Abdication

Abdication
Author: Juliet Nicolson
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2013-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1408830930

After the recent death of George V, England has a new king, Edward VIII. But for all the confident pomp and ceremony of the accession, it is a turbulent time. When nineteen-year-old May Thomas arrives in Liverpool, her first job as secretary and chauffeuse to Sir Philip Blunt introduces her to the upper echelons of British society - and to Julian, a young man of conscience whom, despite all barriers of class, she cannot help but fall for. But hidden truths, unspoken sympathies and covert complicities are everywhere, and the threat of another world war becomes increasingly inevitable...

The Crown in Crisis

The Crown in Crisis
Author: Alexander Larman
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2021-01-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1250274850

The thrilling and definitive account of the Abdication Crisis of 1936 On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII brought a great international drama to a close when he abdicated, renouncing the throne of the United Kingdom for himself and his heirs. The reason he gave when addressing his subjects was that he could not fulfill his duties without the woman he loved—the notorious American divorcee Wallis Simpson—by his side. His actions scandalized the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the King was rumored to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary. Alexander Larman’s The Crown in Crisis will treat readers to a new, thrilling view of this legendary story. Informed by revelatory archival material never-before-seen, as well as by interviews with many of Edward’s and Wallis’s close friends, Larman creates an hour-by-hour, day-by-day suspenseful narrative that brings readers up to the point where the microphone is turned on and the king speaks to his subjects. As well as focusing on King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Larman looks closely at the roles played by those that stood against him: Prime minister Stanley Baldwin, his private secretary Alec Hardinge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang. Larman also takes the full measure of those who supported him: the great politician Winston Churchill, Machiavellian newspaper owner Lord Beaverbrook, and the brilliant lawyer Walter Monckton. For the first time in a book about the abdication, readers will read an in-depth account of the assassination attempt on Edward’s life and its consequences, a first-person chronicle of Wallis Simpson’s scandalous divorce proceedings, information from the Royal Archives about the government’s worries about Edward’s relationship with Nazi high-command Ribbentrop and a boots-on-the-ground view of how the British people saw Edward as they watched the drama unfold. You won’t be able to put down The Crown in Crisis, a full panorama of the people and the times surrounding Edward and the woman he loved.

The Empty Throne

The Empty Throne
Author: Ivo H. Daalder
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 154177387X

American diplomacy is in shambles, but beneath the daily chaos is an erosion of the postwar order that is even more dangerous. America emerged from the catastrophe of World War II convinced that global engagement and leadership were essential to prevent another global conflict and further economic devastation. That choice was not inevitable, but its success proved monumental. It brought decades of great power peace, underpinned the rise in global prosperity, and defined what it meant to be an American in the eyes of the rest of the world for generations. It was an historic achievement. Now, America has abdicated this vital leadership role. The Empty Throne is an inside portrait of the greatest lurch in US foreign policy since the decision to retreat back into Fortress America after World War I. The whipsawing of US policy has upended all that America's postwar leadership created-strong security alliances, free and open markets, an unquestioned commitment to democracy and human rights. Impulsive, theatrical, ill-informed, backward-looking, bullying, and reckless are the qualities that the American president brings to the table, when he shows up at all. The world has had to absorb the spectacle of an America unmaking the world it made, and the consequences will be with us for years to come.

Abdication

Abdication
Author: Edmund Candler
Publisher:
Total Pages: 294
Release: 1922
Genre: India
ISBN:

Ruling Oneself Out

Ruling Oneself Out
Author: Ivan Ermakoff
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2008-04-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822388723

What induces groups to commit political suicide? This book explores the decisions to surrender power and to legitimate this surrender: collective abdications. Commonsensical explanations impute such actions to coercive pressures, actors’ miscalculations, or their contamination by ideologies at odds with group interests. Ivan Ermakoff argues that these explanations are either incomplete or misleading. Focusing on two paradigmatic cases of voluntary and unconditional surrender of power—the passing of an enabling bill granting Hitler the right to amend the Weimar constitution without parliamentary supervision (March 1933), and the transfer of full executive, legislative, and constitutional powers to Marshal Pétain (Vichy, France, July 1940)—Ruling Oneself Out recasts abdication as the outcome of a process of collective alignment. Ermakoff distinguishes several mechanisms of alignment in troubled and uncertain times and assesses their significance through a fine-grained examination of actors’ beliefs, shifts in perceptions, and subjective states. To this end, he draws on the analytical and methodological resources of perspectives that usually stand apart: primary historical research, formal decision theory, the phenomenology of group processes, quantitative analyses, and the hermeneutics of testimonies. In elaborating this dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, Ruling Oneself Out restores the complexity and indeterminate character of pivotal collective decisions and demonstrates that an in-depth historical exploration can lay bare processes of crucial importance for understanding the formation of political preferences, the paradox of self-deception, and the makeup of historical events as highly consequential.

