Ground-Breaking brings to life the birth of the commercial property market in the UK. Full of insights for today's practitioners, it provides a unique first-hand account of how the commercial property market got off the ground in the 1/4 century 1950-75. Here is a chronicle of that pioneering period, creating an industry that became global and affects everyone's daily life. Without this title we might never know how the whole business began.

This is an extraordinary story of the campaigns of one soldier in four continents. We start in what is now Italy and travel to Egypt with Napoleon, we find ourselves in Syria, we see capture in the Caribbean, an imprisonment in Devon, England where Alberto meets his future wife, is paroled and travels to Paris. Then the invasion of Russia where Alberto is captured again, but manages to escape, walks all the way back to Paris, and makes his way to England where he and his wife finally settle. Alberto lived for many more years, told his tale to his grandson, who told his granddaughter, the...