great service. Fully illustrated with archive and colour photos and fact boxes for every aviation enthusiast. DVD running time 50 minutes. Magazine and DVD box set.

Press out the 157 pieces from the three laser-cut FSC certified wooded sheets. No glue or tools are required as their pieces are included to build this 3D Batmobile from the Batman and Batman Returns films. The book is packed with amazing facts about the creation of this version of the Batmobile with stunning behind-the-scenes images showing how the legendary ride was built for the big screen. Complete with detailed blueprints showing the inner workings and action shots like the Batmobile speeding away from an explosion undamaged. Once your kit is ready you can apply matte black acrylic paint or customise it with the Joker's graffiti as demonstrated on page 30 of the book with paint blots and handprints to make your replica model your own. Suit ages 12 to adult, special import. Finished model measures 7 x 1.57 x 2.85" and decorating materials are not included. CE safety approved.

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, the British Battle Fleet comprised ships that were only marginally different from those that had won the Battle of Trafalgar a generation earlier. By the end of her reign in 1901 their successors would have been unrecognisable to Nelson's sailors. Gone were the towering sail plans, the 'wooden walls' and large numbers of relatively small muzzle-loading guns, to be replaced by black-painted steel hulls, driven independent of the winds by steam machinery, protected with sophisticated armour, and mounting a very few large breech-loading guns firing explosive shells. The only thing unchanged was the Royal Navy's dominance of the world's oceans, seized at Trafalgar and never relinquished. How the Naval Administration coped with this unprecedented revolution in technology without losing maritime ascendancy is the theme of this latest book by Norman Friedman. He analyses the broader factors of politics, economics and international rivalry that bore down on the decision-making and explains how these influences worked through into the ships that were actually built. The result is a much deeper and more sympathetic understanding of the 19th-century Royal Navy and its warship designs. It is a well-illustrated and comprehensive gallery of photographs with in-depth captions accompanied by specially commissioned plans of the important classes by A. D. Baker, and a colour section featuring the original Admiralty draughts, including a spectacular double gatefold. 400 huge pages, 25 x 29.5cm.
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First published 10 years ago and still relevant, this study examines the progressive sidelining of the Royal Air Force since its decisive role in the Allied victory of World War II in which the RAF had developed quickly with the help of US and Canadian lend-lease money to form the front line of defence against a numerically superior force. Scaling down began in 1945 as the country contemplated a huge economic challenge following the cost of defeating the Axis powers, in contrast to the US which had not suffered bombing raids on housing and infrastructure. At the same time, in the post-war years, Britain started to negotiate the loss of empire which had constituted a major cost to the nation in administering and defending distant territories. Britain's retention of the nuclear deterrent depended on the special relationship with America as the world started to divide between the two superpowers. The RAF has shouldered a greater burden of defence cuts than the other two forces, particularly following the infamous 1957 white paper from Duncan Sandys which proposed the cutting and discontinuation of forces stationed in Germany. This exacerbated the on-off saga of the TSR2 project, opposed by Mountbatten who was chief of defence staff, and its cost-effective alternative, the F-111 with its variable geometry swing-wing designed by Barnes-Wallace. The "trip-wire" scenario of the fifties gave way to "flexible response" but the whole system and its political assumptions were overturned by the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The author follows the RAF from its establishment in 1918 with 22,000 aircraft to the Strategic Defence Review for the coalition government of 2010 with George Osborne as chancellor. Arguments for the disbanding of the RAF came from all political shades of opinion. Some elements would go to the Fleet Air Arm, but big planes such as transports, tankers and airborne warning and control would pose a challenge for the other services to operate, particularly the latter which was deployed in Afghanistan at the time of the book's publication. Here are fascinating tales of aerial adventure, sonic boom and iconic aircraft and the security the RAF brings us. 256pp, many photos.

