The Maharajah's Box: An Imperial Intrigue

Campbell, Christy

Biographies & Memoirs

Harpercollins

The Maharajah's Box

Historical

A historical investigation into one of the most serpentine attempts on Queen Victoria’s life that reveals for the first time the true instigator at the heart of government.
• There were eight attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria during her long reign; four of them were of Irish origin. The most serious of all was the ‘Jubilee Plot’, a conspiracy apparently hatched in New York by the Fenian Brotherhood to blow up the Queen, her family and most of the British Cabinet with dynamite at the great service of thanksgiving to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her accession, held at Westminster Abbey in June 1887. • The plot was ‘uncovered’ by Scotland Yard with just a few days to go. Several of the bombers were caught, tried and sentenced to penal servitude for life. But – warned off in time – the master bomber escaped to America… • Now, using recently declassified Foreign Office Secret files (marked ‘Fenian Brotherhood’), the author discloses for the first time the huge secret at the heart of the British counter-intelligence operation against militant Irish nationalists: the entire conspiracy was masterminded for its own reasons by a clandestine British agency reporting directly to the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury.

Fenian Fire: The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria

There were seven attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria during her long reign; four of them were of Irish origin. The most serious of all was the "Jubilee Plot", a conspiracy apparently hatched in New York by the Fenian Brotherhood to blow up the Queen, her family and most of the British Cabinet with dynamite at the great service of thanksgiving to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her accession, held at Westminster Abbey in June 1887. The plot was "uncovered" by Scotland Yard with just a few days to go. Several of the bombers were caught, tried and sentenced to penal servitude for life. But - warned off in time - the master bomber escaped to America. Using declassified Foreign Office secret files, the author discloses the secret at the heart of the British counter-intelligence operation against militant Irish nationalists: the entire conspiracy was masterminded for its own reasons by a clandestine British agency reporting directly to the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury.

Fenian Fire

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

Phylloxera is an entertaining, revealing and frequently astonishing account of one of the earliest and most successful applications of science to an ecological disaster.

Phylloxera : How Wine Was Saved for the World

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

A historical investigation into the mysterious bug that wiped out the vineyards of France and Europe in the 1860s – and how one young botanist eventually ‘saved wine for the world’.
In the early 1860s, vines in the lower Rhône valley, and then around Bordeaux, inexplicably began to wither and die. Panic seized France, and Jules-Émile Planchon, a botanist from Montpellier, was sent to investigate. Magnifying glass in hand, he discovered the roots of a dying vine covered in microscopic yellow insects. The tiny aphid would be named Phylloxera vastatrix – 'the dry leaf devastator'. Where it had come from was utterly mysterious, but it advanced with the speed of an invading army. As the noblest vineyards of France came under biological siege, the world's greatest wine industry tottered on the brink of ruin. The grand owners fought the aphid with expensive insecticide, while peasant vignerons simply abandoned their ruined plots in despair. Within a few years the plague had spread across Europe, from Portugal to the Crimea.
Planchon, aided by the American entomologist Charles Riley, discovered that the parasite had accidentally been imported from America. He believed that only the introduction of American vines, which appeared to have developed a resistance to the aphid, could save France's vineyards. His opponents maintained that this would merely assist the spread of the disease. Meanwhile, encouraged by the French government's offer of a prize of 300,000 gold francs for a remedy, increasingly bizarre suggestions flooded in, and many wine-growing regions came close to revolution as whole local economies were obliterated. Eventually Planchon and his supporters won the day, and phylloxera-resistant American vines were grafted onto European root-stock. Despite some setbacks – the first fruits of transplanted American vines were universally pronounced undrinkable – by 1914 all vines cultivated in France were hybrid Americans.
Phylloxera is an entertaining, revealing and frequently astonishing account of one of the earliest and most successful applications of science to an ecological disaster.

Phylloxera: How Wine was Saved for the World

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Beverages & Wine

Harper-perennial

Inspired by a visit to northeast France to witness the excavation of a remarkably intact World War I tank from beneath a suburban vegetable plot near the town of Cambrai, Christy Campbell—then defense correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph—began to piece together the little-known story of the young men who formed the British Tank Corps. Very few of them had been professional soldiers; they were car enthusiasts and mechanics, plumbers, motorcyclists, circus performers, and polar explorers. One officer declared "I have never seen such a band of brigands in my life." They had trained in conditions of great secrecy in the grounds of a stately home in East Anglia and were originally known as the Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps. The word "tank" itself was deliberately chosen to mislead. Men in tanks saw the face of battle at its most brutal. Their task was to crush and burn the enemy out of his fortifications, and to carve a path for the infantry so they could finish the job with bayonet and grenade. Captured tank crews were beaten up or sometimes shot out of hand by the Germans. They fought in their stifling armored boxes packed with gas and explosives, aware that at any moment a shell-hit might incinerate them all. Christy Campbell has combed contemporary diaries and letters and later recollections to tell properly for the first time the robust yet harrowing story of how the first men in tanks went to war. The time frame is 1916-18, with a coda on how German blitzkrieg ideas developed from an English root.

Band of Brigands: The First Men in Tanks

History

Europe

HarperCollins, UK

The dramatic story of the men who fought a new and terrifying kind of war amidst the carnage of the trenches in World War I: the British pioneer volunteers who were the first tank-men into battle.
Inspired by a visit to northeast France to witness the excavation of a remarkably intact First World War tank from beneath a suburban vegetable plot near the town of Cambrai, Christy Campbell – then defence correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph – began to piece together the little-known story of the young men who formed the British Tank Corps.
Very few of them had been professional soldiers; they were motoring enthusiasts and mechanics, plumbers, motorcyclists, circus performers and polar explorers. One officer declared: 'I have never seen such a band of brigands in my life.' They had trained in conditions of great secrecy in the grounds of a mock-oriental stately home in East Anglia and were originally known as the 'Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps'. The word 'tank' itself was deliberately chosen to mislead.
Men in tanks saw the face of battle at its most brutal. Their task was to crush and burn the enemy out of his fortifications, and to carve a path for the infantry so they could finish the job with bayonet and grenade. Captured tank crews were beaten up or sometimes shot out of hand by the Germans. They fought in their stifling armoured boxes packed with petrol and explosives, aware that at any moment a shell-hit might incinerate them all.
Christy Campbell has combed contemporary diaries and letters and later recollections to tell properly for the first time the robust yet harrowing story of how the first men in tanks went to war. The time frame is 1916-18, with a coda on how German blitzkrieg ideas developed from an English root.

The World War Two Fact Book, 1939-1945

Reference

Salem House Publishers

Nuclear Facts

Military

Motorbooks Intl

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Campbell, Christy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Campbell, Christy