{"title":"Sir Rodric Braithwaite","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"armageddon-and-paranoia-book-sir-rodric-braithwaite-9781781257210","title":"Armageddon and Paranoia","description":"Bestselling author, former British diplomat and expert on Russia Rodric Braithwaite's gripping account of the intense rivalry between Russia and the West  In 1945, the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and warfare was never the same again. Armageddon and Paranoia relates how the power of the atom was harnessed to produce weapons capable of destroying human civilisation and considers what this has done to the world.  There are few villains in this story: on both sides of the Iron Curtain, dedicated scientists cracked the secrets of nature, dutiful military men planned out possible manoeuvres and politicians wrestled with potentially intolerable decisions. Patriotic citizens acquiesced to the idea that their country needed the ultimate means of defence. Some tried to grapple with the unanswerable question: what end could possibly be served by such fearsome means? Those who protested went unheard. None of them wanted to start a nuclear war, but all of them were paranoid about what the other side might do. The danger of annihilation by accident or misjudgement has not been entirely absent since.  Rodric Braithwaite, author of bestsellers Moscow 1941 and Afgantsy, paints a vivid and detailed portrait of this intense period in history. Its implications are terrifyingly relevant today, as ignorant and thoughtless talk about nuclear war begins to spread once more.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49507801792785,"sku":"GOR009895932","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49597453795601,"sku":"GOR009881072","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51662956953873,"sku":"GOR014355901","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53075025756433,"sku":"NGR9781781257210","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1781257213.jpg?v=1759226683"},{"product_id":"moscow-1941-book-sir-rodric-braithwaite-9781861977595","title":"Moscow 1941","description":"The story of the invasion of Moscow, told through its people.  Fought over a territory the size of France, the Battle of Moscow in 1941 cost the Russians as many casualties as the British lost in WW1. It marked the first strategic defeat of the Wehrmacht and halted their seemingly unstoppable advance across Europe. This is the story of that battle - and the ordinary men and women who fought it.  Based on huge research and scores of interviews, this book offers an unforgettable and richly illustrated narrative of the military action that took place in Moscow during 1941. It paints telling portraits of Stalin and his generals: some apparatchiks, some great commanders. It also traces the individual stories of soldiers, politicians and intellectuals, writers and artists and dancers, workers, schoolchildren and peasants.  Putin's invocations in contemporary propaganda shows that the Great Patriotic War remains highly emotional for Russia, and many former Socialist Republics. Many of these countries must grapple with troubling legacies behind the appalling cost of victory - from the role of Stalin to the complicity of collaborationist forces from the occupied USSR in atrocities both behind the front line and the rapid Nazi advance.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49509192663313,"sku":"GOR002652666","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53008598040849,"sku":"GOR002775305","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53136588472593,"sku":"GOR011064969","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/186197759X.jpg?v=1751437518"},{"product_id":"russia-book-sir-rodric-braithwaite-9781800811881","title":"Russia","description":"A TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2022  'Wise and thorough' The Spectator  'Brisk and readable ... very valuable' Financial Times  'He is an engaging guide ... and writes with the same flair demonstrated in his previous bestseller Afgantsy' The Sunday Telegraph  'A scholarly yet highly readable gallop through the last 1000 years of Russian history ... To understand this tormented nation, you can do no better than read this illuminating portrait' Jonathan Dimbleby  Russia is the largest country in the world, with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Over a thousand years this multifaceted nation of shifting borders has been known as Rus, Muscovy, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Thirty years ago it was reinvented as the Russian Federation.   Russia is not an enigma, but its past is violent, tragic, sometimes glorious, and certainly complicated. Like the rest of us, the Russians constantly rewrite their history. They too omit episodes of national disgrace in favour of patriotic anecdotes, sometimes more rooted in myth than reality.   Expert and former ambassador Rodric Braithwaite unpicks fact from fiction to discover what lies at the root of the Russian story.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514229563665,"sku":"GOR013070839","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49534140547345,"sku":"GOR012481904","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50524505932049,"sku":"GOR012554262","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1800811888.jpg?v=1759227214"},{"product_id":"afgantsy-book-sir-rodric-braithwaite-9781846680540","title":"Afgantsy","description":"Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, told by a former British Ambassador  Twenty-five years ago, when the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan after a gruelling nine-year occupation, they left a legacy obscured by distortion and distrust. Fuelled by Cold War propaganda and the myths of the nineteenth-century Great Game, in many ways it remains so.  