{"title":"Politics \u0026 Society","description":"\u003cp\u003eThought-provoking books on power, ideology, and society — from Churchill and Orwell to counter-terrorism, anti-semitism, and the battle of ideas.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"britains-contested-history-lessons-for-patriots-bernard-porter","title":"Britain's Contested History: Lessons for Patriots","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRecent years have seen a re-examination of Britain's imperialist past, with changes to how its citizens understand, study and scrutinize its history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eBritain's Contested History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, eminent historian Bernard Porter explores the most contested aspects of British history from 1800 to the present day. Examining issues such as Brexit, recent reassessments of Winston Churchill's historical record, the so-called 'culture wars' and Britain's uncomfortable reckoning with its imperial past, the book reconsiders what it means to be a “patriot” in Britain.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Open Page","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59139052929349,"sku":null,"price":4.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1093\/3344\/6981\/files\/IMG_0682.jpg?v=1788607989"},{"product_id":"black-flag-down-counter-terrorism-defeating-daesh-and-winning-the-battle-of-ideas","title":"Black Flag Down: Counter Terrorism, Defeating Daesh and Winning the Battle of Ideas","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe West is facing a terror threat unprecedented since the Cold a revolution in the accessibility of violence as ISIS, al Qaeda and their allies set out to build a 21st-century theocracy of seventh-century values, stretching from Portugal to Pakistan.We need to dramatically step up the fightback - yet we're at risk of plunging into our enemies' trap of divide and rule. At home, we risk becoming a suspicious society, scarred by Islamophobia, where British Muslims fear being seen as the enemy within. Online, we're fighting extremist recruiters on the digital battlefront with one hand tied behind our back. And in the Middle East, we lack the strategy or grand coalition needed to isolate and undermine our enemy in the battle of ideas.From Iraq to the streets of inner-city Birmingham, Liam Byrne MP brings together two years of fresh research with young British Muslims, frank interviews with intelligence and police officers, and frontline reports from the Middle East to answer the critical how do we defeat the new empire of intolerance? In this timely examination of the rise of ISIS, Byrne offers bold new answers for handling one of the biggest challenges of our bringing down the black flag of extremism.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Open Page","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59139076981061,"sku":null,"price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1093\/3344\/6981\/files\/IMG_0790.jpg?v=1788608457"},{"product_id":"newcomers-lives-the-story-of-immigrants-as-told-in-obituaries-from-the-times","title":"Newcomers' Lives: The Story of Immigrants as Told in Obituaries from The Times","description":"\u003cp\u003eTo mention the names Ernst Gombrich, Nikolaus Pevsner,Victor Gollancz, Joseph Conrad, T.S.Eliot, Nancy Astor and C.L.R. James is to give but a brief glimpse of the impact immigrants to this country have made on our national culture and character. Indeed, these people have been crucial to the development of recent British history and have been indispensable for the way we live now. By reproducing the Times obituaries of over one hundred of the most important of these, the reader is given a unique view of their contribution and it is clear how their contribution has been a determinant factor in British history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe book covers politics, business, art, architecture, music and sport as well as philosophy and religion. The breadth and depth of the influence of immigrants is thus reinforced.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSimon Sebag Montefiore contributes a fascinating introduction surveying our historial and cultural landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Open Page","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59139093168453,"sku":null,"price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1093\/3344\/6981\/files\/IMG_0940.jpg?v=1788608696"},{"product_id":"aliens-the-chequered-history-of-britainas-wartime-refugees-paul-dowswell","title":"Aliens: The Chequered History of Britain's Wartime Refugees","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe welcome given to refugees from fascist Europe is part of Britain’s fond nostalgia for the Second World War. But there was a darker side to this story, both before and during the conflict. Then, as now, there was great suspicion, resentment and fear – much of it kindled by Britain’s infamous tabloid press. Then, as now, government dealt with a reluctance to accommodate refugees by hiding behind bureaucratic hurdles.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the 1930s, Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts were a significant presence in British politics and support for Hitler went right to the top. In 1940, shortly before the Blitz, the recently abdicated Edward VIII even told a Spanish journalist that Britain ought to be bombed to bring it to its senses and stop it opposing the Nazis.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMany of the 10,000 \u003ci\u003eKindertransport\u003c\/i\u003e children have warm memories of the kindness they were shown, but around half a million anti-fascist and Jewish refugees were refused entry and most of them died as a result. Once here, German Jews, especially, found their troubles far from over – 30,000 were rounded up and placed in internment camps. One passenger ship, the \u003ci\u003eDunera\u003c\/i\u003e, was packed with an unhappy combination of German Jews and pro-Nazi sympathisers and despatched to Australia.