Idea and Image

What does art tell us about man’s place in history?

In Thought and Image, award-winning author and philosopher Fredrik Lång takes the reader on a two-thousand-year journey spanning the worlds of art and philosophy, from ancient Greece into the modern day. Thought and Image explores the ways in which artistic expression is linked to the way of life and manner of thought of people throughout the centuries.

“Art, like knowledge, is an interpretation of a contemporary existence, executed in the concepts that thinking provides at the time. Every picture is worth a thousand words and every significant work of art contains a statement and is a confirmation of the general values of its time.”

Lång journeys slowly through the winding gallery of images and concepts that man has built up over the millennia, analysing the gaze of Giotto and the technical metaphors of Duchamp. The book ends with a challenging question: What is the significance of the insights gained for the understanding of our own time?

The Fleet Air Arm

This book uncovers many hidden facts and untold stories of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), shedding light on its remarkable history, much of which has not been widely published. It offers a concise yet vivid account of how the Royal Navy’s Air Service (RNAS) evolved over the years, shaped by over a century of political manoeuvring and its long-standing rivalry with the Royal Air Force. Even today, the FAA continues to operate in the shadow of the RAF, as seen in the ongoing developments surrounding the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers and the F-35B aircraft they now carry, frequent subjects in the media.

Few know that the last serviceman to die in the Second World War was an FAA pilot, shot down over Japan at the very end of the Pacific conflict. While FAA victories such as Taranto and the Falklands are well known, it may surprise readers to learn that the FAA briefly flew Lancasters in 1946. And in the Gulf War, FAA Westland Lynx helicopters made history by virtually wiping out Iraq’s navy using Sea Skua missiles, the first time seaborne helicopters achieved such a feat.

This book also features the most comprehensive post-1945 timeline of the FAA, a reflection of the decline of Britain’s maritime power over recent decades. Enriching the narrative are personal anecdotes from FAA personnel, highlighting their bravery, dedication, and sacrifice in the line of duty.

Addicted

Humans are biologically hardwired to alter their mental state, drugs are the pathway, and America is their biggest consumer. From antiquity to modernity, use and prohibition have gone hand in hand. Addicted raises the curtain to expose the lies and fill in the blanks behind America’s failed 50 year war on drugs and makes sense of the quagmire of misinformed laws and policy, blending Miller’s investigative journalism with historical narrative.

In addition, Miller tells the story of nature’s three primary psychotropic plants and the history of government efforts to suppress them: Papaver Somniferum, the opium poppy, the drug of Asian mystery, which provides opium and its derivative alkaloids morphine and heroin; Erythroxylum Coca, which provides the cocaine of all night parties and glamor; and Cannabis Sativa, L., the historical intoxicant of rebellion and counterculture. These plants convert soil, water, nutrients, CO2, and light into complex chemical substances, which can elevate, intoxicate, and even heal.

Addicted unravels the institutional mechanism that fuels the war’s self-perpetuation, its abject failure, and its deplorable byproduct of racial injustice. The stories in Addicted feature a diverse cast of heroes, villains, and bureaucrats as well as all the post-Nixon Presidents who failed in their version of the war.

City of Tears: The Dark History of Paris

If you were standing on the very spot where Joan of Arc was wounded by an arrow, wouldn’t you want to know?Beneath the brilliance and the grandeur of Paris is a city that few people know. It lingers in the dark shadows of the past, if only you knew where to look.For 21 centuries, Paris has been the epicenter of countless invasions, occupations, civil wars, sieges, rebellions, assassinations, coups, massacres, executions, epidemics – and, of course, a world-shattering revolution.In 40 brief stories, City of Tears will guide you through Paris’s astonishingly turbulent history – from the Roman conquest to World War I – and point you to the very sites where momentous events occurred. Along the way, you will meet a parade of personalities: Ragnar Lodbrok, the Templars, Joan of Arc, Catherine de’ Medici, the Sun King, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVII, the two Napoleons, Alfred Dreyfus, and dozens of other fascinating characters who shaped the history of the beautiful city we know today.

