The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy

The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy
Author: John Bierman
Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005
Genre: Africanists
ISBN: 9780141012513

Laszlo Almasy, a Hungarian aristocrat, was consumed by his passion for the Sahara. His forays by car and plane in search of a legendary lost oasis made him an expert in desert travel but also led the British and Italians to each suspect him of spying for the other. On the outbreak of war he worked for Rommel - but was he driven by sympathy for the Nazi cause or by a longing for the desert? Did he eventually become a double agent and later, during the Cold War, a spy for Britain's MI6? And what is the reality behind the contradictory tales of his sexuality? John Bierman sifts the facts from the fiction to discover the truth behind the life of the real English patient.

The Rebecca Code

The Rebecca Code
Author: Mark Simmons
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2011-11-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0752478850

John Eppler thought himself to be the perfect spy. Born to German parents, he grew up in Egypt, adopted by a wealthy family and was educated in Europe. Fluent in German, English and Arabic, he made the Hadj to Mecca but was more at home in high society or travelling the desert on camelback with his adopted Bedouin tribe. After joining the German Secret Service in 1937, in 1942 he was sent across the desert to Cairo by Field Marshal Rommel. His guide was the explorer and Hungarian aristocrat Laszlo Almasy, a man made famous by the book The English Patient. Eppler's mission was to infiltrate British Army Headquarters and discover the Eighth Army's troop movements and battle plans. In The Rebecca Code, Mark Simmons reveals the story of Operation Condor and its comedy of errors and how it was foiled by Major A.W. 'Sammy' Sansom of the British Field Security Service. It is a tale of the desert, of the hotbed of intrigue that was 1940s Cairo, and the spy who was to send his reports using a code based on Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca.

Spy and Counterspy

Spy and Counterspy
Author: Ian Dear
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2013-07-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0752479199

The shadowy world of supposedly legalized spying has an enduring fascination for us all. Spy and Counterspy reveals for the first time the web of spies that spanned the globe during and after the Second World War, working for organisations like MI5 & MI6, the CIA & OSS, Soviet Smersh & NKVD, Japanese Tokko and the German Gestapo. These men and women lived extraordinary lives, always on the edge of exposure and the risk of death. Many of them were so in love with the Great Game of espionage that they betrayed their countries and acted as double and sometimes even triple agents in a complex deception that threatened the very grasp of power in government. Their war in the shadows remained unrecognized until today.

The London-Budapest Game

The London-Budapest Game
Author: Catherine Eva Schandl
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 1430311789

'The London-Budapest Game' is the true sequel to 'Sword of the Turul, ' with a unique glimpse into the British underground in World War II Hungary - and its aftermath. From 1991 to 2001, a Swedish-Russian joint Commission investigating the fate of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg discovered that 3 Hungarian numbered prisoners secretly held in Vladimir prison, Soviet Union had been connected to his case. One was Karoly Schandl, a young lawyer in Budapest who lived near the Swedish Embassy. This is the continuation of his shocking true story, supported by historical documents and excerpts from his private writings. Karoly's anti- Nazi resistance group was led by his childhood friend, Gabor Haraszty, a.k.a. British agent ALBERT. The group had links to MI9, ISLD (MI6), SOE, Colonel Howie, the Dutch and Polish Underground, the Tito partisans, and a group of famous Jewish parachutists from Palestine, with whom they had planned to collaborate in Hungary. It was a dangerous game, and only a few would survive ..

The Beautiful Spy

The Beautiful Spy
Author: David Tremain
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2019-04-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0750991070

In September 1940 a beautiful young woman arrived by seaplane and rubber dinghy on the shores of Scotland accompanied by two men – one of Germany's many attempt to penetrate British defences and infiltrate spies into the UK. This seems to be one of the few established facts in the otherwise mysterious tale of Vera Eriksen. Even the origins of the woman described as 'the most beautiful spy' remain hazy, as does her ultimate fate. David Tremain delves into the archives, and in doing so begins to reveal glimpses of her fascinating life story: her career as a dancer in Paris; a tumultuous and violent dalliance with a White Russian officer of uncertain identity; her time in England with the Duchesse de Château-Thierry, an Abwehr agent; the suspicious and untimely death of her husband, and a rumoured pregnancy. The Beautiful Spy also grapples with perhaps the biggest mystery of all: what happened to Vera after she was released by the British?

Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology, Volume 3

Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology, Volume 3
Author: Jason Thompson
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 661
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1617978647

The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the third of a three-volume history of Egyptology, follows the progress of the discipline from the trauma of the First World War, through the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, and into Egyptology's new horizons at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand the Egyptian past.

The Rough Guide to Hungary

The Rough Guide to Hungary
Author: Darren (Norm) Longley
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 650
Release: 2010-03-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1405387173

The Rough Guide to Hungary is the definitive guide to this beautiful land-locked nation, with clear maps and detailed coverage of all the best attractions from the thickly forested Northern Uplands and The Great Plain to the spectacular Lake Balaton and hip capital city, Budapest. You'll find introductory sections on Hungarian customs, health, food, drink and outdoor activities as well as Hungarian wine and extraordinary concentration of thermal bars, all inspired by dozens of colour photos. The Rough Guide to Hungary is loaded with practical information on getting there and around, plus reviews of the best hotels, restaurants, bars and shopping in Hungary for all budgets. Rely on expert background information on everything from Hungarian folk music to Habsburg rule whilst relying on a useful language section and the clearest maps of any guide. Make the most of your holiday with The Rough Guide to Hungary

Great Desert Explorers

Great Desert Explorers
Author: Andrew Goudie
Publisher:
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2016-12-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1900971488

Desert exploration, like climbing Everest or polar expeditions, is not for the faint-hearted, and many of the vivid tales within this fascinating biographical history end in tragedy. However, the informative and absorbing descriptions of the extraordinary journeys, challenges and achievements of these intrepid figures, are captivating. They risked their lives variously for good old fashioned epic adventure, solitude, fame, the answer to mythical questions and some were even spies. They experienced fear, excitement and hardship in their journeys into the unknown. There are many books on exploration but remarkably few on desert exploration. Moreover, some of the great desert explorers of the last three hundred years are now very little remembered or appreciated in comparison, say, with those who ventured to the poles, climbed Everest, or sought the source of the Nile. Yet, crossing unknown deserts is no less challenging. This volume finally brings these Great Desert Explorers into the limelight, with short, illustrated biographies of around 60 of the most interesting, intrepid and important explorers of the world’s greatest deserts. There is also a brief introduction to each desert region. The many original quotations, illustrations and maps, contemporary figures, as well as plates of a range of desert landscapes make this a colourful, lively and informative read.

Reading Herodotus

Reading Herodotus
Author: Debra Hamel
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2012-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 142140656X

How to destroy a mighty empire: the story of Croesus of Lydia -- Cannibals and conquests: the story of Cyrus the Great -- Horny goats and medicinal urine: the Egyptian logos -- Madness and mummies: the reign of Cambyses -- Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Mediterranean: the stories of Polycrates and Periander -- Earless imposters and randy mounts: the early reign of Darius the Great -- The trouble with nomads: Darius' Scythian campaign -- Stuttering colonists and lousy deaths: the Libyan logos -- Tattooed slaves and ousted tyrants: post-Pisistratid Athens and the Ionian revolt -- Miltiades, madness, and Marathon: the first Persian War -- Feats of engineering and doomed valor: the Second Persian War to the Battle of Thermopylae -- Trial by trireme: the Battles at Artemisium and Salamis -- Concluding scenes: the Battles of Plataea and Mycale and the siege of Sestus.

Castration Desire

Castration Desire
Author: Robinson Murphy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2023-12-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Theorizes an alternative form of masculinity in global literature that is less egocentric and more sustainable, both in terms of gendered and environmental power dynamics. Contemporary novelists and filmmakers like Kazuo Ishiguro (Japanese-British), Emma Donoghue (Irish-Canadian), Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lankan-Canadian), Bong Joon-ho (South Korean) and J.M. Coetzee (South African-Australian) are emblematic of a transnational phenomenon that Robinson Murphy calls “castration desire.” That is, these artists present privileged characters who nonetheless pursue their own diminishment. In promulgating through their characters a less egocentric mode of thinking and acting, these artists offer a blueprint for engendering a more other-oriented global relationality. Murphy proposes that, in addition to being an ethical prerogative, castration desire's “less is more” model of relationality would make life livable where veritable suicide is our species' otherwise potential fate. “Castration desire” thus offers an antidote to rapacious extractivism, with the ambition of instilling a sustainable model for thinking and acting on an imminently eco-apocalyptic earth. In providing a fresh optic through which to read a diversity of text-types, Castration Desire helps define where literary criticism is now and where it is headed. Castration Desire additionally extends and develops a zeitgeist currently unfolding in critical theory. It brings Leo Bersani's concept “psychic utopia” together with Judith Butler's “radical egalitarianism,” but transports their shared critique of phallic individualization into the environmental humanities. In doing so, this book builds a new framework for how gender studies intersects with environmental studies.