King's Counsellor

King's Counsellor
Author: Alan Lascelles
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2021-09-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781474618205

As Assistant Private Secretary to four monarchs, 'Tommy' Lascelles had a ringside seat from which to observe the workings of the royal household and Downing Street during the first half of the 20th century. These fascinating diaries begin with Edward VIII's abdication and end with George VI's death and his daughter Elizabeth's Coronation. In between we see George VI at work and play, a portrait more intimate than any other previously published. This compelling account also includes Princess Margaret's relationship with Peter Townsend, and throws an intriguing new light on the way in which King George VI and Winston Churchill worked together during the Second World War.

Congressional Abdication on War and Spending

Congressional Abdication on War and Spending
Author: Louis Fisher
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2000
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780890969519

"For thirty years Fisher has observed, informed, and even influenced Congress from his position in the Congressional Research Service. As a scholar, he has studied and published several important books on the separation of powers. Now, for the first time, he not only summarizes the well-informed observations of a distinguished career but also analyzes the reasons for this congressional failure of will and advocates practical ways to redress the balance.".

The People's King

The People's King
Author: A. Susan Williams
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781403963635

"Susan Williams reveals there was huge popular support for King Edward and that many ordinary people were happy for him to marry Wallis - even though Prime Minister Baldwin claimed that public opinion would never allow it. She shows how the king was rushed into abdicating, against the good advice of his loyal champion, Winston Churchill. We find out who fomented the crisis and why neither parliament nor the people were consulted. We discover, too, the continuing repercussions within the Royal Family of an event so momentous that it changed the face of the British monarchy."--BOOK JACKET.

The Empire and the Five Kings

The Empire and the Five Kings
Author: Bernard-Henri Lévy
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2019-02-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1250203023

One of the West’s leading intellectuals offers a provocative look at America’s withdrawal from world leadership and the rising powers who seek to fill the vacuum left behind. The United States was once the hope of the world, a beacon of freedom and the defender of liberal democracy. Nations and peoples on all continents looked to America to stand up for the values that created the Western worldand to oppose autocracy and repression. Even when America did not live up to its ideals, it still recognized their importance, at home and abroad. But as Bernard-Henri Lévy lays bare in this powerful and disturbing analysis of the world today, America is retreating from its traditional leadership role, and in its place have come five ambitious powers, former empires eager to assert their primacy and influence. Lévy shows how these five—Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and Sunni radical Islamism—are taking steps to undermine the liberal values that have been a hallmark of Western civilization. The Empire and the Five Kings is a cri de coeur that draws upon lessons from history and the eternal touchstones of human culture to reveal the stakes facing the West as America retreats from its leadership role, a process that did not begin with Donald Trump's presidency and is not likely to end with him. The crisis is one whose roots can be found as far back as antiquity and whose resolution will require the West to find a new way forward if its principles and values are to survive. As seen on Real Time with Bill Maher (2/22/2019) and Fareed Zakaria GPS (2/17/2019).

The Abdication

The Abdication
Author: Justin Newland
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2021-07-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1800463952

The town of Unity sits perched on the edge of a yawning ravine where, long ago, a charisma of angels provided spiritual succour to a fledgeling human race. Then mankind was granted the gift of free will and had to find its own way, albeit with the guidance of the angels. The people’s first conscious act was to make an exodus from Unity. They built a rope bridge across the ravine and founded the town of Topeth. For a time, the union between the people of Topeth and the angels of Unity was one of mutual benefit. After that early spring advance, there had been a torrid decline in which mankind’s development resembled a crumpled, fading autumnal leaf. Following the promptings of an inner voice, Tula, a young woman from the city, trudges into Topeth. Her quest is to abide with the angels and thereby discover the right and proper exercise of free will. To do that, she has to cross the bridge – and overcome her vertigo. Topeth is in upheaval; the townsfolk blame the death of a child on dust from the nearby copper mines. The priests have convinced them that a horde of devils have thrown the angels out of Unity and now occupy the bridge, possessing anyone who trespasses on it. Then there’s the heinous Temple of Moloch! The Abdication is the story of Tula’s endeavour to step upon the path of a destiny far greater than she could ever have imagined.