Simon Webb

The father of Marxism spent roughly half his life in the English capital. Simon Webb's new book takes a fresh look at where and how he lived, who he knew and the effect the Victorian city had on himself and his family.

Is it true that the trans-Atlantic slave trade, about which so much has been heard in recent years, would have been impossible without the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of African leaders? Slavery was a common practice in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans, with the trade in black slaves, who were transported from Africa to America and the islands of the Caribbean, aided by the African traders who benefited from the arrangement. Even when Europe and America outlawed slavery and the slave trade, those living in Africa clung tenaciously to their old ways and refused to relinquish what was, to them, a time-honoured custom. It is for this reason that slavery lingers on in Africa to this day. In this book, Simon Webb explores the history of slavery in Africa and finds that it was not necessarily imposed upon the continent by Europeans, but was rather an integral part of many, perhaps most, cultures. Even when the British deployed their army and navy to try to suppress the trade in slaves during the nineteenth century, their efforts were largely ineffectual because many societies saw no reason to give up such an old, useful and profitable system. At a time when the subject of the trans-Atlantic slave trade is seldom out of the news, this book provides a vital corrective to the popularly accepted view of the matter. Nobody reading it will ever view slavery and the slave trade in quite the same light again.

This book relates a chapter of American military history which many people would rather forget. When the United States came to the aid of Britain in 1942, the arrival of American troops was greeted with unreserved enthusiasm, but unfortunately, wartime sometimes brings out the worst, as well as the best, in people. A small number of the soldiers abused the hospitality they received by committing murders and rapes against British civilians. Some of these men were hanged or shot at Shepton Mallet Prison in Somerset, which had been handed over for the use of the American armed forces. Due to a treaty between Britain and America, those accused of such offences faced an American court martial, rather than a British civilian court, which gave rise to some curious anomalies. Although rape had not been a capital crime in Britain for over a century, it still carried the death penalty under American military law and so the last executions for rape in Britain were carried out at this time in Shepton Mallet. _Fighting For America, Executed in Britain_ tells the story of every American soldier executed in Britain during the Second World War. The majority of the executed soldiers were either black or Hispanic, reflecting the situation in the United States itself, where the ethnicity of the accused person often played a key role in both convictions and the chances of subsequently being executed.

In the years leading up to the First World War, the United Kingdom was subjected to a ferocious campaign of bombing and arson. Those conducting this terrorist offensive were members of the Women's Social and Political Union; better known as the suffragettes. The targets for their attacks ranged from St Paul's Cathedral and the Bank of England in London to theatres and churches in Ireland. The violence, which included several attempted assassinations, culminated in June 1914 with an explosion in Westminster Abbey. Simon Webb explores the way in which the suffragette bombers have been airbrushed from history, leaving us with a distorted view of the struggle for female suffrage. Not only were the suffragettes far more aggressive than is generally known, but there exists the very real and surprising possibility that their militant activities actually delayed, rather than hastened, the granting of the parliamentary vote to British women. AUTHOR: Simon Webb is the author of many non-fiction books, ranging from academic works on education to popular history. He has also written dozens of westerns under both his own name and a variety of pseudonyms, such as Harriet Cade, Fenton Sadler and Jay Clanton. He works as a consultant on the subject of capital punishment to television companies and filmmakers and also writes fro various magazines and newspapers, including the Times educational Supplement, Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. 16 b/w illustrations

Sometimes irascible and intolerant, John Cosin suffered years of poverty and exile before he became bishop of Durham in 1660. Simon Webb's new biography, the first for over a century, attempts to give equal weight to the different aspects of Cosin's character: incorrigible bookworm, gifted administrator and re-builder of the diocese after the ravages of the Interregnum. Simon's book also takes a fresh look at the story that Cosin possessed a secret box, the contents of which, if revealed, would have changed the course of British history.

Aimed at readers with little or no prior knowledge of Laurence Sterne or his writings, Simon Webb's book offers a brief but comprehensive biography of the author of Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey, and includes up-to-date analyses of all his major works. This new study attempts to put Sterne, his writings and his characters in the context of the eighteenth century in Europe: a time of enlightenment, but also of ignorance, corruption and slavery.

