A GRIPPING ACCOUNT OF THE LAST DAYS OF WORLD WAR II FROM THE FAMOUS FACES WHO WITNESSED IT.‘Riveting.’ Daily Mail‘Fascinating.’ The Times‘Beguiling . . . a good story well told.’ BBC History MagazineOn 28 April 1945, Benito Mussolini was dragged from his mistress’s bed and executed. Two days later, as the Soviet Army surrounded Berlin, Adolf Hitler put a gun to his head.But this is not the traditional account of victory in Europe.Drawing on first-hand accounts from individuals including John F. Kennedy, working in San Francisco, and Bob Dole recuperating in an Italian hospital, Nicholas Best provides a unique insight into ordinary American lives.He recounts how Spike Milligan swigged stolen champagne. Audrey Hepburn starved in Holland. And a future Pope walked home, terrified of being shot for deserting the Wehrmacht.Told by individuals, some of whom would go on to be the most recognised faces on the planet, Five Days that Shocked the World gives a remarkable insight into the most dramatic 120 hours in history.PRAISE FOR FIVE DAYS THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD:????? ‘I found it utterly engrossing . . . one can almost taste the dust of crumbling Berlin.’ Don B.????? ‘A really unusual and original way to view a series of historical events that most know well from school.’ Kindler????? ‘Nicholas Best has succeeded in putting together a riveting page turner . . . if you know nothing about WWII this is as good a place to start as any.’ Amazon Customer????? ‘A book hard to put down, it filled many of the gaps left by history.’ David N.????? ‘I have read many accounts of the final days of World War 2 . . . none have been so carefully put together and presented in such an easy way for the reader to absorb.’ Mike

How to end homelessness in America: a must-read guide to understanding housing instability, supporting our unhoused neighbors, and reclaiming our humanity. A deeply humanizing analysis that will change the way you think about poverty and homelessness—for the socially engaged reader of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and Matthew Desmond's Evicted.Think about the last time that you saw or interacted with an unhoused person. What did you do? What did you say? Did you offer money or a smile, or did you avert your gaze?When We Walk By takes an urgent look at homelessness in America, showing us what we lose—in ourselves and as a society—when we choose to walk past and ignore our neighbors in shelters, insecure housing, or on the streets. And it brilliantly shows what we stand to gain when we embrace our humanity and move toward evidence-based people-first, community-driven solutions, offering social analysis, economic and political histories, and the real stories of unhoused people.Authors Kevin F. Adler and Donald W. Burnes, with Amanda Banh and Andrijana Bilbija, recast chronic homelessness in the U.S. as a byproduct of twin crises: our social services systems are failing, and so is our humanity. Readers will learn:Why our brains have been trained to overlook our unhoused neighborsThe social, economic, and political forces that shape myths like “all homeless people are addicts” and “they’d have a house if they got a job”What conservative economics gets wrong about housing insecurityWhat relational poverty is, and how to shift away from “us versus them” thinkingThat for many Americans, housing insecurity is just one missed paycheck awayWho “the homeless” really are—and why that might surprise youWhat you can do to help, starting todayA necessary, deeply humanizing read that goes beyond theory and policy analysis to offer engaged solutions with compassion and heart, When We Walk By is a must-read for anyone who cares about homelessness, housing solutions, and their own humanity.

In the arc of Western history, Ancient Greece is at the apex, owing to its grandeur, its culture, and an intellectual renaissance to rival that of Europe. So important is Greece to history that figures such as Plato and Socrates are still household names, and the works of Homer are regularly adapted into movies. The most acclaimed hero of all, though, is Alexander the Great. While historians have studied Alexander’s achievements at length, author and professor Richard A. Billows delves deeper into the obscure periods of Alexander’s life, before and after his reign. In the definitive Before and After Alexander, Billows explores the years preceding Alexander, who, Billows argues, without the foundation laid by his father, Philip II of Macedon, would not have had the resources or influence to develop one of the greatest empires in history. Alexander was groomed from a young age to succeed his father, and by the time Philip was assassinated in 336 BC, his great empire was already well underway. The years following Alexander's death were even more momentous. In this ambitious new work, Richard Billows robustly challenges the notion that the political strife that followed was for lack of a leader as competent as Alexander, pointing out instead that there were too many extremely capable leaders who exploited the power vacuum created by Alexander's death to carve out kingdoms for themselves. Above all, in Before and After Alexander, Billows eloquently and convincingly posits a complex view of one of the greatest empires in history, framing it not as the achievement of one man, but the culmination of several generations of aggressive expansion toward a unified purpose.