Böcker av Adrian Smith

Mountbatten, Cold War and Empire 1945-79 focuses upon Admiral Lord Mountbatten as a commanding - if controversial - figure in the history of Britain and its empire, from Churchill's wartime coalition through to the Labour governments of the 1960s, and forms a sequel to Mountbatten: Apprentice War Lord.Written in three parts, focusing on the premierships of Churchill and Attlee; Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home; and Wilson, this book examines the debates over Mountbatten's record in Southern Asia in 1943-6 and 1947-8. Additional chapters focus on Mountbatten's position at the heart of the British state and his pivotal role at key moments in the immediate post-war era, most notably the partition of India, the Suez Crisis and the renewal of an ostensibly independent nuclear deterrent.This book also considers Mountbatten's relationship with Anthony Eden, both during and following the Suez Crisis, as well as detailing Mountbatten's achievements as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Defence Staff under Harold Macmillan and his immediate successors. Smith acknowledges Mountbatten's centrality to the history of Britain and its empire in the immediate post-war era and, in doing so, presents a fascinating picture of one of the most prominent figures of the 20th-century.Smith's scrupulous examination of primary sources, including those available in the Broadlands Archives, results in a thorough examination of a controversial figure: by eschewing often baseless speculation about Mountbatten's personal life Smith creates the first comprehensive overview of Admiral Lord Mountbatten's career from 1943 to the mid-sixties.

Richard Thompson's vision, originality and technical prowess marks him out as a songwriter and guitarist of remarkable endurance, as inventive and relevant today as at the outset of his solo career half a century ago. In Flying Solo: Richard Thompson and the Making of Henry The Human Fly Adrian Smith explains why a debut album dismissed at the time as eccentric and disappointing came to be seen as strikingly original, its preoccupation with the strange and subversive anticipating contemporary songwriters and naturalists like Jonny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane. Flying Solo traces Henry The Human Fly's impressive afterlife back to Richard Thompson's formative years with Fairport Convention and his determination to echo The Band by making music that transcended time, fusing native myths and folk traditions with modern day arrangements, instrumentation and production. Henry The Human Fly is seen as a bridge between folk rock's finest hour - Fairport's Liege & Lief - and the much acclaimed I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, the first and the best of Richard and Linda Thompson's six albums. The couple's break up saw Thompson relocate to America and establish himself as an artist in his own right on both sides of the Atlantic. A succession of outstanding albums meant that for too long Henry The Human Fly was overlooked; rediscovery thanks to streaming means we can now locate it as an important milestone in the long career of a truly great talent.

Adrian Smith summarizes the differences between the old ways of Christian thinking and the new ones that will take it forward into the next century.

A book to excite the minds of Christians who see a gap between traditional teaching and the world as they experience it.