Chalke Talk

Robert Kennedy: Working for Bobby

In 1968, a year that saw America divided by the Vietnam War and shocked by the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Steve Isenberg, a 27-year-old political novice, joined the presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He recounts his adventures on the campaign trail and reveals the highs and lows of a campaign that was innocent and idealistic, yet full of serious purpose and determination, but that was ultimately to end in tragedy.

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The Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses were fought over thirty bitter years from 1455 to 1485, as rival dynasties from the Houses of York and Lancaster repeatedly clashed in a desperate power struggle for the throne of England. Best-selling author Conn Iggulden uses this period of human drama as the backdrop to his novels and here, discusses his research and describes some of the battles.

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Agent Jack: MI5's Secret Nazi Hunter

In June 1940 Britain was Europe’s final bastion of freedom - and Hitler’s next target. But not everyone feared a Nazi invasion: in factories, offices and suburban homes people were determined to hasten it. Robert Hutton exposes the astonishing story of the MI5 agent at the heart of Operation Fifth Column, the covert wartime operation to flush out Nazi sympathisers on British soil.

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Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli was the most gifted parliamentarian of the nineteenth century. He twice rose to become Prime Minister, dazzling many with his famous epigrams along the way. Politician Douglas Hurd and political speechwriter Edward Young strip away the myths which surround his career, explore the paradoxes at the centre of his “two lives” and bring alive the true genius of Disraeli.

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Athelstan

Athelstan is arguably England’s greatest monarch and here best-selling and award- winning author Tom Holland tells the truly amazing story of how Athelstan built on the foundations of his grandfather and mother to become the first King of a united England.

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The Iliad

Tom Holland, classicist, historian and master storyteller, returns to the Ancient World with his unique, captivating and witty take on Homer’s tale of the Trojan War. A retelling of this most enduring of stories, this is for young and old, and all ages in between.

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Britain's Greatest Battle: Imphal and Kohima

This epic battle was voted Britain’s Greatest Battle in a poll by the National Army Museum, yet few know or understand why this brutal but decisive engagement was so significant. As James Holland reveals, it deserves greater recognition not just for the extraordinary leadership of General Bill Slim but also for epic heroism and the dogged determination of all those who fought there.

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Gentlemen Behaving Badly: Eighteenth Century Rakes and Rascals

When a pious Swiss traveller visited London in the 1720s, he complained that ‘debauch runs riot with an unblushing countenance’. But just how badly behaved was the average English gentleman? Drawing on diaries, letters and gallows confessions, award-winning author Antonia Hodgson explores the lives of several fascinating rogues - from the amiable to the downright deadly.

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The Wipers Times

The Wipers Times was a newspaper for the troops that was written, edited and printed under extraordinary circumstances by a small group of British soldiers during the First World War. Wry, irreverent and topical, it was, in many ways, a precursor to Private Eye, of which Ian has been editor for many years. Here he discusses this brilliant life-enhancing wartime publication and the men who created it. 

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How Ruskin Shapes Our World

John Ruskin was the best-known and most controversial intellectual of the Victorian Age. He was an art critic, a social activist, an early environmentalist; he was also a painter, writer, and a determined tastemaker in the fields of architecture and design. In the bicentenary of his birth, Andrew Hill shows how Ruskin’s radical ideas are still relevant to today.

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