Douglas Boyd

In this new biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine - one of the most exciting women in European medieval history - author Douglas Boyd takes us to the heart of this extraordinary woman. He reveals her as a peculiarly 'modern' character - she rejects as a liberated woman the subordinate role decreed by the Church and Salic law; she refused to be a consenting victim of ethnic cleansing; and she promotes her vision of a continent wide dynasty - and uniquely sets her into the context of southern French civilisation, with its love of comforts and pleasures of life. Boyd's new biography will not only recreate the turbulent life of this extraordinary woman, but take us into the world she knew - her friendships, the food she ate, the clothes she wore, the sounds, sights and smells around her - and thus bring her to life as never before.

On 21 December 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to Detroit was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and sixteen crew. Large sections of the aircraft, bodies and personal effects crashed onto residential areas of Lockerbie, Scotland, resulting in the deaths of a further eleven people on the ground. The psychological damage to traumatised residents would take many years to disappear; in some cases, it never did. Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted of the crime – though few believe that he acted alone and some believe him innocent. Author Douglas Boyd presents evidence that it was Iran, not Libya, which was responsible for the attack. On 3 July 1988 (less than six months before the Lockerbie bombing), Iran Air flight 655 was in Iranian airspace on a Bandar Abbas-Dubai flight when it was shot down by missiles from the USS Vincennes sailing illegally into Iranian territorial waters. Government leader Ayatollah Khomeini decreed that blood should flow in revenge. However, this line of enquiry was quietly closed and Libya declared guilty because the White House wanted neighbouring Syria and Iran on-side for the build-up to the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Lockerbie: The Truth at last reveals the facts about what happened on that awful night at Lockerbie.

Winston Churchill called it ‘the unknown war’. Unlike the long stalemate of the Western Front, the conflict 1914–18 between the Russian Empire and the Central Powers was a war of movement spanning a continent – from the Arctic to the Adriatic, Black and Caspian seas and from the Baltic in the west to the Pacific Ocean.The appalling scale of casualties provoked strikes in Russia’s war industries and widespread mutinies at the front. As the whole fabric of society collapsed, German money brought the Bolsheviks to power in the greatest deniable dirty trick of the twentieth century, after which Russia stopped fighting, eight months before the Western Front armistice.The cost to Russia was 4 million men dead and as many held as POWs by the Central Powers. Wounded? No one has any idea how many. All the belligerent powers of the Russian fronts were destroyed: the German, Austro–Hungarian and Russian empires gone forever and the Ottoman Empire so crippled that it finally collapsed in 1922.During four years of brutal civil war that followed, Trotsky’s Red Army fought the White armies, murdering and massacring millions of civilians, as British, American and other western soldiers of the interventionist forces fought and died from the frozen Arctic to the arid deserts of Iran. This is the story of that other First World War.

When people think of Richard the Lionheart they recall the scene at the end of every Robin Hood epic when he returns from the Crusades to punish his treacherous brother John and the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham. In reality Richard detested England and the English, was deeply troubled by his own sexuality and was noted for greed, not generosity, and for murder rather than mercy. In youth Richard showed a taste for cruelty and a rapacity for gold that would literally be the death of him. To save his own skin, he repeatedly abandoned his supporters, and his indifference to women saw the part of queen at his coronation played by his formidable mother, Queen Eleanor. His brief reign bankrupted England twice, destabilised his parents' powerful empire and set the scene for his brother’s ruinous rule.So how has Richard come to be known as the brave and patriotic Christian warrior? Lionheart reveals the scandalous truth about England’s hero king – a truth that is far different from the legend that has endured for eight centuries.

The key to getting on with our closest Continental neighbours is to know the truth about what they endured during the German Occupation in the Second World War. Forget the films and television dramas about the Resistance; here is the true picture of the Occupation. This often chilling history, based on previously unpublished accounts by men and women who lived through it, tells how they went cold and hungry while Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier made their fortunes. Whole towns were destroyed and thousands killed by British bombs. Collaboration earned Marshal Pétain and Pierre Laval death sentences after the Liberation, whereas French police who sent thousands of women and children to the gas chambers at Auschwitz went unpunished, as did the gendarmes who guarded French concentration camps and handcuffed hostages for the firing squads. Over 70,000 children were fathered by German personnel in France while 1.6 million husbands and lovers languished in POW camps, but if only half the French women whose heads were shaved at the Liberation were accused of ‘horizontal collaboration’, what were the others punished for? And what about the many thousands of French lives saved by two courageous Germans?