Crowning Glory

As a nation, we like to think we know everything about our Kings and Queens. William I conquered in 1066, Henry VIII had six wives and Queen Victoria was ‘not amused’… But do these ‘pub-quiz facts’ provide a genuine picture of what our monarchs were really like as living, breathing people? As the reader shall find, there is a treasure-trove of wit, wisdom and wonder waiting to be discovered.Crowning Glory wipes away the cobwebs of fuddy-duddy facts and breathes new life into this surprisingly addictive aspect of history. It challenges our basic understanding of the subject by introducing readers to a colourful cast of characters and revealing little-known insights.This book reminds us that, behind the formality of the crown, are real human beings. Like you and me, they have known success, failure, sorrow, and laughter. The lives of our kings and queens are so much more vivid than boring, old dates, figures, and facts.

Mary, Queen of Scots Slept Here

Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate her throne in Scotland and fled to England, seeking help from Queen Elizabeth I to regain her throne. However, Queen Elizabeth, fearing Catholic plots to replace her with Mary, was not inclined to offer assistance. Instead, she ensured that Mary was housed in castles and manors owned by her own supporters.Mary became a definite prisoner, guarded by people trusted by Elizabeth. Gradually, she was moved through England to her final imprisonment in Fotheringhay Castle, leading to the final chapter of her tempestuous life.

On Wadi Wadi Country – From the Mountains to the Sea

Australia is a large continent and before British colonisation there were over 250 First Nation areas with different languages and cultures. The Wadi Wadi nation lived on an eastern coastal region south of Sydney, which was covered with thick subtropical rainforest and bordered by the Pacific Ocean which provided fish and shellfish in abundance. With its rich volcanic soil, it was one of the first areas to be taken by colonising farmers. The land was cleared and the food, culture and Dharawal language were all almost wiped out. Many First Nations people died from massacres, hunger, and European diseases.This story began in a deep valley ‘Willow Gully’ with remnant rare subtropical rainforest, inhabited by wallabies, echidnas, possums and hundreds of birds in a small coastal town called Kiama. The gully was settled in the 1840s by two British farming families, and in 2015 the remains of a small farm cottage was unearthed in the rainforest. By coincidence the Aboriginal family who lived there in the 20th century were discovered and they have shared their personal stories. This has provided links to the amazing history of the Wadi Wadi people all along the coast. Through this book find their stories, but also meet an Indigenous King and Queen, WW1 soldiers, a poet, fishermen, sports stars, and silent film makers. Many people have hidden their Aboriginal heritage as racism was rife. The 50,000 years of continuous indigenous heritage is at last being recognised. However, a referendum to recognise Aboriginal people in the constitution, held in October 2023, failed due to misinformation by opponents. But there is still hope!

Aliens on Earth

In Aliens on Earth, author Tony Street challenges the conventional narrative of human history and argues that extraterrestrial beings visited Earth in ancient times, greatly influencing the development of human culture and technology. Drawing upon evidence from archaeology, mythology, and religious texts from around the world, Street presents a compelling case that advanced alien civilizations interacted with and shaped early human societies, leaving behind tantalizing clues in the form of megalithic structures, advanced technologies, and cultural traditions.From the mysterious Pyramids of Giza to the enigmatic Nazca Lines, and from the ancient Sumerian tales of the Anunnaki to the biblical accounts of the Nephilim, Street takes readers on a thrilling journey through the ancient world, revealing the hidden history of alien intervention on Earth. Thought-provoking and meticulously researched, Aliens on Earth offers a fresh perspective on the origins of human civilization that will challenge readers to question everything they have been taught about our past.

Bubbles, Crashes and Financial Disasters

Throughout history, the allure of promising opportunities has often ignited a speculative frenzy, arousing the get-rich-quick syndrome in millions of credulous souls, driving them to the extremes of ambition and greed in their quest for wealth. The symptoms of such behaviour frequently manifest during the build-up to a market crash, when months or even years of gains are wiped out in mere hours. This phenomenon is known as the ‘boom-and-bust scenario’, characterized by an economic bubble followed by a devastating crash.In this book, we delve into a number of remarkable events that have taken place between the seventeenth century and the present day, culminating in enormous financial losses for the general public or even the collapse of entire economies. The Great Crash of 1929 and some of the instances depicted from the 1980s onwards had seismic effects felt on a global scale.Today, despite living in a highly sophisticated world of economic regulation, financial manipulation, and extensive application of fiscal policy, economic bubbles still seem to burgeon from invisible beginnings, grow rapidly out of control, and then fragment into a melee of problems for modern society. While many believe that the random forces of human nature are responsible, spiralling out of control during periods of heady speculation, others share a different view. They argue that large economic bubbles are non-organic, engineered from within the system itself.This book takes a light-hearted journey through the subject matter, considering both the historical events and the intriguing possibility that financial engineering plays a role in the creation and destruction of economic bubbles.

