Here you will meet Jewish heroes of the Bible, Rome's Captain of the Gate, Queen Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Cromwell, Wellington, Napoleon's marshals, Ulysses S. Grant, George S. Patton, Sir John Moore at Corunna, Michael Strachan's vignette of Colonel J. Enoch Powell in 1943 in North Africa and Rory Stewart's 2004 experience of Iraq may come fresh. Max Hastings has drawn upon writers and narratives that have stirred his imagination over a lifetime. Modern scholars scorn for instance C. V. Wedgwood's writings on the English Civil Wars, those of Cecil Woodham-Smith about the Crimea, and Barbara Tuchman's Big Books. All were brilliant narrative historians who have been his faithful companions for 60 years. Likewise he has included several of Elizabeth Longford's vignettes of Wellington. Her account of the June 1815 Duchess of Richmond's ball before Waterloo, that glittering 'revelry by night' is 'more vivid than that of any other writer I know, save Byron and Thackeray.' Dr Johnson quoted a French savant who noted that 'There are many puerilities in war'. Most of those who fight are young, and thus the spirit of armies is distilled from a mingling of soldiers' physical vigour and intellectual immaturity with their licences to kill and opportunities to die. Soldiers is a very personal gathering of sparkling, gripping tales which rings the changes through the centuries. The nearly 350 stories illustrate vividly what it was like to fight in wars, to live and die as a warrior, from Greek and Roman times through recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are tales of great writers who served in uniform including Cobbett and Tolstoy, Edward Gibbon and Siegfried Sassoon, Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell and George MacDonald Fraser. Here are also stories of the female 'abosi' fighters of Dahomey, and heroic ambulance drivers of WW1. Max Hastings also shows compassion for the victims, above all civilians. 517pp, 16 pages of colour and other illus.

Written on the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the book brings to life the pilots and planes involved through the stories of 18 airmen, nine from each side, and 18 different aircraft. The authors have chosen pilots from seven nations: Germans, Britons, two New Zealanders, two Swiss, one Canadian, one Pole and an Italian. Many of the featured pilots are not well known, several died in action and others spent years in captivity. A few suffered terrible wounds, while many survived remarkably unscathed, physically at least. What all these men had in common was a love of flying and a willingness to take risks that are unimaginable for those who enjoy the comfort and safety of commercial jet travel. The variety of aircraft includes the four-engine Focker-Wulf Condor and the Fiat CR42 Biplane Fighter on the Axis side, and the Boulton Paul Defiant fighter with its rear turret and the Walrus Seaplane on the Allied side. The superstars Spitfire and Messerschmitt Bf109 represented considerable achievements in engineering, design and manufacturer. One or two like the Defiant and the Stuka were 'found out' in the testing cauldron of the Battle of Britain. Relatively few lives were lost on each side - 3,149 all told - yet casualty figures and the strategic significance of the Battle of Britain should not be confused. The Canadian Lord Beaverbrook, a key ally of Churchill's, transformed aircraft production in Britain, and made sure that Dowding and Park the RAF Air Chief Marshalls had the Spitfires and Hurricanes they needed to see their plan through. We meet the New Zealander who 'borrowed' a seaplane from the Royal Navy to set up a freelance air-sea rescue service that saved the lives of dozens of British and German pilots; the Swiss baron who claimed to have destroyed six British fighters in a day; the vainglorious commander whose RAF squadron was wiped out trying to disrupt Nazi invasion plans; and the German bomber pilot who fought the first battle involving foreign troops on British soil since Culloden, before repairing to a pub for a pint with soldiers who had taken him prisoner. Illus. with contemporary photos of pilots and their aircraft. 222 page paperback.

