David James Smith Bücher

Sarajevo, 28 June 1914: The story of the assassination that changed the world. A historical account of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Using newly available sources and older material, David James Smith brilliantly reinvestigates and reconstructs the events which subsequently determined the shape of the twentieth century. Young Gavrilo Princip arrived at the Vlajnic pastry shop in Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the morning of 28 June 1914. He was greeted by his fellow conspirators in the plot to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Archduke, next in line to succeed as Emperor of Austria, was beginning a state visit to Sarajevo later that morning. Ferdinand was not a very popular character - widely thought of as bad-tempered and arrogant and perhaps even deranged. To the young students he embodied everything they loathed about imperial oppression. They planned to kill him at about 11 o'clock as he paraded down Appel Quay to the town hall in his open top car. What happened in those few hours - leading as it did to the First and Second World Wars - is as compelling as any thriller.

Ruthless revolutionary; passionate womaniser; activist; hothead. Meet the young Mandela. Nelson Mandela has been mythologised as a flawless hero of the liberation struggle. But how exactly did his early life shape the triumphs to come? This book goes behind the myth to find the man who people have forgotten or never knew - Young Mandela, the committed freedom fighter, who left his wife and children behind to go on the run from the police in the early 1960s. But his historic achievements came at a heavy price and David James Smith graphically describes the emotional turmoil Mandela left in his wake. After meticulous research, and taking a lead from Mandela's trusted circle, the author discovers much that is new, surprising, and sometimes shocking that will enhance our understanding of the world's elder statesman. For the first time, we have evidence of a specific personal motivation for Mandela's fight against apartheid, and this book sheds light on the significant extent to which Mandela relied on white activists - a part of South African history the ANC has ignored or tried to bury. Sanctified, lionised, it turns out that Mandela is a human being after all, only too aware of his flaws and shortcomings. With unique access to people and papers, culminating in a meeting with Mandela himself, Smith has written the single most important contribution to our knowledge of this global icon.

On 26 April 1999, BBC presenter and golden girl Jill Dando was gunned down outside her home in a quiet West London street - in broad daylight. It was a seemingly senseless killing that stunned the nation. There were rumours of hired gunmen and revenge killings, but the man seen leaving the scene of the crime was not identified until much later, when local man Barry George was charged and put on trial and subsequently found guilty of Jill's murder. Three years after Jill's death, prizewinning reporter David James Smith's book - written with the co-operation of Jill's family, fiance Alan Farthing, and the police - supplies the detailed context of one of the most enduring murder mysteries of modern times.

Dokumentární zpracování otřesného případu vraždy dvouletého chlapce z anglického Liverpoolu dvěma desetiletými školáky v únoru 1993.