Sub-titled 'Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans and the End of the Chinese Miracle' this is a penetrating examination of the country's opaque financial system and the complex factors of demographic shifts, urbanisation, industrialisation and over-reliance on debt-fuelled investments. This has brought the county to the brink of crisis. Anchored by stories of China's cities and its people, from factory workers and displaced farmers, to government officials and entrepreneurs, the narrative will take readers inside zombie companies, start-ups and regulatory institutions as McMahon explains how things got so bad, why fixing the problems is so hard, and what the economic outlook means for China and the rest of the world. China was once dominated by four state-owned banks. President Xi Jinping issued an urgent call for reform that gave the country until 2020 to transform its economy, yet the inner workings of its financial system are still very much a mystery to most outsiders. Until this book. Now more than ever, as the country's slowing economy is being felt around the globe, it is essential to understand how China allowed its economy to become so mired in debt. An informed analysis animated by anecdotes and characters, some colourful, some verging on tragic. A most engaging economy lesson. 256pp, large softback.

Known as Mahatma Gandhi, this popular and influential book covers the period from his birth in 1869 to the year 1921, describing his childhood, schooldays, early marriage, journeys abroad, legal studies and practise. One of the most inspiring figures of our time, Gandhi recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of Satyagraha or active non-violent resistance which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other non-violent struggles of the 20th century. A prominent figure in the freedom struggle in India from British rule, he is also known as 'The Father of the Nation' in India. Thrown in prison he remained there for several years due to other political offenses allegedly committed by him. As British rule ended, Gandhi was saddened by India's partition and tried his best to bring peace among the Sikhs and Muslims. On 30th January 1948, Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu nationalist for allegedly being highly concerned about the nation's Muslim population. This heavyweight softback has a new foreword by noted peace expert and teacher Sissela Bok. 528pp in facsimile reprint of the 1957 edition, an American imported paperback. Tiny remainder mark.

The bombshell book that everyone was talking about by the radio genius and maestro of Mastermind, John Humphrys has been a journalist with the BBC for a record-breaking 50 years. He has reported from all over the world and presented front line news programmes on both radio and TV, including serving as presenter of Radio 4's Today programme since 1987. He pulls no punches and now, freed from the restrictions of being a BBC journalist, he reflects on the controversies he has reported on and been involved in, including the interview that forced the resignation of his own boss, the Director General. In typically candid style he also weighs in on the role the BBC itself has played in our national life, for good and ill, and the broader health of the political system today. Now he offers his life story from the poverty of his post-war childhood in Cardiff, leaving school at 15, to the summits of broadcasting where he was the BBC's youngest Foreign Correspondent. Along the way he recalls the experiences that have marked him most - being the first reporter at the terrible disaster in Aberfan, reporting from South Africa in the dying days of apartheid, from Ireland during the Troubles, and from the White House on Richard Nixon's historic resignation and in war zones around the globe throughout his career. John was also the first journalist to present Nine O'clock News on TV. We are even offered glimpses of his human side off-mic. 400 page large paperback, colour and black and white photos.

A passionately written clarion call to all who value the quality of beauty in their surroundings which shines light on those inspired to try to reverse the damage done to wildlife and the landscape in the 19th century. The book fizzes with ideas and passion full of stories of politicians and officials who made a difference for good and it shows that politics matters. Fiona Reynolds has lived and worked at the heart of the struggle for more than 30 years and her book is a warning against thoughtless depredation authorised by policymakers who ignore or dismiss the fundamental truth. We live in a world where the drive for economic growth is crowding out everything that can't have a monetary value. Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE is Master of Emmanuele College, Cambridge. She proposes a solution that is at once radical and simple - to inspire us through the beauty of the world around us. Delving into our past, examining landscapes, nature, farming and urbanisation, she shows how ideas about beauty have arisen and evolved, being shaped by public policy, being knocked back and inched forward until they arrive lost in the economically-driven spirit of today. Hers is a passionate, polemical call to arms and she is an optimist. 336pp, paperback with colour photos and other illus, this is a nobler vision for a better world including National Parks and our cultural heritage.

A French equivalent to the anonymous 'A Woman In Berlin' (which we stock code 91513), and a non-fiction counterpoint to Suite Française, the author who died in 1975 writes that it is 'the duty of those who have survived to bear witness to ensure the dead are not forgotten.' Her remarkable story of resilience and survival does just that. In 1921, the author, a Jewish woman from Poland, fulfils a dream and opens La Maison du Livre, Berlin's first French bookshop, and a haven for artists and diplomats, celebrities and poets. But Nazi ideology soon begins to poison the culturally rich city, and frequent police visits and book confiscations become the norm. Françoise's dream finally shatters in November 1938 as hundreds of Jewish shops and businesses are destroyed on Kristallnacht. The bookshop is miraculously spared, but fear of persecution forces her on a desperate, lonely flight to Paris, then across Southern France. Although she witnesses countless horrors and sacrifices, she survives at the hands of heroic strangers risking their lives to protect her. When the city is bombed and she flees, she sees children torn from their parents, mothers throwing themselves under buses and she is secreted away from one safe house to the next. There is the heroic tale of Mme. and M. Marius, the comedy of the glamorous refugee who hoodwinked the Germans into saving her son, the tragedy of the young man accused of murdering his wife, and the melodrama of hardened prison guards. Detailed, emotional and careful, it is a compelling account of crushing oppression. Published quietly in 1945, then rediscovered nearly 60 years later in an attic, this is a remarkable story of human cruelty and the human spirit. Hardback, 269pp.

