Barnes

Ralph Waldo Barnes was an eyewitness to history. From Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany, he reported first hand on the events of the 1930s for the readers of the New York Herald Tribune. In "Dispatches and Dictators," historian Barbara Mahoney chronicles the short life and brilliant career of Ralph Barnes. Her biography of this extraordinary reporter provides new insights into the tumultuous decade leading up to World War II.

In 1922 Barnes Wallis FRS, who later invented the transatlantic airship and the bouncing bomb immortalized in the movie The Dam Busters, fell in love for the first and last time - aged 35. The object of his affection, Molly Bloxam, was 17 and setting off to study science at University College London. Her father decreed that the two could correspond only if Barnes taught Molly mathematics in his letters.