Hated and adored, trusted and feared, respected and scorned – public opinion has never been indifferent to Sir Oswald Mosley. A brilliant politician, Mosley turned his back on conventional party politics to found, in 1932, the British Union of Fascists.Over the intervening years until now, many have worked hard to guard Mosley’s reputation but Blackshirt casts new light on the man. The author reveals the true nature of Mosley's relationship with the Nazis, and challenges the prevailing view of Mosley’s descent into anti-Semitism. With ground-breaking research and extensive use of archive material Dorril uncovers a bizarre set of characters and behind-the-scenes friends and colleagues who supported Mosley – the crooks, swindlers, political and royal figures, secret agents, Nazi spies, lovers and ‘crackpots’. Blackshirt is an important and controversial new biography that overturns many of the accepted ideas about Oswald Mosley and British Fascism.

Black Shirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism

Biographies & Memoirs

Dorril, Stephen

Historical

Penguin Global

This book is a revisionist biography of Harold Wilson. The authors assert that, although Wilson was previously perceived as a villain and egotist, unexamined subtext now shows that his behaviour was intelligible and intelligent and that he was one of the cleverest men of his generation. "Smear!" is also in part a parapolitical history of Britain in the '60s and '70s. It claims that the so-called "Wilson plot" of the mid-'70s was merely the climax of continuous clandestine struggles between the Labour Party - and Wilson in particular - and the British secret state and its allies in the Conservative party. Evidence is offered with the intention of showing that MI5 and MI6's plotting was far more extensive than anyone realized. Wilson is resurrected as a genuine radical who attempted to take on the British State - and lost.

Smear!: Wilson and the Secret State

Ramsay, Robin

Dorrill, Stephen

Harpercollins

Margot Fonteyn born plain Peggy Hookham was dreamed into existence by the architects of British ballet: Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton and Constant Lambert. Carried to fame on a wave of wartime patriotism, Margot's sense of duty rather than ambition propelled her forward. Yet her gifts were such that her pre-eminence would come to eclipse the careers of subsequent generations.Ballet is a fairytale world; if Margot, like the pure and poetic heroine of Swan Lake, was a natural Odette, she would also have to contend with virtue's raw shadow-side in the guise of Constant Lambert, Roberto Arias and Rudolph Nureyev the men who, like Von Rothbart, were to take possession of her heart.

Margot Fonteyn Biography

Arts & Literature

VIKING

Provides an inside look at Britain's legendary intelligence agency, detailing its failures as well as its successes.

MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service

History

Europe

Free Press

An intelligence agency exposé so explosive that the British government tried to stop its publication or the first time ever, MI6, Britain's legendary player at the chessboard of international intelligence-gathering, is revealed in fascinating detail. Fifteen years of painstaking and meticulous research on the notoriously elusive organization comes together in a vivid and shocking portrait that differs radically from the sleek and flawless fictionalized portraits of Her Majesty's Secret Service. This no-holds-barred exposé of the agency's operations and methods describes in riveting detail its impact on the history and politics of the last half century. Stephen Dorril's daring and prodigious research has unearthed startling information, including:
? The recruitment of assets and agents of influence around the world 
? MI6's relationships with national leaders, including Nelson Mandela
? A secret deal between London and Washington to keep British troops out of Vietnam
? Details about failed plots to assassinate Nasser, Milosevic, and Gaddifi
? Why MI6 was unable to provide advance warning of the Iranian Revolution or Argentina's plan to invade the Falklands
? MI6's operations to bring Nazi collaborators and war criminals to Britain after the war
MI6 lifts the veil surrounding the closely guarded espionage efforts that have shaped and continue to affect our world for better...and for worse.

