NEW AND FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
Britain’s Rottenest Years, Short Books, h/b, October 2009, ISBN 978-1-906021-58-0, £12.99
Think you’ve had a rotten year? Think again…
as this horrible history of Britain shows, whatever life is throwing at us in the 21st Century, our ancestors had it a whole lot worse.
War, terror, economic collapse... Britain has been there before. And for the likes of the Celts, or the Tudors, or the Georgians, these catastrophes were much harder to bear.
Try 1349 (the black death), or 1536 (the year the king went mad...), or 1720 (when a biblical fog descended on England for months and literally laid waste to the nation). The fact is that rat for rat, recession for recession, gory death for gory death, the ten really rotten years featured in this book beat our current travails hands down.
But Britain’s Rottenest Years is not just a bad news story. It is a fantastically readable leapfrog through British history which takes us, via the interesting bits, from the misery of the Roman invasion of AD60 (when 50,000 foreign thugs arrived on our shores) to the Thatcherite year of discontent of 1981 –the ideal gift for anyone who needs cheering up...
A Brief History of HENRY VIII – Reformer and Tyrant, Constable, p/b, February 2009, ISBN 978-1-84529-903-3, £8.99
Tyrant, reformer, exhibitionist, patriot, sexual athlete – there are lots of words used to describe one of the best known and controversial Kings of England. But what do we really know about him?
In this challenging and highly accessible biography Wilson probes the inner man and reveals, beneath the jewelled and aggressive exterior an insecure ruler haunted by the memory of a successful father and by his own sexual inadequacy. Derek brings to this highly readable study a lifetime of study and corrects the distortions produced by television and some popular biographies.
PETER THE GREAT, Hutchinson, h/b, February 2009, ISBN 978-0-091-79647-1, £20
There has never been a more remarkable national leader in modern history than Peter the Great (1672-1725). He was 6’7” tall, had massive willpower, enthusiasm and energy and refused to accept old conventions. He created a new city on marshland by the sea called St Petersburg and made his courtiers shave their beards and wear western dress. He destroyed Sweden, then the greatest force in northern Europe, and made Russia master of the Baltic. European leaders did not know what to make of this eccentric, unsophisticated tsar who loathed pomp and ceremony and served as a junior officer in his own army. He took a peasant girl as his own wife but married members of his family into the royal houses of Europe. Russia was profoundly changed by this extraordinary man. So was Europe.
OUT OF THE STORM: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther is a real labour of love. No-one made a greater impact on 16th century Europe than this German monk who seldom travelled more than 100 km from his Wittenberg home and his influence has been felt wherever European culture has exported itself in the years since his death.
FRANCIS WALSINGHAM: Courtier in
an Age of Terror is a book that had to be written in order to adjust the balance
of our understanding of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Walsingham was not just
the 'dour Puritan' or 'Machiavellian spymaster' of legend. And Elizabeth was
very far from being the 'Gloriana' of TV documentary and popular fiction. Queen
and minister were both fighting a 'war on terror' and sometimes they were fighting
against each other.
FRANCIS WALSINGHAM - Courtier in an Age of Terror, Constable, 27 September, 2007, ISBN
This rounded biography of the great Elizabethan diplomat and statesman is the first to explore fully Walsingham's religious motivation and his extraordinary relationship with the queen. It also highlights the perilous situation in which England found itself in the period 1570-1590 when unscrupulous foes at home and abroad were frantically trying to destroy the Protestant state.
Out
of the Storm - The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther, Hutchinson,
May 2007, ISBN 0099451196, Pimlico p/b, April 2008, ISBN 9781844134106
It is 50 years since the last popular English biography of the great reformer.
This new study, taking notice of all the latest research, gives a vivid, warts-an-all,
word portrait of this larger-than-life figure. The book depicts his personal
struggle for faith and his intimate relations with family and friends as well
as his public life. Luther's challenge of papal authority and his enormous literary
output (especially his German translation of the Bible) changed the whole course
of Europe and world history.
HANS
HOLBEIN - Portrait of an Unknown Man,
Pimlico, 7 Sept 2006, ISBN 1844139182
This second edition of the biography pulished in 1996 has been revised
to incorporate the latest scholarship and to give further expression to my views
on Holbein's involvement in the Reformation.
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There is little available in English about the man who was has been called the 'Father of Europe' and who has had a profound effect on the development of the Continent. From 771 to 814 Charles the Great created and ruled an empire that was the largest seen in Europe since the departure of the Romans and would only be surpassed by the empires of Charles V and Napoleon I. He established Latin Christendom, presided over what has been called the 'Carolingian Renaissance' and was solemnly crowned Emperor of the West by the Pope. Yet he could not write, led a highly irregular personal life and could be utterly ruthless. In this fresh study Derek looks at the Man, the Moment and the Myth of Charlemagne, not only telling his remarkable story but explaining the impact of his legend down the centuries which inspired the Crusades, absolute monarchies, liberal politicians and the founders of the EU.