What was life really like in German-occupied France during the Second World War? Douglas Boyd paints the clearest picture yet, using hitherto unpublished first-person accounts of ordinary men and women who lived through this extraordinary and dangerous time, when a few made fortunes, but most went cold and hungry. Less than 1 per cent of the French was pro-German. Is it pure coincidence that the same percentage actively resisted the Germans despite knowing that, if caught, their husbands, wives and children were considered equally culpable under the brutal Teutonic principle of Sippenhaft - guilt by association? Using new, meticulously researched material, Douglas Boyd tells an enthralling and sometimes chilling narrative history of the Occupation, as lived by the French people. It is a record of great heroism and ultimate cruelty. Read it and ask yourself, 'How would I have reacted, living in Occupied France?' The answer may surprise you.

The names of few medieval monarchs and their queens are better known than Eleanor of Aquitaine, uniquely queen of France and queen of England, and her second husband Henry II. Although academically labelled ‘medieval’, their era was the violent transition from the Dark Ages, when countries’ borders were defined with fire and sword. Henry grabbed the English throne thanks largely to Eleanor’s dowry because she owned one third of France. Their daughters also lived extraordinary lives. If princes fought for their succession to crowns, the princesses were traded – usually by their mothers – to strangers for political power without the bloodshed. Years before what would today be marriageable age, royal girls were despatched to countries whose speech was unknown to them and there became the property of unknown men; their duty the bearing of sons to continue a dynasty and daughters who would be traded in their turn. Some became literal prisoners of their spouses; others outwitted would-be rapists and the Church to seize the reins of power when their husbands died. Eleanor’s daughters Marie and Alix were abandoned in Paris when she divorced Louis VII of France. By Henry II, she bore Matilda, Aliénor and Joanna. Between them, these extraordinary women and their daughters knew the extremes of power and pain. Joanna was imprisoned by William II of Sicily and worse treated by her brutal second husband in Toulouse. If Eleanor was libelled as a whore, Aliénor’s descendants include two saints, Louis of France and Fernando of Spain. And then there were the illegitimate daughters, whose lives read like novels…

When Count Henry of Anjou and his formidable wife Eleanor of Aquitaine became king and queen of England, they amassed an empire stretching 1,000 miles from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, including half of France. Henry’s grandmother Empress (of Germany) Mathilda had taught him that ruling is like venery: show the hawk the reward, but take it away at the last moment, to keep the bird eager to please. To sons and vassals alike, Henry promised everything but gave nothing, keeping the three adult princes hating him and the other siblings all their lives. Plantagenet Princes traces the lives and infamous webs of mistrust and intrigue among them. What sons they were! Henry (b. 1155), ‘the Young king’ was entitled to succeed his father, yet was a rich playboy who died crippled by debt before his thirtieth birthday, after living the life of a robber baron. Richard (b. 1157), ‘the Lionheart’ was lord of his mother’s duchy of Aquitaine and became, thanks to her, England’s most popular king despite bankrupting the Empire twice in his disastrous 10-year reign. Geoffrey (b. 1158), count of Brittany, was the cleverest, but was trampled to death by horses aged 32 in a pointless mêlée at Paris, leaving his wife Constance to act as regent for their son Arthur in a long power struggle between Philip Augustus, king of France, and the Plantagenets. The runt of the litter, John (b. 1166) was nicknamed Lackland, since no inheritance was initially promised him. He proved the longest-lived by far, dying at the age of fifty after signing Magna Carta, losing the key duchy of Normandy and most of the other continental possessions – also murdering his nephew Arthur, imprisoning Arthur’s sister for life and waging war against his barons, continued by Henry III. The Plantagenet line continued with Richard of Cornwall, Edward I conquering Wales, gay Edward II, Edward III, Edward the Black Prince and Richard II, who died in prison while his usurper sat on the throne.

Lore Schindler was ten years old when her dentist father Harry was arrested by the Gestapo in Berlin and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His wife Grete bought his release by giving all their possessions to the Nazi state. Leaving Germany with just 10 Marks each, parents and daughter suffered humiliating strip searches at the border. This was the start of Lore's ordeal. In her first French concentration camp, her mother died. Her father also died in another camp. Orphaned and ill in the huge camp at Gurs, she was saved by prisoner-nurse Schwester Kate, but would later have starved to death, had not two sisters - Elsie and Marthe Liefmann - 'adopted' her, found food and made her eat it. Elsbeth Kasser was a Swiss-German social worker in the camp who gave her treats of milk and Swiss cheese to build up 'the thinnest girl in the camp'. Another social worker, Elisabeth Hirsch used a forged identity card to get Lore out of the camp and took her to La Maison de Moissac, a children's home in SW France run by her sister Shatta Simon. There, several hundred refugee children were hidden from the Nazi occupiers and French fascists who wanted to send the children to the death camps in Poland. When it became unsafe to stay in Moissac, Lore was adopted by pianist Helene Gribenski, living in a remote village. When that too became unsafe, she moved her little family into a primitive hovel in the forest to await the Allied victory. That Lore survived was due to these courageous women, who risked their own lives to save hers. After the war, she found love in an Israeli kibbutz and moved with her American husband to New York, becoming a librarian with Brooklyn Public Library. No borrowers ever guessed what her adolescence and burgeoning womanhood had been like in a terrifying land whose language she could not even speak.

Forget the adventure stories of James Bond, Kim Philby, Klaus Fuchs and co. – espionage is not just a boys’ game. As long as there has been conflict, there have been female agents behind the scenes. In Belgium and northern France in 1914–18 there were several thousand women actively working against the Kaiser’s forces occupying their homelands. In the Second World War, women of many nations opposed the Nazis, risking the firing squad or decapitation by axe or guillotine. Yet, many of those women did not have the right to vote for a government or even open a bank account. So why did they do it?Female Secret Agents explores the lives and the motivations of the women of many races and social classes who have risked their lives as secret agents, and celebrates their intelligence, strength and courage.

All you need for a plague to go pandemic are population clusters and travellers spreading the bacterial or viral pathogens. Many prehistoric civilisations died fast, leaving cities undamaged to mystify archeologists. Plague in Athens killed 30% of the population 430-426 BCE. When Roman Emperor Justinian I caught bubonic plague in 541 CE, contemporary historian Procopius described his symptoms: fever, delirium and buboes -large black swellings of the lymphatic glands in the groin, under the arms and behind the ears. That bubonic plague killed 25 million people around the Mediterranean. Later dubbed Black Death, it killed 50 million people 1346-1353, returning to London 40 times in the next 300 years. The third bubonic plague pandemic started 1894 in China, claiming 15 million lives, largely in Asia, before dying down in the 1950s after visiting San Francisco and New York. But it also hit Madagascar in 2014, and the Congo and Peru. The cause, yersinia pestis was identified in 1894\. Infected fleas from rats on merchant ships were blamed for spreading it, but Porton Down scientists have a worrying explanation why the plague spread so fast. Any disease can go epidemic. Everyday European infections brought to the Americas by Cortes' conquistadores killed millions of the natives, whose posthumous revenge was the syphilis the Spaniards brought back to Europe. The mis-named Spanish 'flu, brought from Kansas to Europe by US troops in 1918 caused more than 50 million deaths. Fifty years later, H3N2 'flu from Hong Kong killed more than a million people. One coronavirus produces the common cold, for which neither vaccine nor cure has been found, despite the loss of millions of working days each year. That other coronavirus, Covid-19 was NOT the worst pandemic. Chillingly, historian Douglas Boyd lists many other sub-microscopic killers still waiting for tourism and trade to bring them to us.

When Count Henry of Anjou and his formidable wife Eleanor of Aquitaine became king and queen of England, they amassed an empire stretching 1,000 miles from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, including half of France. Henry's grandmother Empress (of Germany) Mathilda had taught him that ruling is like venery: show the hawk the reward, but take it away at the last moment, to keep the bird eager to please. To sons and vassals alike, Henry promised everything but gave nothing, keeping the three adult princes hating him and the other siblings all their lives. Plantagenet Princes traces the lives and infamous webs of mistrust and intrigue among them. What sons they were! Henry (b. 1155), 'the Young king' was entitled to succeed his father, yet was a rich playboy who died crippled by debt before his thirtieth birthday, after living the life of a robber baron. Richard (b. 1157), 'the Lionheart' was lord of his mother's duchy of Aquitaine and became, thanks to her, England's most popular king despite bankrupting the Empire twice in his disastrous 10-year reign. Geoffrey (b. 1158), count of Brittany, was the cleverest, but was trampled to death by horses aged 32 in a pointless melee at Paris, leaving his wife Constance to act as regent for their son Arthur in a long power struggle between Philip Augustus, king of France, and the Plantagenets. The runt of the litter, John (b. 1166) was nicknamed Lackland, since no inheritance was initially promised him. He proved the longest-lived by far, dying at the age of fifty after signing Magna Carta, losing the key duchy of Normandy and most of the other continental possessions - also murdering his nephew Arthur, imprisoning Arthur's sister for life and waging war against his barons, continued by Henry III. The Plantagenet line continued with Richard of Cornwall, Edward I conquering Wales, gay Edward II, Edward III, Edward the Black Prince and Richard II, who died in prison while his usurper sat on the throne.

Do you want to come out from overthinking, anxiety and fear? If yes, then keep reading...Thinking too much is very common, and it can be found in the majority of the people around you. But, thinking too much about something is not going to help you in anyways when you fail to do anything about the same. When you keep on analyzing, commenting, and repeating the same kind of thoughts all time, in place of just acting in actual, you are actually overthinking. This might hamper your future decisions, along with endeavors. It will be consuming all your energy along with time and will also be preventing you from acting in the correct way. It is more or less like revolving around the same thing again and again without changing the path which is required for reaching new points in life. What you are most likely to experience in such a situation is anxiety, worry, and also lack of peace. We will be discussing the various methods with which you can overcome all the effects of overthinking. Many people think that when you overthink, you are most likely suffering from overthinking disorder. But, in actuality, there is nothing like an overthinking disorder. There are various types of disorders that come along with anxiety when an individual engages himself/herself in rumination or overthinking, but that is not a disorder. When you cannot stop obsessing and worry over things, it can actually interfere with your life quality. You might be wondering that what actually is overthinking. Some of the psychological diagnoses that have been done in which an individual cannot actually stop their brain from overthinking are actually the signs of trauma, PTSD, panic disorder, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, or it could be the signs of some other form of illness. This book covers the following topics: - Quit overthinking and allow the power of self-confidence to lead you- Control your thoughts- Staying positive- Practicing mindfulness- How to overcome overthinking?- Stop negative thinking in its tracks - 3 simple stress management tips for a positive attitude- 10 simple techniques and strategies to stop yourself from overthinking- Making your day rewarding- The curse of over-thinking- Solving the problem- Why do women overthink more?- How do men play a role?...And much moreDo you want to learn more? Don't wait anymore, press the buy now button and get started.

Social media is a rapidly growing arena for everything from the posting of videos to car sales, so it should come as no surprise that big business is growing on there, too. However, what can it actually do to help grow your business? Before selling any product, you have to get your name out there and spread the word of your new social media presence. By adding links to your social media accounts on your company website, you are encouraging people to follow you online in order to get the most up to date information as soon as you release it. When you put your company website on your social media profile, it gives your clients a way to go directly to your website. This will allow your customers to contact your company for more information, and it is more likely to create online buyers. Social media is the main way that companies are beginning to show involvement with their customers and community by promoting events they are sponsoring or releasing news to their clients. Real-time communication has become extremely important for customer satisfaction in today's businesses. People don't want to wait for answers to their questions or for help resolving any issue they might have. With social media, people have direct access to comments and post feedback for companies, making any kind of wait-time for results obsolete. This book covers the following topics: ...And much more- Facebook marketing tips and tricks- Marketing on twitter in 2020- Monetizing your twitter page- LinkedIn basics- Pinterest marketing- You tube marketing 2019- How to exploit the potential of twitter in 2019...And so much more Building a successful online following will take time. However, there are techniques and skills that will help you build an online following and create a popular social media site, while still promoting your business and keeping in contact with your customers. Think about it in terms of buying a car. If you walk into a car dealership and the salesperson acts aloof while giving you a cut-and-dried spiel about the car, you might feel like the personal aspect of the exchange is a little closed off. However, if the representative you're working with is friendly and shares stories with you, you feel a connection with that person and begin developing trust in them and in the company. Social media essentially works the same way when it comes to brand awareness. Do you want to learn more? Don't wait anymore, press the buy now button and get started.

Do you want to come out from overthinking, anxiety and fear? If yes, then keep reading...Thinking too much is very common, and it can be found in the majority of the people around you. But, thinking too much about something is not going to help you in anyways when you fail to do anything about the same. When you keep on analyzing, commenting, and repeating the same kind of thoughts all time, in place of just acting in actual, you are actually overthinking. This might hamper your future decisions, along with endeavors. It will be consuming all your energy along with time and will also be preventing you from acting in the correct way. It is more or less like revolving around the same thing again and again without changing the path which is required for reaching new points in life. What you are most likely to experience in such a situation is anxiety, worry, and also lack of peace. We will be discussing the various methods with which you can overcome all the effects of overthinking. Many people think that when you overthink, you are most likely suffering from overthinking disorder. But, in actuality, there is nothing like an overthinking disorder. There are various types of disorders that come along with anxiety when an individual engages himself/herself in rumination or overthinking, but that is not a disorder. When you cannot stop obsessing and worry over things, it can actually interfere with your life quality. You might be wondering that what actually is overthinking. Some of the psychological diagnoses that have been done in which an individual cannot actually stop their brain from overthinking are actually the signs of trauma, PTSD, panic disorder, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, or it could be the signs of some other form of illness. This book covers the following topics: - Quit overthinking and allow the power of self-confidence to lead you- Control your thoughts- Staying positive- Practicing mindfulness- How to overcome overthinking?- Stop negative thinking in its tracks - 3 simple stress management tips for a positive attitude- 10 simple techniques and strategies to stop yourself from overthinking- Making your day rewarding- The curse of over-thinking- Solving the problem- Why do women overthink more?- How do men play a role?...And much moreDo you want to learn more? Don't wait anymore, press the buy now button and get started.

