New Release Books by Charles Higham

Discusses the historical and cultural changes that occurred in Asia throughout history.

His wealth was legendary. His passions were bizarre. Now, the truth about the money, the madness, and the man behind the enigma. Howard Hughes is one of the best known and least understood men of our times--famed for his wealth, his daring, and his descent into madness. Bestselling biographer Charles Higham goes beyond the enigma to reveal the incredible private life of Howard Hughes: * his romances with the great stars of Hollywood--Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, and numerous others * his forays into sadomasochism * his involvement with Richard Nixon and Watergate * his bizarre final years This is a compelling portrait of a unique American figure--in a story as revealing as it is unforgettable.

The romance of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor has been called the greatest love story of the twentieth century. However with the first edition of this biography in 1988, highly acclaimed author Charles Higham used explosive secret intelligence files to reveal a far darker side to their forty-year relationship. Now the author has re-visited and updated his international bestseller, resulting in a fascinating, and at times shocking exposé of Wallis Simpson. New and disturbing revelations have come to light, adding to the now classic story of an illegitimate child from Baltimore who rose to become the mistress of the king of England and brought about his abdication. Wallis gained control of the Monarch through sexual techniques learned in China, but risked losing everything through a reckless, long-term affair with William Bullitt, US Ambassador to France. Newly released FBI files demonstrate, as no other source has done, the extent of the Duchessâe(tm)s espionage activities and how she conspired against Britain in the interest of Hitler. This is an intimate and extraordinary account of the woman who very nearly became the Queen of England. 'An enthralling and jaw-dropping read' Sunday Express 'An excellent account of life, love and Roger Vivier shoes' Tatler 'A rattling read' Mail on Sunday

The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor reflects the results of a research programme conducted by Charles Higham over the last twenty years, highlighting much entirely new, and occasionally surprising, information and providing a distinct perspective on cultural change over two millennia. The book covers the background of environmental change, the adoption of rice farming, archaeogenetics, the adoption of copper-based metallurgy, the iron age and the origins of state formation.

For the first time, the complete cultural history of mainland Southeast Asia is covered in one volume.

Ban Non Wat is the fourth major excavation undertaken as part of the project, The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor. It is a site of great importance because of its long occupation period, and the very large area opened by excavation over seven seasons of fieldwork. The site was initially occupied by hunter-gatherers, then by Neolithic rice farmers. By 1000 BC, this community began to cast bronzes, and six centuries later, the first iron was being forged. It is possible at Ban Non Wat, to follow the history of a community over a period of about 100 generations. This book describes the site's stratigraphy, chronology, and then covers the mortuary sequence and the material culture. It covers the early period of hunter-gatherers, the initial settlement by Neolithic rice farmers the princely early Bronze Age graves, with their outstanding painted ceramic vessels, and the extensive Iron Age cemetery that reveals a remarkable image of the rituals of burial, with its wooden coffins, bimetallic spears and exotic jewellery.

As a best-selling biographer of numerous Hollywood greats—Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Howard Hughes, and Cary Grant among them—Charles Higham has been privy to the public and private joys, tragedies, scandals, and desires of many of the darlings of Hollywood’s red carpet. In and Out of Hollywood is Higham’s own life story, replete with a vibrant cast that includes stars from Marlene Dietrich to Clint Eastwood to Leonardo DiCaprio. Born into a life of privilege in 1930s England, Higham endured a difficult childhood. To escape a tortured family situation, Higham married early despite his awakening homosexuality and fled to Australia with his wife to begin a new life as a poet, journalist, and editor. By the 1960s he had settled in Hollywood. It was here that he struck gold by finding and writing about the reels of Orson Welles’s legendary unfinished Latin American epic film It’s All True, long thought lost in a Paramount vault. This momentous find rocketed Higham to the A-list. He soon became a New York Times feature writer and sought-after biographer lauded for his pioneering style. In and Out of Hollywood contains Higham’s personal reflections on the stars he has known over the past forty years. From his insider perch he reveals Hollywood’s inner life: how Bette Davis influenced the death of her second husband; how Walt Disney’s dark vision devolved into bright animated features he astonishingly despised; how leading actors clandestinely participated in gay activities. Higham’s memoir also charts his work as a political commentator, historian, poet, and playwright; describes the dangers and excitements of gay life before AIDS; and recounts his eventual discovery of a lasting relationship. In and Out of Hollywood is a lively tour through several decades of changing times and personalities behind the scenes of the American film world.

Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao are two large, moated prehistoric settlements in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Northeast Thailand. Excavations in 1997-8 revealed a cultural sequence that began in the late Bronze Age, followed by four mortuary phases covering the Iron Age. This report describes the palaeoenvironment, excavation, chronology and material culture, human remains and social structure of the prehistoric inhabitants of these two sites. It is the second volume reporting on the research programme "The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor".

Dramatic new archaeological discoveries over the past ten years demand a new look at Thailand s past. Drawing on his previous work, Prehistoric Thailand, this book with over 40% new material, covers the history of the kingdom from the first human settlement.

Martin Jarvis narrates this novelization based on a serial from the original TV series. The Doctor and Sarah arrive back in the TARDIS to find London completely deserted - except for the dinosaurs. Has the return of these prehistoric creatures been deliberately planned and, if so, who can be behind it all?

