Angus Calder

The Edinburgh of Angus Calder's poems is not the city of summer tourism and landmark buildings. It is the all-the-year-round arena of lingering mists or brilliant sunlight on grey stone, where seagulls and pigeons command the early-morning streets, curlers sweep their ice at Murrayfield and coarse sportsmen revel on the Meadows.

A collection of Angus Calder's work dealing with war and memory. Beginning with a section devoted to war memorials and the public remembrance of war, the collection then looks at the lived experience of war for the "ordinary" soldier.

This is a timely collection of poetry through the ages and throughout the world. Homeric poems, epics and tragedies have been collected from two and a half millennia of literature. Each poem is introduced with a commentary.

The 3 Estaites is - by common consent - Scotland's greatest play. First performed in Cupar, Fife in June 1552, it is the earliest Scottish play to have survived. Full of broad humour and pantomime-like farce, it also deals with dangerous topical issues, hitting out at corruption and hypocrisy in the ruling establishment, denouncing the oppression of the poor and calling for social "reformation". A young king is rescued from idle sexual dalliance and false counsels by Divine Correction and they preside over a Parliament summoned to enact just laws, where basic Christian tenets and values are affirmed - but Folly has the last word. In 2000 The 3 Estaites gained a fresh resonance when it celebrated both the Millennium and the rebirth of Scotland's Parliament by returning to Cupar for the first time in nearly four and a half centuries. This contemporary Scots version by the leading poet and playwright Alan Spence retains the structure and spirit of Lindsay's script while giving his language a new lease of life. The play's topical allusions have been updated brilliantly, but Lindsay's generous spirit and enormous sense of fun have been preserved. This is a national drama, expressing a comprehensive perspective of what Scotland is and what it might be - a land of justice, fellow-feeling and laughter.

The Myth of the Blitz was nurtured at every level of society. Britain was not bombed into classless democracy. Angus Calder provides a compelling examination of the events of 1940 and 1941 - when Britain 'stood alone' against the Luftwaffe - and of the Myth which sustained her 'finest hour'.

The Second World War was, for Britain, a 'total war'. In this title, the author presents not only the great events and leading figures but also the oddities and banalities of daily life on the Home Front, and in particular the parts played by ordinary people: air raid wardens and Home Guards, factory workers and farmers, housewives and pacifists.