Orphans of the Holocaust

Orphans of the Holocaust tells the remarkable true story of Ottó Komoly, a Hungarian-Jewish engineer and Zionist leader who helped save thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust. As head of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, Komoly worked tirelessly to assist Polish and Slovakian Jews to escape and hide in Hungary. After German troops entered Hungary in March 1944, Komoly helped organize ‘Department A’ of the International Red Cross in Budapest. As its director, he oversaw the setting up of shelters and orphanages for some 5,500 Jewish children who lost their parents during the Nazi siege of Budapest and supported the ghetto and Jewish hospitals with food and medication.The book chronicles Komoly’s lifesaving rescue campaign through his personal diary from 1944, providing a raw, firsthand perspective of his tireless efforts organizing and aiding Hungary’s Jews despite the mortal danger he faced. Despite having the opportunity to escape, Komoly chose to remain in Budapest to carry out his life-saving work until his arrest and presumed death at the hands of Hungary’s fascist Arrow Cross in January 1945. Orphans of the Holocaust sheds light on this selfless hero who risked everything for the sake of humanity.Tributes:“I have to highlight what an extraordinary man Ottó Komoly was. He was a model of calm and determination in the worst of times. He came to me looking for assistance, and I am happy to have worked with him. An idea is always best understood through people. I am not competent to talk about Zionism, it is up to those who are entitled to talk about it. For me, this idea has acquired beauty and greatness since I got to know Ottó Komoly. His wisdom and goodness has awakened in me the feeling that it must be a great idea to have such leading personalities.”– Albert Bereczky, protestant bishop and Hungarian Secretary of State, in March 1946.“… Ottó Komoly was a Zionist: he planted his feet firmly in the midst of the deluge of ordinances, and dared to say: we must initiate resistance, we must rescue, we must gain time and lives. He had no special exemptions from the German authorities, he did not bribe the nyilas leaders - his Zionist consciousness gave him courage and strength to oppose the ruling regime. … He placed his efforts of resistance and rescue under a single authority: the International Red Cross. But the power did not come from that authority, but from the person of Otto Komoly - from his radiant determination, from his ability to instil security in his voluntary partners. That was what gave power to the authority.”– One of his co-workers, László Szamosi, in 1975.“A man of irreproachable character, Komoly played a prominent, though unfortunately not a decisively important, role during the catastrophe of Hungarian Jewry. …He was practically the only person that all Zionist factional leaders looked upon without rancour or malice. He was a pacifier and unifier by nature and did everything possible to put an end to the perennial conflicts within and among the various Zionist groups and organizations.”– Randolph Braham in The Politics of Genocide (1981).

The History of Skipton

The History of Skipton is the most comprehensive history of the town for almost 150 years. The book focuses on the life of ordinary Skipton townsfolk and their health, hygiene, work and recreation. Covering the period from the Norman Conquest to the 21st century, The History of Skipton uses long-forgotten reports and archives to reveal many details which have never been published before.

RAF 100 Group - Kindred Spirits

This remarkable book brings together for the first time writings of RAF 100 Group who, during WWII, flew secret operations deep into the heart of Germany - identifying and jamming enemy radar, working with Bletchley Park and the Y-Service, supporting SOE and the Resistance.Over 55,000 men died in Bomber Command, the highest casualty rate of any Unit. On VE Day, Churchill praised those who contributed to victory, with one glaring omission - Bomber Command, of which this Group was a valued part. What happened to his stirring words: ‘The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory'?Seventy years on, RAF 100 Group remains shrouded in mystery, their families unaware as veterans take their secrets to the grave.This book represents a tribute, a Memorial, proof of their existence, finally giving them recognition so richly deserved.