This is the stunning popular history of 100 years (1845-1945) of Anglo-German love/hate. Richard Milton exposes the secrets of a relationship steeped in mutual admiration, blood and propaganda. In August 1914, Britain's first act of war was not to mobilise its army or the Grand Fleet. It was to cut cables preventing German propaganda from reaching American newspapers. This war of words would quickly become as vicious as the slaughter on the Western Front. For a century, Britain and Germany had been closer than any other two countries. Germany was Britain's biggest export market, and vice versa. Germans adopted English dress, customs and manners. German thinking on race, national identity, eugenics, and racial supremacy also had its roots in British thinkers like Darwin, Huxley and Galton. Even as late as the Nazi era, Hess, Himmler, Goering and Hitler himself remained passionate Anglophiles. During WW1, however, Germany, Britain and the USA spent billions on clandestine propaganda to blacken each other's reputations. This gargantuan effort gave birth to the PR industry itself - later seized upon by Nazi propagandist Goebbels to devastating effect. Richard Milton's expertly written popular history gives a fresh perspective on this tumultuous, painful love-hate relationship, and is also a brilliant study of propaganda itself - now more than ever a vital weapon of war.

Richard Milton is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster. He currently freelances for The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers. He is the author of a dozen books - both fiction and non-fiction - all now available on Kindle as well as in book form.

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His non-fiction books are highly controversial. "Bad Company", which The Sunday Times chose as its Business Book of the Week, sets out to explain why large corporations sometimes behave in self-defeating and even insane ways.

His equally controversial "Shattering the myths of Darwinism" caused some members of the scientific establishment to start chewing the carpet and foaming at the mouth, by daring to demand real empirical evidence in support of Darwinian beliefs, in place of conjecture and pseudoscience. "Alternative Science" (also published as "Forbidden Science") examines how and why good science is sometimes thrown out with the bad for purely ideological reasons.

His book "Best of Enemies" looks at Anglo-German relations through two world wars and charts the origins of modern propaganda. The book is currently the subject of a TV film of the same name to be broadcast on German and British TV later in 2015.

His latest non-fiction book, "The Ministry of Spin", reveals for the first time the story of how the post-war Labour government secretly held onto the wartime Ministry Of Information: how they buried this powerful propaganda machine deep in Whitehall: and how they turned its wartime propaganda powers on the British Parliament, media and people in order to push through their peacetime political programme.

In fiction, he has published three mystery thrillers and a book of short stories.

"Dead Secret" is a paranormal mystery thriller. Investigative journalist Tony Gabriel stumbles onto his biggest ever story when he inherits the papers of a long-dead historian - and finds himself the target of an ancient secret society. Are they just rich, powerful people playing an elaborate game, or have they truly gained paranormal powers to see into the future?

"The Glass Harmonica" is a mystery thriller. Concert pianist Julia Franklin is heir to an inheritance worth a billion dollars - enough to bankrupt America's oldest bank when the trust matures. Miles Bartholemew, of Bartholemew Equity and Trust, has to find the heirs of the Franklin trust and deal with them permanently, before his family's bank is ruined.

"Conjuring For Beginners" is a crime thriller. When legendary con-artist Ferdy Daniels dies alone and penniless, his daughter, Rosa, inherits his victims, who are convinced she was his partner in crime. To keep one jump ahead of them - and stay alive - Rosa must unravel Ferdy's web of deceits. But to re-trace her father's footsteps, she must learn to become as quick-witted and cunning as Ferdy, the master magician.

"True Stories: Mysteries of Crime and Punishment" is a collection of short stories with a difference. Every story in the book is true - except one. Some tell of crimes that have gone unpunished by the law. Some are crimes against laws that are unwritten. And some are crimes that exist only in the mind.