Author:Mike Rossiter
On the evening of 30 March, 1982, Commander David Hall, chief engineer of the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror received a telephone call giving him the order to 'store for war'. At first he didn't believe it. In the early hours of 2 April, Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Isles.
The sinking of the Belgrano was one of the most dramatic moments of the Falklands conflict. For many it signalled Britain's entry into the war and it has been seen as a politically motivated decision deliberately designed to take the country irrevocably into the fight. Now Mike Rossiter - with unprecedented access to sailors from the Belgrano and HMS Conqueror - gives us a dramatic and definitive retelling of the events that led up to the sinking.
With all the pace and tension of a thriller, Sink the Belgrano takes us inside the battle for the South Atlantic and shows us the human drama behind the famous, and controversial, Sun headline 'Gotcha!' We track the collision course between the British submarine Conqueror and the Argentine warship - as the two sides and everyone aboard head towards the climactic moment just outside the exclusion zone set up by the British around the Falkland Isles. We witness the behind-the-scenes arguments , discussions and powerbroking that led to the decision to fire the three torpedoes. And, for the first time, we hear from the sailors on both sides - the personal testimony of the hunt for and attack on the Belgrano, and from the Argentine side the experience of being under attack and the sinking that left 340 members of her crew dead.
Praise for Cities:
A fascinating account of how cities grow and sometimes crumble... Reader's magpie eye...picks out gems... Entertaining... Cities is, finally, a celebration of its subject's refusal to be explained or controlled.
Cities is vastly entertaining, and Reader has a fine eye for the telling anecdote and statistic... Reading it is a bit like wandering with an erudite companion through a great city in which the past rubs shoulders with the present and surprises lurk around every corner.
—— TimeIt is probably the most enjoyable book ever written about the matter of a city... fascinating
—— Jan Morris , The TimesJohn Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is. I salute him
—— Harold PinterThe array of interviews with the voiceless and abused provides an indispensable corrective to the litany of disinformation we are fed by the media, and for this achievement Pilger is surely the most outstanding journalist in the world today
—— GuardianAn explosive read... powerful,compelling and questioning- a true reflection of the journalist himself
—— Birmingham PostCompelling... provocative, argumentative and essential reading for those who wish to challenge their assumptions
—— Waterstone's Books QuarterlyWorld-class journalism
—— Johann Hari , IndependentWhat makes John Pilger a truly great journalist is his conscience and bravery
—— Martha GellhornPilger's work has truly been a beacon of light in dark times
—— Noam ChomskyJohn Pilger's determination to swim against the tide of 'mainstream' media reportage prompts him to dig deep. Freedom Next Time is no exception
—— MetroImpresses with its scholarship and literary craft
—— ObserverTruly, he has written London’s biography. I began rereading it as soon as I finished, and I urge you to read it as soon as possible, so that you can begin rereading it as well
—— Will Self , New StatesmanA fat and filling feast: pretty much everything of interest about the capital is crammed into the eight-hundred pages. One cannot but marvel at Ackroyd’s erudition, his energy in marshalling minutiae, his ear for quotation, his flair for dazzling juxtapositions, his vibrant imagination and sheer exuberance
—— The TimesAn erudite labour of love, a fan-letter to a fabulous city, and a book one suspects Ackroyd was destined to write. It illuminates the English character, and is darkly humorous in its detail, tumbling through centuries crowded with legendary events and eccentric observations, as exuberant, energetic and alarming as the city itself
—— Independent on SundayA masterpiece
—— Evening StandardSpellbinding
—— Express on SundayA sharp, beautifully written but above all truthful account of London…This is the kind of writing that gives intellectuals a good name
—— Sunday Tribune