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How to Build an Aircraft Carrier
How to Build an Aircraft Carrier
Sep 22, 2024 7:31 PM

Author:Chris Terrill

How to Build an Aircraft Carrier

Discover the enthralling story of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy's largest ever aircraft carrier and SUBJECT OF THE MAJOR NEW BBC DOCUMENTARY SERIES THE WARSHIP

'Fascinating, often funny and sometimes moving . . . Terrill takes us deep into the bowels of Britain's biggest warship . . . Exhilarating' THE TIMES

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65,000 tons. 280 metres long. A flight deck the size of sixty tennis courts. A giant piece of Sovereign British territory that's home to up to 50 Aircraft. HMS Queen Elizabeth is the biggest ship in the Royal Navy's history and one of the most ambitious and exacting engineering projects ever undertaken in the UK.

But it's her ship's company of 700, alongside an air group of 900 air and ground crew that are Big Lizzie's beating heart. And How to Build an Aircraft Carrier tells their story.

From before the first steel of her hull was cut, Chris Terrill has enjoyed unprecedented access to Queen Elizabeth and the men and women who have brought her to life. From Jerry Kyd, the ship's inspirational Captain to Lt Cdr Nathan Grey, the first pilot to land Britain's new stealth jet fighter on her deck, Terrill has won the trust and confidence of the ship's people.

How to Build an Aircraft Carrier tells the story of Britain at its best: innovative, confident, outward-looking and world beating.

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'A detailed account of the challenges, trials and triumphs on the ship's progression . . . and a portrait of the men and women who made it happen. [Terrill] writes with affection, humour and understanding' TELEGRAPH

Reviews

Terrill takes us deep into the bowels of Britain's biggest warship . . . Exhilarating

—— The Times

Celebrates remarkable feats of engineering.

—— Telegraph

An extraordinary reconstruction of the fateful week following Pearl Harbor.

—— Adam Tooze , Guardian

A very important book ... Truly eye-opening, myth-busting history.

—— Aspects of History

In Hitler's American Gamble, Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman grippingly retell the story of five days that not only shook but also shaped the world... All students of both World War II and the Holocaust will learn, as I did, from their careful use of neglected documents and their attention to 'counterfactuals' that, for contemporaries, were at least as likely as what actually happened.

—— Niall Ferguson

Offers fine, well-researched insights into the psyches of leaders who made decisions that changed the course of world history ... For readers seeking a deeper understanding of the realpolitik that drove Germany to war against America, Hitler's American Gamble offers an outstanding narrative.

—— Jonathan W. Jordan , World War 2 Magazine

A rare achievement: a microhistory that's global in scope. Filled with fresh insights, excitingly written, and meticulously documented, Hitler's American Gamble is sure to become an instant classic.

—— John Lewis Gaddis

Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman show how Hitler's mad decision to declare war on the United States on December 11, 1941 proved suicidal for the Axis, ensured a global catastrophe, and would radically redefine how World War II would end. And yet was Hitler really as unhinged and reckless as it has seemed? ... Hitler's American Gamble is revisionist, but in the best sense of sound research, rare originality, singular analysis, and riveting prose.

—— Victor Davis Hanson

The authors effectively prove their thesis in a key volume for World War II history collections.

—— Michael Farrell , Library Journal

The Western Front is an impressive achievement. It will, I am sure, become the standard narrative account, and deserves a wide readership

—— Gary Sheffield , TLS

He writes with a lucidity and panache that makes the book a page-turner . . . [and] synthesises the latest thinking with such exceptional skill and subtlety . . . Without question, this book is an outstanding achievement, a brilliant one-volume military history of the war on the Western Front that combines narrative drive, acute pen-portraits, and penetrating analysis of military developments and command decisions

—— Neil Faulkner , Military History Matters

This is a balanced, yet sympathetic, biography which throws light on Toussaint's personality and acknowledges the importance of his political ideals ... Toussaint is now a global figure, a byword for Black empowerment, and as such he has become a hero for our times.

