At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the Duchy of Coburg, ruled by the Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield (later Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) family, was a small, impoverished German fiefdom with no political influence, and little prospect of improving its lot. Less than fifty years later, the family had transformed its position. Their finances were healthy and they held, or were closely related to, many of the crowns of Europe. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the genes of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family ran in no fewer than thirteen royal families. Just how did they achieve this astonishing turnaround? Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert, and the subsequent marriages of their many, highly eligible, offspring, is well known. But Richard Sotnick gives a new twist to the story by concentrating on the earlier, less well-documented period, when the most astute of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family - Leopold, Prince Albert's uncle and subsequently King of the Belgians, and his mother, the Dowager Duchess Augusta - worked behind the scenes. Richard Sotnick draws on contemporary family documents, most in the original German and only made available to the public since the reunification of Germany. He tells of Prince Albert's mother, the tragic Luise, whose scandalous divorce resulted in her being exiled for life and banished from her sons. And he explores the rumours around Albert's paternity, proposing three plausible candidates for his fatherhood.

An entirely original account of Victoria's relationship with the Raj, which shows how India was central to the Victorian monarchy from as early as 1837 In this engaging and controversial book, Miles Taylor shows how both Victoria and Albert were spellbound by India, and argues that the Queen was humanely, intelligently, and passionately involved with the country throughout her reign and not just in the last decades. Taylor also reveals the way in which Victoria's influence as empress contributed significantly to India's modernization, both political and economic. This is, in a number of respects, a fresh account of imperial rule in India, suggesting that it was one of Victoria's successes.

Did COVID-19 actually break out to kill 6 million people because of a leak from a Chinese laboratory? What are the links between QAnon and Russiagate, Alex Jones and Donald Trump? Why did our own MI5 try to block evidence about the death of Iraq weapons inspector Dr David Kelly and the radioactive poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko? Putin is a brute who lies as a matter of policy. Hitler tried to blame Poland for starting WWII. We live in a world of fake news and false flags, secret plots and unexplained deaths. But what on earth can you believe, when nothing's ever quite what it seems? In Conspiracy, Ian Shircore cuts through the fog and the fairy tales to deliver a balanced analysis of the stories that shape the times we live in. New evidence - from Freedom of Information requests, WikiLeaks files, deathbed confessions and declassified archives - has solved some classic mysteries. Yet it raises more questions than ever about the assassinations of the 1960s, the dirty secrets of the late 20th century and the deadly traumas of the last few years. Now fully updated with new cases, material and evidence.