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  • Book cover of Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics

    This book presents a comprehensive and perceptive study of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh through the first two decades of its history from 1951. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was the most robust of the first generation of Hindu nationalist parties in modern Indian politics and Bruce Graham examines why the party failed to establish itself as the party of the numerically dominant Hindu community. The author explains the relatively limited appeal of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in terms of the restrictive scope of its founding doctrines; the limitations of its leadership and organization; its failure to build up a secure base of social and economic interests; and its difficulty in finding issues which would create support for its particular brand of Hindu nationalism. Bruce Graham ends with a major survey of the party's electoral fortunes at national, state and local levels.

  • Book cover of Poetry Of The Second World War

    Poetry of the Second World War brings to light a neglected chapter in world literature. In its chorus of haunting poetic voices, over a hundred of the most articulate minds of their generation record the true experience of the 1939-45 conflict, and its unending consequences. In keeping with its subject, it has an international scope, with poems from over twenty countries, including Japan, Australia, Europe, America and Russia; poems in which human responses echo each other across boundaries of culture and state. Auden, Brecht, Stevie Smith, Primo Levi, Zbigniew Herbert and Anna Akhmatova are set alongside the eloquence of unknown poets. The anthology has been arranged to bring out the chronological and cumulative human experience of the war: pre-war fears, air raids, the boredom, fear and camaraderie of military life; battle, occupation and resistance; surviving and the aftermath. Here at last, are the poems of the Holocaust, the Blitz, Hiroshima; of soldiers, refugees and disrupted lives. What emerges is a poetry capable of conveying the vast and terrible sweep of war.

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  • Book cover of After Shakespeare

    Shakespeare and Newcastle Upon Tyne collide as a range of the Bard's characters are reinterpreted as contemporary Geordies in this punchy and often humorous collection.

  • Book cover of Keith Douglas, 1920-1944

    Keith Douglas was almost certainly the greatest poet of the Second World War. He was killed in Normandy three days after D-Day. He was only twenty-four. His short life was one of contradictions: the gifted artist and romantic, always in love with the wrong girl also enjoyed soldiering and was quick to volunteer at the beginning of the war. The brave and resourceful tank commander with the Sherwood Rangers in the Western Desert, in the campaign of which his Alemein to Zem Zem is the classic account, was also an outspoken critic of the military establishment and often in trouble with his superiors. There was always another side to Keith Douglas: difficult, even arrogant, he was at the same time, as Desmond Graham, observes in his original preface, 'generous, sensitive to the difficulties of others, remorselessly honest, energetic, and passionately, innocently open.' Douglas made in his brief life some friends who never forgot him, and whose memories of him have contributed much to this book. For this biography, Desmond Graham had access to much private and unpublished material. From that, interviews, Keith Douglas' own poems, letters and drawings emerges a definitive biography. 'An almost unqualified success . . . Mr Graham has used his material with great skill and tact.' Roy Fuller 'It is difficult to imagine a better biography than this being written about Keith Douglas . . . Desmond Graham provides us with an astonishing amount of information.' Stephen Spender 'Extremely well-done . . It is written with authority and it will be standard.' Peter Levi 'Sumptuously evocative' John Carey

  • Book cover of The Marching Bands
  • Book cover of Alamein to Zem Zem
    Keith Douglas

     · 1979

    Keith Douglas, killed in action in Normandy in 1944, was one of the finest poets of World War II. Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein in the north African desert, this book is a description of Douglas' experiences on the desert battlefield.

  • Book cover of Not Falling

    The tightrope walker in the cover painting by Macke is symbolic of the author's point of view in this new collection of poems. It is a humorous acknowledgement of the precarious position of the artist in our times, and a hint at the poet's predilection for balancing both personal and public concerns. The former are exemplified by some of the more light-hearted and affectionate poems here, such as 'My Sister Marrying Dirk Bogarde'; the latter appears in the ambitious eight-part sequence, 'The West End, Newcastle upon Tyne', where colourful characters from modern Newcastle are related to their archetypal Shakespearean counterparts. World War Two remains an abiding obsession in 'The Eisenberg Elegies' and in the moving elegy 'To Lore'. Also notable here are the poems inspired by the author's travels in Australia, Germany and the USA. Desmond Graham was born in Surrey and educated at Leeds University. He has lectured at Universities in Africa, Germany and, since 1971, at Newcastle upon Tyne. He is the author of a biography of Keith Douglas and the editor of his poems and prose. He is also the editor of an anthology, Poetry of the Second World War.

  • Book cover of A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics, 1890-1964

    Gathers together information otherwise scattered through a number of official publications. Details all members of Australian ministries, cabinets and portfolios, with dates and notes and voting information (both upper and lower houses of Parliament) for all general elections, Commonwealth, State and Territory.

  • Book cover of Heart Work

    This is Desmond Graham's sixth book of poetry since 1993, which has already won a Poetry Book Society recommendation.A single poem sequence, it begins in the Second World War and advances in diverse and unforeseen directions as the poet attempts to understand the nature of the heart. Historical and public events blend with the private life of the poet as he learns about the world around him. The poem is driven by a strong narrative that involves the reader in the poet's quest to discover what is it full of/the heart? It builds, as an oratorio builds, through motif and counterpoint, through dramatic changes of pace and tone, to its surprising finale.