Emmeline Pankhurst is seen today as a valiant champion of democracy, but in the 1930s certain prominent former suffragettes were comparing her to Hitler and Mussolini. It was suggested that Mrs Pankhurst and her Women's Social and Political Union could be viewed as a proto-fascist movement; an idea likely to strike the modern reader as grotesque. Yet the WSPU certainly had much in common with the fascist parties that emerged after the end of the First World War. The group was financed by wealthy and aristocratic backers, and terrorism, in the form of bombing and arson, was widely used against working-class men and women. This, together with the rampant anti-Semitism and ambivalent attitude to democracy, all indicate that there was more to the suffragettes than we now realise. Few people today, for example, know that Emmeline Pankhurst was an advocate of ethnic cleansing and the use of concentration camps, nor that her daughter was imprisoned during the Second World War for pro-Nazi activities. This helps to explain how former suffragettes came to hold such important positions in the British Union of Fascists in the years before the Second World War. After all, the ideology and structure of Oswald Mosley's fascist party was so eerily similar to that of Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union. In this book, Simon Webb explores the real world of the suffragettes and the woman they idolised as 'the Leader', discovering that the movement indeed foreshadowed the rise of fascism during the 1930s.

Born in Sunderland and brought up near Bishop Auckland in County Durham, 'free-born' John Lilburne became a leader of the Leveller movement, and one of the dominant personalities of the turbulent seventeenth century in England. Simon Webb's biography offers an accessible introduction to this fascinating figure, whose fearless support of the rights of ordinary people made him a thorn in the side of both royalist and republican governments. A Durham Quaker himself, the author is uniquely placed both to examine how Lilburne's northern roots influenced his career as a political agitator, and how this uniquely restless soul came to embrace Quakerism in his last days.

The London Blitz and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour are iconic myths for Britain and America. Few in either nation realise, however, that these artfully constructed narratives of heroic resistance to aerial bombardment both conceal appalling massacres of their own citizens. In Britain, thousands of civilians were killed when the army shelled London and other cities in an effort to prevent those living there from fleeing the German bombs. At Pearl Harbour, American warships fired their heavy guns at the city of Honolulu, with devastating results. In this book, Simon Webb reveals one of the last secrets of the Second World War; the casualties which friendly fire' from heavy artillery inflicted upon British and American civilians. In the case of the British, these deaths were part of a quite deliberate policy which was devised to ensure that those living in big cities remained there, despite the dangers of enemy bombing. There were times during the German bombing of London when more people were being killed by British shells than were dying as a result of enemy bombs. Although this book traces the history of bombing and anti-aircraft guns from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, through to the First World War, its chief concern is with the events of the Second World War; particularly the Blitz. Nobody reading The Secret Blitz will ever view Pearl Harbour or the Blitz in quite the same way again.

Acknowledged as one of the greatest wood engravers who ever lived, Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) is still little-known outside his native Northumbria. Simon Webb

Polish nobleman, guitarist, world-class flirt and friend of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Joseph Boruwlaski was also a little person, standing less than a metre high.'In Search of the Little Count' is the first detailed biography of this famous Durham character in English, and it includes some fascinating new discoveries about his life.

The ultimate Ripper collection runs to over 550 pages and includes four complete books: 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, books on the suspects Francis Thompson and Ernest Dowson, and 'Severin', a novel based on the story of the well-known suspect George Chapman. Among other suspects covered in the book are Francis Tumblety, James Maybrick, Prince Albert Victor, Neill Cream, James Kelly and Robert D'Onston Stephenson. 'A Jack the Ripper Omnibus' also includes new material that has never been published before.

Though he features in the first of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Nicholas Flamel was a real person who lived in medieval Paris. Simon Webb's new book attempts to reconstruct his life, and also looks into the legends that have attached to his name over the centuries. Was he an alchemist, could he make gold from mercury, and are Nicholas and his wife Perenelle still alive after over six hundred years? Published by the Langley Press.

Long regarded as a possible Jack the Ripper suspect, the Victorian poet Francis Thompson lived in London at the time of the Whitechapel murders, and may have had motive, means and opportunity to commit at least some of those horrific crimes. At one time, he even lived with a prostitute who subsequently disappeared. Considering known facts about Thompson's life and personality, and searching for clues in the darker corners of his poetry, Simon Webb's new book offers a balanced view of the case for Jack the Poet. Simon has also written 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, and 'Severin', a Ripper novel.