The silent conspiracy: Inside the intelligence services in the 1990s

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Mandarin

A tour de force account of seduction, power, and betrayal in the biggest political sex scandal of its age The Profumo Affair rocked the British establishment like no scandal before or since. The Tory war minister, John Profumo, had taken up with a teenager named Christine Keeler, who was also sleeping with a Soviet intelligence agent. The ensuing inquiry revealed a hidden underworld in which men of the ruling classes and politicians cavorted with prostitutes at orgies. The revelations shook the British government and sent shock waves all the way to the Kennedy White House. The man at the center of the storm was Dr. Stephen Ward. Ward was a successful doctor to the rich and powerful, a talented artist who drew portraits of many of his famous patients and fixed up prominent men with young women. He was also a pawn, ruthlessly exploited by the intelligence agencies. When the Profumo Affair threatened the government, Ward became a scapegoat, hounded to death—and perhaps murdered. For the first time, The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward reveals the names that could not be exposed and the truths that could not be told until now.

The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward: Sex, Scandal, and Deadly Secrets in the Profumo Affair

Summers, Anthony

Open Road Media

The first comprehensive history of the UK government overseas intelligence service, MI6, by an acknowledged expert and author of the highly acclaimed Smear!Epitomised in the public imagination by James Bond, MI6’s svelte and glamorous image has been peeled away by Dorril’s searching investigations to reveal a less savoury truth. Here is the story of MI6’s recruitment operation after WW2 of former Nazis; anticommunist guerrilla campaigns in the Ukraine and the Baltic States; Operation Stalin which led to mass arrests and executions ordered by Stalin; the European terrorist network ‘Gladio’; tunnels built in Vienna and Berlin known as operation ‘Gold and Silver’ ;and many other little-known operations. The dealings of George Blake, Oleg Penkowsky, Kim Philby and Maurice Oldfield, among others, are also fully explained, as are the many tensions that have existed and to some extent still exist between MI6 and its sister intelligence organisations especially in contentious territories such as Ireland. Post Cold War, Dorril discusses what role, if any, MI6 will have in the future.

Fourth Estate

Book by Dorril, Stephen, Ramsay, Robin

Smear!: Wilson and the secret state

‘An important contribution to history.’ Roy Hattersley, New Statesman  ‘Dorril takes us Into the dark alleys of the shady aristocrats, disillusioned generals, renegade politicians, sadistic thugs and lost romantics [of] British fascism.’ The Observer  `Easy-paced and entertaining, judicious — and damning. He works his way carefully through all the claims made for Mosley and shows how far each one is hollow, misconceived or false.’ London Review of Books  ‘Deeply researched, scholarly, important . . . magnificently fleshes out a politician whose sense of personal destiny outstripped his sense of human decency.’ Scotland on Sunday  ‘The authority of this book rests on thorough research.’ Sunday Telegraph  ‘An exhaustively researched and provocative study.’ Sunday Times  ‘Blackshirt is an unrelenting indictment . . . it is a book that rightly ensures that there can be no soft-focussed rehabilitation.’ The Observer  Hated and adored, trusted and feared, respected and scorned – public opinion has never been indifferent to Sir Oswald Mosley. A brilliant politician, Mosley turned his back on conventional party politics to found, in 1932, the British Union of Fascists. Over the intervening years, many have worked hard to guard Mosley’s reputation but Blackshirt casts new light on the man. It reveals the true nature of his relationship with the Nazis, and challenges the prevailing view of his descent into anti-Semitism. With ground-breaking research, Stephen Dorril uncovers an extraordinary set of characters and behind-the-scenes friends and colleagues who supported Mosley - the crooks, swindlers, political and royal figures, secret agents, Nazi spies, lovers and ‘crackpots’ - and who helped to create the most infamous politician of the twentieth century.

Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism

Leaders & Notable People

Thistle Publishing

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

Books by Dorril, Stephen

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

Black Shirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism

Smear!: Wilson and the Secret State

Margot Fonteyn Biography

MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service

MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service

The silent conspiracy: Inside the intelligence services in the 1990s

The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward: Sex, Scandal, and Deadly Secrets in the Profumo Affair

Mi6

Smear!: Wilson and the secret state

Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism