Hart-Davis, Duff

Hitler's games : the 1936 Olympics by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

12 editions published between 1986 and 1988 in English and held by 882 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

In August 1939, the Nazis audaciously achieved a propaganda triumph by staging the Olympic Games. Massive efforts had been undertaken to camouflage the evil nature of the regime from the visitors who streamed into the capital: anti-Semitic slogans were removed from walls and roadsides, and orders were issued to everyone to treat all guests civilly, "even if they look like Jews." Every sign of racial, religious, or political persecution was temporarily hidden. Not one visitor in a hundred realized that even as the Olympics were taking place, the concentration camp at Oranienburg, scarcely half an hour's journey from the splendid new Olympic stadium, was filled with Jews, socialists, Roman Catholics, Freemasons, and other anti-Nazis. This absorbing account skillfully evokes the social and political tensions of the period leading up to the Games and then dramatically re-creates, day by day, the events themselves. Heated debate had raged on both side of the Atlantic as to whether or not the Olympiad should be boycotted. But warnings about the true nature of Hitler's actions and intentions were consistently ignored both by governments and by the National Olympic Committees. At the games, eruptions of nationalistic fervor, the overtly militaristic nature of the ceremonies, and crowning all, the impact made by the magnificent 22-year-old Jesse Owens--all these are vividly described, with much hitherto unknown detail. The 1936 Olympic Games were the first (though unfortunately not the last) to be deliberately exploited for political ends. It is sobering to remember that three years later the youthful athletes who can still be seen in Leni Riefenstahl's famous film were facing each other on the battlefields of history's most destructive war. -- Publisher description

Audubon's elephant : America's greatest naturalist and the making of The birds of America by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

4 editions published in 2004 in English and held by 560 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

"Audubon's Elephant was the nickname given to John James Audubon's masterpiece, The Birds of America--an oversized folio of 435 life-size ornithological prints that remains to this day the most compelling depiction of bird life in the United States. Born in Haiti and raised in France, Audubon spent much of his adult life as a struggling American businessman on the frontier, where his obsession with birds nearly brought him to financial ruin. In 1826, his ambitious project was also in a precarious position--his folio remained unfinished, without an American publisher willing to fund it. Had Audubon not set sail for England, his artistic triumph might easily have turned into failure"--Publisher's description

Ascension; the story of a South Atlantic island by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

14 editions published between 1972 and 2017 in English and Undetermined and held by 412 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The bleak, volcanic island of Ascension, 800 miles from its nearest neighbour St Helena, was described by a Victorian naval officer as 'one of the strangest places on the face of the earth'. It is still exceedingly odd. Uninhabited when it was taken over by the British in 1815, it was an almost perfect natural vacuum - a triangular heap of lava and ash. When the Royal Marines brought in plants and animals, some flourished, others died. Tropical forest now clothes the peak of Green Mountain, and feral donkeys haunt the plains. As sea birds swarm around the coast, radar stations monitor space from the tops of rust-red cinder cones, and primeval, giant green turtles lumber up the beaches to nest. The island's history is short but extraordinar

Level five by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

13 editions published between 1982 and 1999 in 3 languages and held by 306 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Philip de Laszlo : his life and art by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

7 editions published in 2010 in English and held by 244 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Philip de László (1869-1937) was the pre-eminent portrait artist working in Britain between 1907 and 1937. He painted nearly 3,000 portraits, including kings and queens, four American presidents and countless members of the European nobility. There has been no biography of him since 1939, and this new account of both his life and his work draws on previously untapped material from the family archive of over 15,000 documents. It establishes the intrinsic importance of his art and re-positions him alongside his great contemporaries John Singer Sargent, Sir John Lavery and Giovanni Boldini. Born into a humble family in Budapest in 1869 he was ennobled by the Emperor Franz Joseph and from 1912 became known as Philip de László. From an early age he was driven by an unshakable vocation to succeed as an artist. He studied in Budapest, Munich and Paris, soon turning to portraiture as his vocation, and in 1894 received his first important commission from the royal family of Bulgaria, followed in 1899 by the Emperor Franz Joseph and, in 1900, Pope Leo XIII

The war that never was : the true story of the men who fought Britain's most secret battle by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

10 editions published between 2011 and 2012 in English and held by 238 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Tells the fascinating story of a secret war fought by British mercenaries in the Yemen in the early 1960s

Peter Fleming : a biography by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

13 editions published between 1974 and 1987 in English and Undetermined and held by 233 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

King's counsellor : abdication and war : the diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles by Alan Lascelles( Book )

6 editions published between 2006 and 2007 in English and held by 221 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

"These long-awaited diaries of Sir Alan 'Tommy' Lascelles, now published by permission of Her Majesty the Queen, throw new light on the way in which King George VI and his Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, worked together during the Second World War." "Among numerous other revelations, the author describes how he personally stopped monarch and politician sailing on board the lead cruiser during operation 'Overlord', the D-Day attack on the French coast in June 1944. He also tells, for the first time, the full story of his own sudden elevation to the post of the King's principal Private Secretary, in place of Sir Alec Hardinge, in July 1943. Yet it is the war, seen from the commanding heights of Buckingham Palace and No. 10 Downing Street, that dominates these journals. King's Counsellor gives an unique picture of the royal family in action at a critical period in the life of the nation."--Jacket

Fauna Britannica : the practical guide to wild & domestic creatures of Britain by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

6 editions published in 2002 in English and held by 209 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

That people have for animals, and also the beneficial effects that contact with animals can produce

Our land at war by Duff Hart-Davis( Book )

7 editions published between 2015 and 2016 in English and held by 196 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The real stories of how the people of Britain's countryside fought from home and changed their country forever in the time of greatest need. In England, Scotland and Wales, the Second World War dragged rural communities out of their former environment and changed their lives forever. Whilst urban people were liable to have their homes destroyed by bombs, rural folk had their territory invaded: evacuee children were dumped on them by the thousand, land was arbitrarily taken for airfields and other military installations, prisoner-of-war camps brought captured enemy to close quarters. Cornwall was closed to outsiders for a time, as was the whole of north-west Scotland, which was used for Commando training and became a Protected Area. The Government subjected farmers to draconian regulations about what crops they might or might not grow. The results often involved severe clashes of culture and a remarkable effort of resourcefulness. Drawing on anecdotes from diaries, letters, books, official records and interviews Duff Hart-Davies conveys something of the strangeness of the changes wrought in Britain by these odd combinations of hardship and farce. Nostalgic, amusing and filled with warm human detail, A Land at War is a living history - a rich, textured account of the profound changes to ordinary rural lives produced by an extraordinary time