The Mass-Observation Archive is a priceless time capsule of ordinary voices that might otherwise have been forgotten. Throughout WW2, hundreds of people kept diaries of their private daily lives as part of a ground-breaking national experiment. They were warehousemen and WRENs, soldiers and farmhands, housewives and journalists, united only by a desire to record the history they were living through. These voices tell the very human story behind the iconic events of those six years, individuals grappling with a world turned upside down, from panic-buying and competitively digging for victory, to extraordinary acts of bravery, these experiences represent the best and worst of human nature in the face of adversity. A textile warehouseman from Birmingham on 5th September 1939 wrote: 'Mrs B - a medium, says she has been in touch with the spirit of Napoleon, who informed her that the war would last for 61 years. If I live I shall be 86 when peace comes. A leaden thought.' There are teachers, journalist and writers, artists, music teachers, widowed housewives, actors and accountants, laboratory technicians and personnel managers, vicars and farmers, each given their Diarist number, occupation, place and date. 312pp, these words are 'unmoved by what the beastly press says.'

Described as 'The missing link between Catch-22 and Black Adder', this book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is produced in a 50th anniversary edition with an introduction by James Holland. In March 1918, the Goshawk Squadron were on patrol, three days until the last great German offensive on the Western Front. One of the pilots unexpectedly suffered engine failure, in the days when the internal combustion engine was in its infancy. The pilot finds himself drifting, when suddenly a German Albatross creeps up behind him by making a near-suicidal manoeuvre through some trees. The pilot manages to escape. As he tries to climb, relieved, a Fokker Triplane stalks him on his blind side, opens fire and ruptures the pilot's fuel tank. White vapour appears, but although petrol begins soaking into his boots it is still inevitable that his plane and he will catch fire. The pilot then fishes out his revolver and fires three shots towards the Fokker, but to no avail and the German doesn't even flinch. The leaking fuel reaches the red-hot exhaust stubs, and the stricken aircraft erupts into flames. The pilot raises his pistol to his head and shoots himself - better a clean death than be burned alive in the skies over the Western Front. Exciting, taut and superbly described aerial combat is a feature of Goshawk Squadron and the many other novels of Derek Robinson with exquisitely drawn characters and shocking violence which befalls the men we come to care about because of their thoughts, personalities, attitudes and responses to the situations in which they find themselves. His books have prompted a certain amount of controversy in their depiction of the British class system, the recklessness and ill-preparedness of many of the men he has written about, and the casual violence they encounter. There has been a dramatic change in how we view the First World War since the novel was first published back in 1971, when veterans were not venerated in quite the same way they became. Stanley Woolley, the C.O. of Goshawk Squadron, is a character at first glance seen as an utter bastard, a martinet and a brutal driver of his men yet he is a complex character, fiercely intelligent, imaginative and above all humane, who understands that most of his men arriving into his squadron have done so with a misguided notion that flying over the Western Front will be exciting, chivalrous and sporting. Woolley through bitter experience has learned there is nothing noble about aerial combat. Incredibly young themselves, the flight lieutenants and squadron leaders, company commanders and naval first lieutenants pioneered new tactics and strove to become better combatants both for themselves and the men in their charge. Robinson captures Woolley's anger, frustration and cynicism perfectly, but also his fundamental decency. Woolley is just 23 years old. 284pp, paperback.

The Brutal Truth of Campo 21, 1942-1943 is the sub-title. As Rommel began to achieve Axis victories in north Africa, thousands of Allied POWs were transferred to camps in mainland Italy. An estimated 35,000 prisoners were taken after the Allied defeat at Tobruk, with the result that conditions in the camps were notoriously insanitary and overcrowded, with Campo 21 at Chieti one of the most degrading. In spite of that, the POWs kept up the tradition of maintaining morale with attempts to escape, organised sport and theatrical entertainments. Superficially the camp looked modern to the new arrivals but they found it was structurally unsound with primitive sanitary systems and the water supply frequently non-existent. The security officer in the camp, Captain Mario Croce, was soon identified as a vindictive gaoler, while the camp commandant, Barela, was a keen Fascist. The first Commandant personally beat up one recaptured escaper. A pilot was murdered by an Italian guard following his escape attempt. The British Lieutenant Jack Hodgson was a talented artist and his drawings of the camp, many of which are reproduced here, give us an unparalleled insight into what it was really like, while the cartoonist Gordon Horner has left us impressions of the personnel. Among the early intake Tony Maxtone Graham became chairman of the Dramatic Society. He was family man who missed his wife, author of the wartime Mrs Miniver books, and three children, though the marriage did not survive the war. The musician Anthony Baines recreated the score of HMS Pinafore from memory for the prisoners to perform, and sport was also a major distraction, with England Cricketer Bill Bowes and rugby international Tony Roncoroni leading the field. Amateur dramatics not only gave the prisoners a focus for their lives but also provided camouflage for escape attempts, with the wardrobe section creating German uniforms and the timber for scenery used for shoring up tunnels. The first uniformed escape was by Joseph Farrell, who had good Italian but was caught on the railway without a ticket. Subsequent attempts became ever more sophisticated, with one notable break being made by an officer who impersonated Captain Croce himself. 251pp, photos.