Now available in paperback
Derek follows his highly-acclaimed In The Lion’s Court, a penetrating study of Henry VIII and his ministers (‘ stimulating book about our most important dynasty’ – Antonia Fraser) with a probing examination of the court of Charles II. He rejects the simplistic verdict of Charles as a lazy, selfish womaniser and reveals a man who was very ‘modern’ in his attitude towards the opposite sex. His enjoyment of and dependence on female company went far beyond the bedchamber. Derek takes us right through Charles’ life and explores his crucial relations with his domineering mother, his beloved sisters, his grasping nurse, his courageous wife, the women who sustained him during his exile and those whose company he enjoyed after the Restoration. Through the pages of the book process a cavalcade of queens, princesses, courtesans, bluestockings, actresses and devoted subjects. All The King’s Women tells us as much about Stuart Britain as it does about the king. 'Interrelates the personal and political dimensions of Charles II's life with an effectiveness that few other biographers have matched' - Sunday Telegraph
Derek has fulfilled a long-held ambition in charting the tumultuous saga of the Dudley family through four generations. The Dudleys were the royal dynasty England almost had. They helped to build the power of the Tudors as administrators, courtiers and generals and thrice came close to succeeding them as sovereigns. Yet three members of the family were executed for treason and the whole brood were universally unpopular. This is the first time the see-saw story of the 16th cenrury Dudleys has been told. It makes riveting reading.
This is the third extract from the Gye Journals. St Thomas's College, Cambridge, has a ghost - or so some people say. The Cambridge branch of the Psychic Investigation Unit is invited to carry out an experiment. Professor Hockridge insists on being present. Alas, during the proceedings he collapses with a heart attack.
The master of the college wants to keep everything under wraps but he also wants
a multi-million pound benefaction offered to the college. There must be no hint
of scandal. Anonymous letters have been received claiming thata the undergraduate
whose unquiet spirit supposedly disturbs the peace of F staircase, did not commit
suicide ten years ago, but was murdered.
Would Dr Nathaniel Gye, lecturer in parapsychology, make some discreet enquiries
with a view to closing the whole sorry business. Find out by reading the latest
Gye Journals.
This is the second extract from the Gye Journals. When, at a backstreet spiritualist séance, Dr. Gye is 'commissioned' by a departed spirit to clear his name of the stigma of art theft and suicide, he reluctantly agrees to investigate a problem which seems insoluable. How can an Old Master painting simply vanish from a locked security van. His probing leads him into the sinister world of international crime and he and Kathryn will be plunged into real danger before this 'sealed room' mystery can be solved.
Dr Nathaniel Gye, lecturer in parapsychology at Cambridge and a controversial presenter of TV documentaries on the occult tends to get involved in criminal investigations in which normal police procedures become confused with supposed supernatural activity. Tripletree is the first published extract from his personal journal. At an exotic party in the Cotswold Jacobean manor house of Coln St Ippolyts the festivities of the great and the good come to an abrupt end when the body of a woman is dragged from the lake. Nat Gye is pressed to share his expertise and finds himself sucked into a raging whirlpool of local feuds, passionate hatreds and conflicting ambitions, complicated by manifestations of witchcraft, mind-manipulation and ghostly manifestations. Three will be more deaths and personal danger to Dr Gye and ‘Tripletree House’ itself will play a sinister role before the unsavoury truth is finally discovered.
- Daily Mail
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CIRCUMNAVIGATORS – The pioneer voyagers who set off around the globe (Robinson May 2003, ISBN 1-84119-709-2)
When Derek’s highly original study The Circumnavigators was first published it was acclaimed by the critics as a compelling narrative (‘Marvellous material, fluently and expertly retold’ – Daily Telegraph) and was awarded the King George’s Fund for Sailors Best Book of the Sea Award. Now revised and updated for Robinson’s ‘Brief History’ series it appears in paperback at a price affordable for all who love tales of maritime adventure.
The story begins in 1521 with the completion of the harrowing Magellan-Elcano voyage, the first circumnavigation, and ends with Joshua Slocum’s first single-handed circuit of the globe, 376 years later. A chapter on 20th century round-the-world racing brings the yarn up to date. These four and a half centuries were replete with the exploits of adventurers, explorers, colonisers, pirates, merchants and scientists who, from motives as varied as curiosity, greed, national pride, escapism and love of danger pitted themselves and their vessels against the unknown terrors of tempest, uncharted hazards, scurvy, fabled sea monsters and hostile peoples. Famous names feature prominently in the narrative – Drake, Dampier, Anson, Bougainville, Cook – but the reader will discover the dramatic exploits of lesser known men who braved the seven seas and also probed ‘the ocean within’.