Sub-titled 'How the Stock Market Crash of 1929 Plunged the World Into Depression', this 2008 book has been updated in 2021 with a new epilogue that covers the Covid-19 Collapse. It is the story of the financial cataclysm that started with the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929, and set in motion a series of economic, political and social events that affected many millions of people in America, Britain, Europe and Australia. The Crash toppled governments, spreading a wave of dictatorships in Italy and Germany, infecting entire industries and plunging millions into unemployment and poverty. By the time it began to life in 1935, the lives of people in scores of countries had changed forever. Selwyn Parker's book poses the question: could it happen again? A concise, lively study which serves as a warning to financial profligacy, self-regulation and laissez faire economic policies, and the illusion of economic stability easily undermined by what is now called 'The Shadow Banking System.' 308pp, paperback.

An incredible true story of two idealistic young lovers who led Germany's largest anti-Nazi resistance group, right in the darkening heart of Berlin. Summertime 1935 and on a lake near the city a young man is out sailing when he glimpses a woman reclining in the prow of a passing boat. Harro Schulze-Boysen had already shed blood in the fight against Nazism by the time he and Libertas Hass-Heye began their whirlwind romance. She joined the cause and soon the two lovers were leading a network of anti-fascist fighters that stretched across Berlin's bohemian underworld. Poets, philosophers, workers and artists, they were all freethinkers united by a desire to bring down Hitler at any cost. Harro himself infiltrated German intelligence and began funnelling Nazi battle plans to the Allies, including the details of Hitler's surprise attack on the Soviet Union. Meanwhile Libertas used her position at the Propaganda Ministry to begin collecting evidence of the mass murder of Jews. They knew the stakes all too well, but nothing could prepare them for the betrayals they would suffer in this war of secrets - a struggle in which friend could be indistinguishable from foe. Drawing on unpublished diaries, letters and Gestapo files, Ohler spins an unforgettable tale of love, heroism and sacrifice where daily life was a minefield, and a mis-step could have fatal consequences. We meet not mythic heroes but flawed humans struggling for meaning in a time of terror - writers, artists, a fashion designer, a dentist - you will feel a little stronger and braver after reading about these remarkable men and women. Told with immediacy and encroaching terror. With coloured maps on the endpapers, 293pp, illus.

Sub-titled 'Scott, Zelda, and The Jazz Age Invasion of Britain: 1904-1929' this extraordinary history shows how the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald's creation of Jay Gatsby, war hero and Oxford man at the beginning of the Jazz Age attracted an astounding array of authors and intellectuals. The poet T. S. Eliot, the polo star Tommy Hitchcock, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were a diverse group of Americans who came to the City of Dreaming Spires when the Rhodes Scholar programme had just begun and World War One had enveloped much of Europe. Fitzgerald created the character Jay Gatsby shortly after his and Zelda's visit to Oxford, and the creation is a cultural reflection of the aspirations of many Americans who came to the University of Oxford seeking beauty, wisdom and social connections. Beginning in 1904, the story chronicles the experiences of American expatriates through Prohibition and the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, interpreted through the pages of the classic novel The Great Gatsby. It shows how much Fitzgerald owes a debt to the medieval, romantic and European historical tradition and what he would have experienced at the post-war university encountering an impressive array of artists including W. B Yeats, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. An interesting mix of intellectual, cultural, biographical and emotional history populated with transformative Great Thinkers. With maps on endpapers of the City of Oxford, 346pp, a glossary of Oxford terms like Battels (expenses incurred), Punt and Torpids (boat race for novice crews). US first edition.

Sub-titled 'Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age', the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson has become the voice of critical gaps in the fabric of British history. Armistice Day 1918 dawns with great joy for victorious Britain, but the nation must confront the carnage war has left in its wake. Nicolson looks through the prism of daily life to narrate the slow healing process. The burial of the nameless soldier in the Tomb of the Unknown brings closure at last. 'The Great Silence', two minutes observed in memory of those lost, halts an entire nation. Within two pages we meet Corporal Adolf Hitler, blinded in a gas attack after four years of fighting at the Western Front, the cloudiness beginning to clear but his vision still hazy. In London, a young diplomat Harold Nicolson was working in the basement of his office in Whitehall and the door of number ten was flung open by a hatless Lloyd George announcing 'At eleven o'clock this morning the war will be over.' Riveting and revealing details of the fast-changing lives of everyday men and women, colourful characters abound in this tribute to Britain's dead. 16 pages of photos, 302pp, paperback.

The remarkable story of the Spanish Civil War as seen through the eyes of the reporters, writers, artists, doctors and nurses who witnessed it. The War (1936-39) inspired and haunted an extraordinary number of exceptional artists and writers including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and John Dos Passos. The idealism of the cause, defending democracy from Fascism at a time when Europe was darkening towards another World War, and the brutality of the conflict drew from them some of their best work - Guernica, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homage to Catalonia, The Spanish Earth. The war spurred breakthroughs in military and medical technology as well - new aircraft, weapons, tactics and strategy all emerged. Indiscriminate destruction, raining from the sky, became a dreaded reality for the first time. Progress also arose from the horror - the doctors and nurses who volunteered to serve with the Spanish defenders devised major advances in battlefield surgery and frontline blood transfusion. In many ways the war served as a test bed for World War Two and for the entire 20th century. From the life of John James Audubon to the invention of the atomic bomb, readers have relied on Richard Rhodes to distil and dramatize crucial moments in history. Now he takes us into the battlefields and bomb shelters, into the studios of artists, the crowded wards of war hospitals and into the hearts and minds of a rich cast of characters to show how the ideological, aesthetic and technological developments that emerged in Spain changed the world for ever. 16 pages of plates, 302pp.