1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910150519603321

Autore

Gordon Kirby David

Titolo

Operation blunderhead : the incredible adventures of a double agent in Nazi-occupied Europe / / David Gordon Kirby

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Stroud, Gloucestershire, [England] : , : The History Press, , 2015

2015

ISBN

0-7509-6582-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (170 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations

Disciplina

940.548641

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Sommario/riassunto

Operation Blunderhead was a unique SOE project to parachute an agent into occupied Estonia in 1942. The central character was an unlikely hero, and his survival owed more to his ability to spin a tale than to any daring qualities. Blunderhead was the only SOE operation in a country that had been incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, but it involved no cooperation with Moscow (although SOE sought permission for the go-ahead). Uniquely, the operation was not initiated by SOE, but was rather the brainchild of Ronald Sydney Seth (after the war he reinvented himself as Dr. Chartham, a pioneering sexologist). Seth left entertaining accounts of his training and these throw light on his extraordinary character and the ways in which SOE sought to prepare its agents. His mission was a failure: Seth was captured, interrogated by the Germans, and imprisoned. He claimed that he was saved from a public hanging by the failure to open at the last minute of the trapdoor on the scaffold. From Tallinn he was transferred to a succession of prisons in the Baltic and Germany and ended up in Paris with a mistress where he trained to be a German secret agent. In the war's final months he was taken to Berlin and entrusted with a mission to Britain sanctioned by Himmler. Was he a prisoner who agreed to work for the Germans, or was he a double agent?



2.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910959113003321

Autore

Wacks David A

Titolo

Framing Iberia : Maqamat and frametale narratives in medieval Spain / / by David A. Wacks

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Leiden : Boston, : Brill, 2007

ISBN

1-281-92623-X

9786611926236

90-474-1974-X

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (295 p.)

Collana

Medieval and early modern Iberian world, , 1569-1934 ; ; v. 33

Disciplina

863

Soggetti

Spanish fiction - To 1500 - History and criticism

Spanish fiction - Arab influences

Framework stories, Spanish - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of California, Berkeley, 2003).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-264) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Preliminary material / D.A. Wacks -- Introduction / D.A. Wacks -- Chapter One. Writing across the frontier / D.A. Wacks -- Chapter Two. Storytelling and performance in medieval iberian frametale and Maqāma / D.A. Wacks -- Chapter Three. The cultural context of the translation of Calila E Dimna / D.A. Wacks -- Chapter Four. Reconquest ideology and andalusï narrative practice in the Conde Lucanor / D.A. Wacks -- Chapter Five. The Libro de buen amor and the medieval iberian Maqāma / D.A. Wacks -- Chapter Six. Social change, misogyny, and the Maqāma in Jaume Roig’s spill / D.A. Wacks -- Works cited / D.A. Wacks -- Index / D.A. Wacks.

Sommario/riassunto

Framing Iberia is a study of medieval Iberian culture observed through the lens of the frametale, a type of story collection cultivated by medieval Iberian authors in several languages. Its best known examples outside of Iberia are Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales , Boccaccio’s Decameron , and the Thousand and One Nights . In Framing Iberia the author relocates the Castilian classics El Conde Lucanor and El Libro de buen amor within a literary tradition that includes works in Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Romance. In doing so, he draws on current critical



theory and cultural studies in reevaluating how the multicultural society of medieval Iberia is reflected in its narrative literature. Winner of the 2009 La corónica International Book Award for scholarship in Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Also available in paperback ISBN 978 9004 20589 5