This is the final volume in the series. The volume summarises and synthesises the material from this remarkable site, and considers its place in the wider context of Southeast Asian prehistory.

Thoroughly revised and updated, this vivid biography surveys the life and career of the eminent American film and stage actress, highlighting important episodes and relationships in her life and outstanding productions and performances. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

This book addresses the controversy over the origins of the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Charles Higham provides a systematic and regional presentation of the current evidence. He suggests that the adoption of metallurgy in the region followed a period of growing exchange with China. Higham then traces the development of Bronze Age cultures, identifying regionality and innovation, and suggesting how and why distinct cultures developed. This book is the first comprehensive study of the period, placed within a broader comparative framework.

The recent death of America's most famous matriarch signals the end of an amazing era. Now, drawing on hundreds of recently declassified documents, and with the cooperation of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's relatives, among others, New York Times bestselling author Charles Higham chronicles the life of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy in this dramatic, moving biography. During her times of glory, agony and ecstasy, Rose gave birth to nine children and to an unforgettable vision of the American Dream. Deeply religious, intensely ambitious for her family, she moved through fascinating worlds: politics, big business, England as the American ambassador's wife, Hollywood, high society, and Washington's inner circles. The tragic deaths of four of her children never shook her faith; she believed despite the worst that God always held her in his hands.

Jennie Jerome was a controversial American society girl and mother of Britain's most revered statesman, Winston Churchill. A single-minded and dynamic woman she was an early feminist, advocate of Irish independence, and, above all, was notorious for her promiscuity. Charles Higham draws from previously overlooked sources to provide much that is startlingly new about the remarkable and tempestuous life of Jennie Jerome. The book charts her luxurious New York upbringing, her eyebrow-raising entry into the British aristocracy through marriage to Lord Randolph Churchill, son of the Duke of Marlborough, her endless line of liaisons with men of vastly inferior years, and a very different sort of affair in the highest of high places - with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII (one of many kings and princes to win her affection). Passionately in love with life, expressive of her sexuality when women were supposed to hide it, beautiful and independent minded, Jennie Jerome was decades ahead of her time.

In this terrifying supernatural thriller Mary, a normal American child, is kidnapped on a visit to Ireland. Not by humans, but by the spirits of the forest. A changeling is sent in her place to destroy all those who interfere with nature. In order to get Mary back, her parents must burn the changeling .

This perennial classic of political literature remains the only book to document the trading of the American financial establishment with Hitler's Germany in World War II, from Pearl Harbor to V-E Day. Ford supplied tanks to Hitler, the Chase Bank financed the Nazis in Paris, ITT built rocket bombs for Goering and Standard Oil fueled U-boats in the Atlantic.

"Deeply researched, valuable." –The New York Times Book Review "A shocker . . . stunning . . . absolutely hypnotic. . . . A world of beautiful houses, ceaseless travel, trendsetting fashion, and powerful figures. . . . Fascinating revelations." –Cosmopolitan Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor, was one of the most famous women in history, the American divorcée who captured the King of England, Edward VIII, and cost him his throne. Until Charles Higham’s 1.3 million-copy bestseller, much of her life was a glamorous mystery. Now, fifteen years later, major new documentary evidence, classified at the time, makes for a book far more sensational than the original bestseller. Drawing from long-suppressed archives in France, England, and the United States, Higham has uncovered the duchess’s passionate affair with a top-ranking political figure, the duke’s romantic involvement with a male equerry, the secret radio broadcasts the couple made to Hitler, and the blackmail plot in Paris that almost brought them–and the British royal family–to ruin. This updated new edition of The Duchess of Windsor is essential reading. "Higham’s best. . . . Serious, deliciously fresh . . . documented by newly opened secret government files in the U.S. and England." –Kirkus Reviews "Smooth and entertaining." –The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) "An excellent biography . . . alert to every nuance." –The London Sunday Telegraph

Drawing on previously hidden documents, the author outlines the conspiracy behind Abraham Lincoln's assassination, pointing out the involvement of high level figures who used John Wilkes Booth as the instrument of the final act.

The archaeology of the early cultures of mainland Southeast Asia has been transformed in the ten years since Charles Higham published the first major summary of the period from 10000 BC to the fall of the Kingdom of Angkor. He has now written an entirely new book, which takes into account a host of new discoveries. The dynamic coastal hunter-gatherers at Khok Phanom Di provide a startling image quite at variance with our earlier understanding of this period. The origins of rice cultivation in the Yangzi Valley, linked with the distribution of the languages, provides a whole new view of the spread of farming communities. At last, the origins and dating of the Bronze Age are resolved, and the social life from mines to settlements, and on to the rituals of death, can be followed. New excavations at large Iron Age sites in Cambodia and Thailand now allow us to appreciate the vigour and dynamism of societies on the brink of the transition to the state. A fresh appraisal of the available inscriptions has opened new vistas on the origins and development of the great kingdom of Angkor. Professor Higham has integrated all these new findings into a fascinating account of Southeast Asia's past, bringing a freshness and vigour to the period which can only provide for a fuller understanding of how this vital region has developed over the millennia into its present form.