Far from home and faced with the horrors of combat, hundreds of men and boys fighting in World War Two found comfort and companionship with the animals they adopted at training centres and in war zones around the world. The book is sub-titled 'Heart Warming Photos of GIs and Their Dogs In World War Two', and author and historian L. Douglas Keeney sifted through many of the more than 2.5 million photographs at the National Archive to discover some of the greatest mascot and pet photography taken between 1941 and 1945, compiled from the collections of all branches of the US Military. A B-17 crew in England rigged an oxygen mask for their dog. A stray dog ran through a hail of bullets up the gangplank of a coastguard landing ship in the Pacific. A GI was caught stuffing a dog into his duffel bag. They were photographed and these photographs sent home and published in newspapers and magazines and became part of the theme the home front needed - that the boys were doing alright. Sinbad is a fighting dog from a fighting ship who slept through it all in his bunk when the cutter ran into a U-boat pack, depth charged six submarines, and sank the last by ramming it. Meet Soogie the mascot of a coastguard manned LCI operating in French waters, three years since he came aboard in Galveston, Texas. There are puppies, one abandoned on a sinking ship and rescued by Commander Dixon and Doc Sunshine on cheering-up duty shaking paws bunk to bunk as soldiers recover. The images are by turns funny, moving and inspiring showing the men at work and rest, soldiers, sailors and pilots, and although dogs were the most popular mascots, a few chickens, crows, rats, goats, monkeys and parakeets endeared themselves to US soldiers. Chapters include Dog Tags, Dogs and Dog Faces, Dog Fights, Salty Dogs, Semper Fido and Mascots of the US Marine Corps and Humour in the Face of War. Max the Boxer was a fully-fledged paratrooper in the Army who earned his wings after five jumps. Skippy is a Pitbull/pointer who played a big part in his bomber crew so much so that some of its members painted him on their B-17 Flying Fortresses and fitted him with a custom oxygen mask. Hobo was the Navy dog who followed his pals onto the landing craft when they took a beach. Big archive photos on every page, 175 page large softback.

Sub-titled 'The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot', when first published in 1933 the book was considered the ultimate record of aerial combat in the First World War. Its extraordinary photographs showed men and machines apparently in their last moments, struggling for survival and victory over the skies of France. So remarkable were the photographs that their veracity was immediately questioned, and it was not until 1983 that the true origin of the book was finally discovered. The author was Wesley Archer, an American who served with the RFC, and the photographs and diary had been faked. The Introduction to this edition tells the fascinating story in detail and reveals the truth behind the mystery diarist. The origin of Death in the Air lies with a 1931 exhibition of aviation art which included 'The Cockburn-Lang Collection' which attracted enormous attention. Early on, doubt was cast about the authenticity of the photographs and it was only in 1983 that it was established that Cockburn-Lang was the pseudonym for the wife of Wesley Archer who had indeed been a WWI pilot, an American serving with the LRAFs (his parents were Canadian). On October 9th 1918 he was shot down by ground fire while strafing German infantry in his SE5. A bullet headed for his heart was deflected by his Colt automatic, the badly dented one now at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The book has a telegraphic style, understated heroics and flyers' slang and reading it you get to know the squadron - Jock, Canada, Mick, Chilli, Todd, Red, Kaffir and all the others. When one is missing after a run-in with the enemy, you suffer. When the author gets depressed and hits the bottle, you worry; when he meets a girl, you cheer. The daring hoax paid off well. We have a facsimile reprint of the 1985 edition with a new introduction 2016 and with very useful explanatory notes for such acronyms as A.A. = anti-aircraft batteries. 166pp, paperback.