This classic account of the event that changed the course of World War I was first published in 1956 and revised in 1996. The huge Cunard passenger ship Lusitania was torpedoed on 7 May 1915 and sank quickly, with a loss of 1198 lives. With her revolutionary turbines she had pushed transatlantic speeds up several knots, and her elevators, complete electrification and rudimentary air conditioning set a standard of comfort well into the following decades. The disaster brought America into the war, although the authors dismiss suggestions that Churchill suppressed information about nearby U-boats in order to bring about this outcome. Rumours of gold bullion, however, have never been satisfactorily answered. The U-20 captained by Kapitanleutnant Schwieger struck near the Irish peninsula of Kinsale. The book follows a wide range of passengers including Charles A. Plamonden and his wife, a machinery manufacturer, who along with several other passengers received a mysterious telegram warning him not to travel. Businessman Edward B. Bowen cancelled his sailing because of a premonition. The German embassy in Washington issued a warning about sailing into British waters, but it was dismissed by the manager of Dewar's whisky, who was also travelling, as "tommyrot". Mme de Page was a charity worker raising funds for Belgian relief, while the fabulously wealthy Alfred Vanderbilt was travelling along with the playwright Justus Forman. The realities of the war had not sunk in to many Americans, and the author alternates scenes aboard the U-20 with social life on board the Lusitania. There was a nursery for first class passengers, though the majority of children were in second. Six year old Ellen Smith, rescued by a Canadian journalist, lost her mother, father and sister. Survivor Elizabeth Duckworth, a steerage passenger returning to her home in Blackburn, jumped from one lifeboat to another in order to help with the rowing. Vivid descriptions of the sinking come from the eyewitness testimonies of survivors, for instance Theodate Pope or Margaret Mackworth who jumped 60 feet into the sea, while the experiences of those waiting for news are poignantly described. 259pp, paperback, photos.

The UK's regional aeronautical treasures are housed in a wealth of museums of all sizes, in amazing venues, containing aircraft of the world, of national or regional importance. With region-by-region coverage, the backgrounds of the formative museums are highlighted along with the pedigrees of their most significant exhibits. Included are such icons as the de Havilland Aircraft Museum, home of the Mosquito, the Brooklands Museum, headquarters of Sopwith, Hawker and Vickers; the Helicopter Museum, the world's largest rotorcraft collection and Solent Sky, shrine to flying-boats and the Spitfire. Smaller collections for example the Martlesham Heath Control Tower Museum, home of the British flight test; the RAF Air Defence Radar Museum devoted to the vital 'magic eye' of the Battle of Britain; the Glenn Miller Museum at the airfield from which the band leader departed to his doom, and the Fort Paul Armouries, dominated by the enormous Beverley airlifter. Over 60 museums and their most important exhibits are profiled with over 300 photographs of aeronautical gems. Some colour, 352pp.

Styled for the Road was an exhibition held at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University which holds an impressive range of posters, prints, books, toys, models, paintings and ephemera about ocean liners to automobiles from the late 19th through to the mid-20th century. The aim was to provide a catalogue inviting viewers to consider the significant role of designers, illustrators and architects in the development of the newly emerging car culture and growing industry. A network of new showrooms displayed automobiles and served the needs of clients and salesmen and fuelled the imagination of prospective buyers with sleek poster designs for the Lincoln Zephyr gleaming, the Buick of 1939, to the light delivery car. Gorgeous full page colour illustrations show in-house styling studios at work for General Motors, the Sheller steering wheel, motor shows, the Ford tow truck, Goodyear tyres, the Dodge four-door Sedan 1948 to the REO Master Speed Wagon and a futuristic view of intercity transportation 1940 by John Ricketts, all in the finest sleek design. Streamlined cars, the convertible Victoria, the Duesenberg convertible, here are the glamour cars of the 30s and Chryslers built with quality, all making dreams come true. With biographies. Gorgeous colour plates, large spiralbound softback 102pp, 20 x 26 cm. Colour.

A heartbreaking, inspirational and uplifting true story of hope and bravery. Only those who have been prisoners have any concept of the horrors of incarceration or the ineffable joy of release. In mid-1943, a British PoW in Germany began cryptic communication back to England with one goal in mind - to establish a secret trust fund that prisoners of war could use in order to purchase their very own Spitfire to soar above them in the skies over occupied Europe. It was to be named Unshackled Spirit, and this aircraft, along with this one man's selfless act, epitomised the courage and strength of thousands of men. The accounts compiled are from a collection of original YMCA personal wartime logs as issued to RAF prisoners of war in 1944. The book draws out the story of each aviator, how they became a prisoner and life in the various camps. Extensive and amazingly detailed pieces of artwork are taken from the logs and illustrated in the book. An important aspect is how agencies helped by supplying all manner of equipment to the thousands of men behind barbed wire. The role of MI9 is revealed and how it participated in those agencies exploring efforts taken to smuggle escape material into camps without breeching the Geneva Convention and finally the extraordinary measures taken to secure intelligence during the process of prisoner repatriation. Shoot the proofreader for some glaring errors in an otherwise interesting book with chapters on Wing Commander Douglas Bader and Warrant Officer Sydney Eric Hamblin and Bernard Howard Nutt among them, the RAF in Buchenwald and Stalag XII. 320pp, well illus.