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMaking use of in-depth research and first-hand interviews, Paul Dowswell casts a fresh eye on the wartime era to paint a picture of what life was really like in Britain for refugees from fascism.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Open Page","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59139127017797,"sku":null,"price":3.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1093\/3344\/6981\/files\/IMG_0750.jpg?v=1788609002"},{"product_id":"churchill-and-orwell-the-fight-for-freedom-ricks-thomas-e","title":"Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, who preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism, from the left and right alike.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBoth George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930's\u0026amp;;Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they'd died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and in deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right.\u0026amp;#160;In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then they acted on their beliefs.\u0026amp;#160;Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West's compass set toward freedom as its due north.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt's not easy to recall now how lonely a position both men once occupied. By the late 1930's, democracy was discredited in many circles, and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism, but saw in Hitler and Mussolini \"men we could do business with,\" if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign, but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom\u0026amp;;that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the end, Churchill and Orwell proved their age's necessary men. The glorious climax of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eChurchill and Orwell\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is the work they both did in the decade of the 1940's to triumph over freedom's enemies. And though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell's reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnimal Farm\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e1984\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e would define the stakes of the Cold War for its 50-year course, and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day. Taken together, in Thomas E. Ricks's masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChurchill and Orwell is a perfect gift for the holidays!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Open Page","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59139138224453,"sku":null,"price":4.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1093\/3344\/6981\/files\/IMG_0698.jpg?v=1788609116"},{"product_id":"anti-semitism-and-the-left-hernon-ian","title":"Anti-Semitism and the Left","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e‘Under Corbyn, the true Left of radical campaigning and genuine anti-racism has been bastardised into a hate cult distinguished by repellent self-righteousness. Corbyn’s cronies, more than willing to act with venality when it suits them, have told themselves that if you say you are on the side of the poor and the downtrodden, anything goes. Anyone who disagrees is obviously on the side of the imperialist, the fat cat bankers and hedge fund managers, the exploiters driven by greed alone to make their billions.’Charges that anti-Semitism was widespread in the Labour Party did much to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of entering No. 10 Downing Street in the 2019 general election. This book, by a veteran political correspondent, examines whether such charges were justified and to what extent they were facilitated by a lack of leadership. It also traces the roots of anti-Semitism on the Left which can make uncomfortable reading for adherents of such socialist icons as Karl Marx, Keir Hardie, Ernest Bevin, John Burns and George Bernard Shaw. The strand of anti-Semitism that has existed on the Left since the birth of socialism as an effective movement is hard to fathom – especially as Jews played an integral part in the creation of both the British trade union movement and the Labour Party. No one with a single brain cell can doubt the persecution and death camps of the twentieth century. In addition, Zionism – opposition to which is now used as a dodgy excuse for anti-Semitism – was for decades embraced by the Left as a template for a socialist paradise. Ian Hernon writes: ‘The most virulent anti-Semitism has over the last century or so come from the Far Right, the British Establishment, the aristocracy and home-grown bigots of all classes. 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Bush have targeted only Osama bin Laden instead of toppling the entire Taliban regime in Afghanistan? Why, in 2011, did David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy use military force to remove a Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, who had repeatedly offered peace talks and compromise? They were all, in their different ways, \"Warmongers\" who waged unnecessary wars, or used a grossly disproportionate amount of force. In modern times (since 1648), many other leaders across the world have also been \"warmongers\" for the same reasons. Some of these individuals were bloodthirsty, some reckless, but most were badly informed or just foolish. An underlying theme is that all these shows of force have rebounded on the perpetrator (or, in one case, very nearly did so). 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