Social media is a rapidly growing arena for everything from the posting of videos to car sales, so it should come as no surprise that big business is growing on there, too. However, what can it actually do to help grow your business? Before selling any product, you have to get your name out there and spread the word of your new social media presence. By adding links to your social media accounts on your company website, you are encouraging people to follow you online in order to get the most up to date information as soon as you release it. When you put your company website on your social media profile, it gives your clients a way to go directly to your website. This will allow your customers to contact your company for more information, and it is more likely to create online buyers. Social media is the main way that companies are beginning to show involvement with their customers and community by promoting events they are sponsoring or releasing news to their clients. Real-time communication has become extremely important for customer satisfaction in today's businesses. People don't want to wait for answers to their questions or for help resolving any issue they might have. With social media, people have direct access to comments and post feedback for companies, making any kind of wait-time for results obsolete. This book covers the following topics: ...And much more- Facebook marketing tips and tricks- Marketing on twitter in 2020- Monetizing your twitter page- LinkedIn basics- Pinterest marketing- You tube marketing 2019- How to exploit the potential of twitter in 2019...And so much more Building a successful online following will take time. However, there are techniques and skills that will help you build an online following and create a popular social media site, while still promoting your business and keeping in contact with your customers. Think about it in terms of buying a car. If you walk into a car dealership and the salesperson acts aloof while giving you a cut-and-dried spiel about the car, you might feel like the personal aspect of the exchange is a little closed off. However, if the representative you're working with is friendly and shares stories with you, you feel a connection with that person and begin developing trust in them and in the company. Social media essentially works the same way when it comes to brand awareness. Do you want to learn more? Don't wait anymore, press the buy now button and get started.

Social media is a rapidly growing arena for everything from the posting of videos to car sales, so it should come as no surprise that big business is growing on there, too. However, what can it actually do to help grow your business? Before selling any product, you have to get your name out there and spread the word of your new social media presence. By adding links to your social media accounts on your company website, you are encouraging people to follow you online in order to get the most up to date information as soon as you release it. When you put your company website on your social media profile, it gives your clients a way to go directly to your website. This will allow your customers to contact your company for more information, and it is more likely to create online buyers. Social media is the main way that companies are beginning to show involvement with their customers and community by promoting events they are sponsoring or releasing news to their clients. Real-time communication has become extremely important for customer satisfaction in today's businesses. People don't want to wait for answers to their questions or for help resolving any issue they might have. With social media, people have direct access to comments and post feedback for companies, making any kind of wait-time for results obsolete. This book covers the following topics: ...And much more- Facebook marketing tips and tricks- Marketing on twitter in 2021- Monetizing your twitter page- LinkedIn basics- Pinterest marketing- You tube marketing 2021- How to exploit the potential of twitter in 2021...And so much more Building a successful online following will take time. However, there are techniques and skills that will help you build an online following and create a popular social media site, while still promoting your business and keeping in contact with your customers. Think about it in terms of buying a car. If you walk into a car dealership and the salesperson acts aloof while giving you a cut-and-dried spiel about the car, you might feel like the personal aspect of the exchange is a little closed off. However, if the representative you're working with is friendly and shares stories with you, you feel a connection with that person and begin developing trust in them and in the company. Social media essentially works the same way when it comes to brand awareness. Do you want to learn more? Don't wait anymore, press the buy now button and get started.

Of the 2.3 million National Servicemen conscripted during the Cold War, 4,200 attended the secret Joint Services School for Linguists, tasked with supplying much-needed Russian speakers to the three services. After training, they were sent to the front lines in Germany and elsewhere to snoop on Soviet aircraft in real time.Posted to RAF Gatow in Berlin, ideally placed for signals interception, author Douglas Boyd came to know Hitler’s devastated former capital. Pulling no punches, he describes SIGINT work, his subsequent arrest by armed Soviet soldiers, and how he was locked up without trial in solitary confinement in a Stasi prison.The Solitary Spy is a unique first-hand account of the terrifying experience of incarceration and interrogation in an East German political prison, from which Boyd eventually escaped, one step ahead of the KGB.