Скачать книгу - Guerrillas and Terrorists

A controversial and timely book by BBC reporter and terrorism expert Peter TaylorIn ‘Talking to Terrorists’ Peter Taylor takes us on a personal journey, quoting from diaries written at the time, as he reveals what it was like to come face-to-face with IRA terrorists and Islamic jihadis.What are terrorists really like? How do states counter them? And should governments talk to them? Drawing on more than 35 years of reporting terrorism, Taylor asks these difficult questions as he tries to understand the motives of the men and women behind some of the world’s most notorious terror attacks.The reality behind terrorism is complex. As the saying goes, ‘one man’s terrorist is another man's freedom fighter’. Many former ‘terrorists’ have gone on to become statesmen: Menachem Begin of Israel’s Irgun, Yasser Arafat of Palestine’s Fatah, Nelson Mandela of South Africa’s ANC, and Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness of Ireland’s Irish Republican Army. Stripped of their masks, bombs and guns, terrorists are normal people – but they are prepared to kill in the name of a cause in which they believe.Taylor asks what lessons can be learned from the resolution of conflict in Northern Ireland in confronting the threat of Islamic extremism, and tackles head-on the highly topical issue of extracting actionable intelligence that could save lives. When does interrogation become torture? Often, he argues, there is little choice but to talk to the enemy.

‘As gripping as any spy thriller, Hastings’s achievement is especially impressive, for he has produced the best single volume yet written on the subject’ Sunday Times‘Authoritative, exciting and notably well written’ Daily Telegraph‘A serious work of rigourous and comprehensive history … royally entertaining and readable’ Mail on SundayIn ‘The Secret War’, Max Hastings examines the espionage and intelligence machines of all sides in World War II, and the impact of spies, code-breakers and partisan operations on events. Written on a global scale, the book brings together accounts from British, American, German, Russian and Japanese sources to tell the story of a secret war waged unceasingly by men and women often far from the battlefields but whose actions profoundly influenced the outcome.Returning to the Second World War for the first time since his best-selling ‘All Hell Let Loose’, Hastings weaves into a ‘big picture’ framework, the human stories of spies and intelligence officers who served their respective masters. Told through a series of snapshots of key moments, the book looks closely at Soviet espionage operations which dwarfed those of every other belligerent in scale, as well as the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park – the greatest intelligence achievement of the conflict – with many more surprising and unfamiliar tales of treachery, deception, betrayal and incompetence by spies of Axis, Allied or indeterminate loyalty.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS patrol escape the deadly Malayan jungle alive?Malaya in the 1950s, and Communist terrorists wage a bloody war against the country’s estates and rubber plantation owners. Chased into the interior by British Army units, the guerrillas soon became experts at survival and evasion, emerging from the jungle only to launch increasingly ferocious attacks.On the recommendation of Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Mad’ Mike Calvert, veteran of Burma’s Chindit campaigns, 22 SAS is formed as a special counter-insurgency force. Three years later they begin their jungle patrols, learning how to survive for weeks at a time in hostile terrain, often waist-deep in water, and under attack from wild animals, leeches and poisonous insects.This extraordinary campaign climaxes in a nightmarish two weeks in the Telok Anson swamp tracking the troops of the notorious ‘Baby Killer’, Ah Hoi. What the regiment experiences in the Malayan jungle is both dreadful and unforgettable and will lay the foundations for the SAS’s legendary survival skills…

The final classic installment in the excellent Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s – the novels that have inspired all Scandinavian crime fiction.Widely recognised as the greatest masterpieces of crime fiction ever written, these are the original detective stories that pioneered the detective genre.Written in the 1960s, they are the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo – a husband and wife team from Sweden. The ten novels follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction. The novels can be read separately, but do follow a chronological order, so the reader can become familiar with the characters and develop a loyalty to the series. Each book will have a new introduction in order to help bring these books to a new audience.