—— Alan Forrest , Times Literary Supplement

Hazareesingh presents a deeply researched, energetic, and comprehensively reenvisioned study of the extraordinary life and still-growing influence of Haiti's liberator and founding father.

—— Donna Seaman , Booklist

a timely study of Toussaint Louverture, hero of Haiti's slave revolt

—— Clive Davis , The Times

This timely biography digs deeper into archival material to reveal Louverture's uniquely modern views.

—— Evening Standard

engaging ... a vivid portrait of a complex, captivating and sometimes contradictory leader.

—— Carrie Gibson , Prospect

Based on meticulous research in the French archives, Hazareesingh's scholarship deserves the highest praise.

—— Dominic Sandbrook , Sunday Times

Sudhir Hazareesingh's remarkable book is a sparkling example of the role history can play in society today and, in particular, the importance of shining a light on the often-overlooked experiences of the past.

—— Paul Ramsbottom

Sudhir Hazareesingh's account of what he dubs the "epic life" of Toussaint Louverture provides a meticulous biography of his subject and, at the same time, a comprehensive new introduction to the Haitian Revolution ... Black Spartacus is compellingly written and presents its rich source material, both historiographic and archival, with a welcome lightness of touch. ... the definitive English-language life of Louverture

—— Charles Forsdick , Jacobin

Sudhir Hazareesingh's stellar, deeply engrossing Black Spartacus still thrums with great potential for our contemporary moment. [Toussaint] shines incandescent in Hazareesingh's tour de force, which has brought an immense amount of new material into the general public domain. The distinguished author, who is a fellow at Oxford's Balliol College, previously specialized in French intellectual and cultural history, and admits in his acknowledgements that he had "never ventured into the history of French colonialism in the Caribbean." But there's also an intriguing biographical element- his roots in the Indian ocean island of Mauritius - that has worked rather serendipitously. As far as this reader is concerned, it's that perspective which has wound up yielding the most original and penetrating insights in Black Spartacus.

—— Vivek Menezes , Hindustan Times

This book weaves all these threads into a compelling narrative. Reality trumps fiction on every page.

—— Francis Ghiles , ES Global

Many consider the years before 1945 to be the most crucial in understanding Germany and the Germans. Wait until you have read this book.

—— Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich

Harald Jähner's deeply researched, panoramic account of how Germany rebuilt and discovered itself from 1945-1955 is an eye-opening, thrilling read

—— Bernhard Schlink, bestselling author of The Reader

A magnificent overview of the astonishing decade in Germany that followed the defeat of Nazism

—— Daily Telegraph (Best Summer Reading)

Eye-opening and often moving... a sobering look at how societies rebuild

—— BBC History Magazine

Highly readable... Counter-intuitive but thoughtful

—— Peter Fritzsche, New York Times

[A] thoughtful narrative... filling the yawning gap on bookshop shelves between a growing number of modern German history texts and the oversupply of Nazi studies that end in Hitler's bunker

—— Irish Times

Aftermath takes in the immediate postwar years where Germany was administered by the Allies... Jähner excels

—— Giles MacDonogh, Financial Times

Fascinating... Books about Word War II continue to spill out by the ton, but there has been less attention paid to how Germans coped with the country's shameful Nazi past after the conflict was over

—— Irish Independent (Summer Reads)

Rarely has a non-fiction book so skilfully combined vividness, drama and eloquence.

—— From the Jury's reasoning for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for Non-Fiction 2019

Jähner's gripping 500-page X-ray-vision tale of an often overlooked and misperceived phase of German history reveals, like all great history books, as much about the first decade after the war as about today.

—— The German Times

Clearly written, full of empathy for everyday life, which is far too seldom taken into consideration... You devour it like a novel.

—— Welt am Sonntag

A popular work of non-fiction in the best sense.

—— Die Zeit
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