Another World 1897-1917 Signed by Anthony Eden first edition 1976

London: Allen Lane, 1976
 
8vo., blue publisher’s boards, backstrip lettered in silver; in the dust jacket with correct price of £3.95. net, designed by Paul Bowden; pp. [viii], 9-156, [iv]; a very good or better copy, with minor handling wear; marks present underneath the inscription; some minor wear to the edges of the boards; a small indentation to the left of the front panel of the jacket.
 
A first edition of Eden's early memoirs, signed by the author to the front free end paper to renowned atomic energy engineer Kenneth Nichols. The inscription reads ‘For Kenneth Nichols with gratitude + every good wish to you both, from Avon May 3/76’.
 
Major General Kenneth Nichols was an officer and civil engineer in the US army. He worked predominantly in atomic energy - having worked in secret initially on the Manhattan project. He was then lead on uranium and plutonium production in Washington. He was one of the leaders in the development of the atomic bomb in WW2. 
 
Nichols though, is perhaps best known for playing a key role in the security clearance hearing against J. Robert Oppenheimer that resulted in Oppenheimer's security clearance being revoked. He was played by Dane DeHaan in the recent Oppenheimer film. 
 
This would be Eden's fifth volume of his memoirs, the first three he focused on his political career including time as prime minister, the fourth geopolitics and his role in Indo-China and this being his recollections of the first twenty years of his life. He gives his account of his childhood, family and experiences at an early age in the great war. He was awarded the military cross and served in some of the most horrific battles of the war including at the Somme and Passchendaele. 
 
It is an interesting association between prime minister Eden and Kenneth Nichols both who played a key role in their own way during the second world war and then afterwards at the beginnings of the cold war. Eden would be in and out of the foreign office in capacity as foreign secretary and as a member of the political warfare committee during the war. Its concievable that he would have met and knew Nichols in his capacity as a US military official and then latterly after the war as head of the Atomic Energy Commission. A rare book signed by the prime minister and with such an interesting association.