The USSR entered the country in 1979 as part of efforts to quash growing anti-Soviet feeling in Kabul. What followed was a particularly brutal and bloody episode in world history - and one that is often credited as setting the stage for the Taliban's takeover in 1996. Basing his account on Russian sources and interviews, Rodric Braithwaite shows the conflict through the eyes of the Russians who fought it - politicians, officers, soldiers, advisers and journalists - moving seamlessly from the high politics of the Kremlin to lonely Russian conscripts in isolated mountain outposts.  This is a powerful and sweeping history of the Soviets in Afghanistan, told with the unique insights of a former Ambassador to Moscow.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514831085841,"sku":"GOR003063731","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49548337578257,"sku":"GOR006928614","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49642762141969,"sku":"GOR004011019","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50299783610641,"sku":"CIN1846680549VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50302578229521,"sku":"CIN1846680549G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51513622626577,"sku":"GOR006980885","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846680549.jpg?v=1751412075"},{"product_id":"afgantsy-book-sir-rodric-braithwaite-9781846680625","title":"Afgantsy","description":"Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, told by a former British Ambassador  Twenty-five years ago, when the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan after a gruelling nine-year occupation, they left a legacy obscured by distortion and distrust. 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Warfare was never the same again. Armageddon and Paranoia relates how the power of the atom was harnessed to produce weapons capable of destroying human civilisation, and what this has done to the world.   There are few villains in this story: on both sides of the Iron Curtain, dedicated scientists cracked the secrets of nature while dutiful military men planned out possible manoeuvres and politicians wrestled with intolerable decisions. Patriotic citizens acquiesced to the idea that their country needed the ultimate means of defence. Some protested, citing the unanswerable question: what end could possibly be served by such fearsome means? None wanted to start a nuclear war, but all were paranoid about what the other side might do.  The danger of annihilation - by accident or design - has never quite left the world. 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It also traces the stories of individuals, soldiers, politicians and intellectuals, writers and artists and dancers, workers, schoolchildren and peasants. Click here to visit the author's website.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49559199973649,"sku":"GOR001397887","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50152227438865,"sku":"GOR001231837","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1861977743.jpg?v=1751346688"},{"product_id":"russia-book-sir-rodric-braithwaite-9781800811898","title":"Russia","description":"'Wise and thorough' Spectator  'Brisk and readable ... very valuable' Financial Times  'He is an engaging guide ... and writes with the same flair demonstrated in his previous bestseller Afgantsy' Sunday Telegraph  'A scholarly yet highly readable gallop through the last 1000 years of Russian history ... To understand this tormented nation, you can do no better than read this illuminating portrait' Jonathan Dimbleby  With its attack on Ukraine, Russia's future seems almost as uncertain as its past. The largest country in the world - with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons - has been known over the past thousand years as Rus, Muscovy, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Thirty years ago it was reinvented as the Russian Federation.  Russia is not an enigma but its past is violent, tragic, sometimes glorious, and certainly complicated. Like the rest of us, the Russians constantly rewrite their history. They too omit episodes of national disgrace in favour of patriotic anecdotes, sometimes more rooted in myth than reality.  Expert and former ambassador Rodric Braithwaite unpicks fact from fiction to discover what lies at the root of the Russian story, more relevant to the rest of the world now than ever before.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49591664410897,"sku":"GOR013221371","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49653718843665,"sku":"GOR012924561","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740415467793,"sku":"NGR9781800811898","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50670428127505,"sku":"GOR013241874","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52685247217937,"sku":"NLS9781800811898","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1800811896.jpg?v=1759228435"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-sir-rodric-braithwaite.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}