Weaving the lives of brothers, sisters, wives, husbands and lovers seamlessly, this sweeping narrative casts a highly personal light on some of the most significant episodes of the Second World War. The book is the heart-wrenching reality faced by so many families whose sons and daughters were caught up in war. What would it be like to spend six years fearing what a telegram might bring? From the Blitz to the battlefields of Europe and the Far East, this is the remarkable story of four brothers and two sisters. Harold was a surgeon in a London hospital alongside his sister Ruth, a nurse, when the bombs began to fall in 1940. Peter was captured in the fall of Singapore. Edward fought the Germans in Italy, and Walter the Japanese in Burma, while in London, glamorous Bee hoped for lasting happiness with an American airman. Walter?s granddaughter Annabel Venning tells the moving tales of her relatives who were swept along by the momentous events of the war. 'If you can read the passage on the bombing of St. Thomas's Hospital, you'll truly appreciate great writing, and sheer terror.' - Edward Donne. 313pp, index, photos and map.

'For regular soldiers like Chaplin it is not a happy union, almost a demotion following the brigade's failure at Loos. He worries the move will sap morale and offer a threat to the established way of doing things. Little wonder the old sweats become even terser in their reaction to the bloodshed and mayhem in the trenches. Their role now is to show the new soldiers how to endure stoically, how not to complain...' Colonel Graham Chaplin, Commander of 1st Cameronians wrote letters from the trenches almost daily to the wife he had just married months before the First World War began. These personal and loving letters starting in August 1914 give a rare insight into the mind of a serving officer, his worries about his men and his family back home, his concerns with the progress of the war and his anxiety at the growing list of friends dead or wounded. Most startling of all, these letters finally reveal the truth of why it was that a commander endorsed by so many of his fellow officers and respected and trusted by his men was not promoted out of the trenches until September 1917, making him the Western Front's longest-serving frontline infantry officer. Andrew Davidson, author of the highly praised Fred's War, analyses Chaplin's unique status and his brush with literary and military greatness - Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Bernard Montgomery fought alongside him - weaving around his letters a fascinating portrait of a soldier's life and of the war in Flanders and France. Chapters include The Want of Sleep, Rain and Shells, Cambrin, Cuinchy, Auchy, The Somme, Howitzer Wood, Army School, Hindenburg and Absolutely Dished among them. Photos, many letters reproduced, some illustrated, quotes and clear headers and summaries and appendices explaining what happened to Chaplin or Bull as he was always affectionately known in the Regiment. His last appointment was as a Brigade Commander in Iraq, which he held for two years, summed up in the words: 'The soul of integrity, of courage, the nigh perfect example of an officer.' With end notes and appendices. 396pp.

Sub-titled 'The Generation Who Built, Supported and Flew Britain's Most Beloved Fighter', the book chronicles the extraordinary national effort to construct the fighter aircraft that gave the Allies a critical edge over the Luftwaffe. It is the story of how these fast and lethal little planes helped win the Second World War and the book is peppered with women and many of the stories are told in the decades since the conflict. Despite the many films and TV programmes with spiffy moustaches and aerial acrobatics, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just 20 years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger. Based on a BBC World Service podcast Spitfire: The People's Story, the book uses contemporary diaries and memoirs, many previously unpublished, to tell the story of the Spitfire through the voices of the young people who risk everything to design, build and fly her. It is a story of young people tested to the very limits of their endurance, an incredible tale of courage and sacrifice that celebrates arguably Britain's greatest generation. They were vital in keeping the RAF fully operational, building parts, constructing radar systems, coordinating supplies, ferrying planes, while the Luftwaffe above tried to bomb them into destruction. Through fresh interviews and war diaries and personal correspondence, BBC Radio Producer Alasdair Cross recounts an incredible tale together with historical advisor David Key who has researched and reconstructed the stories of the men and women who designed and built the Spitfire. 359pp, paperback. Photos.