History

A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023This is a neglected history. Not a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular. A journey, picked out...

Augustus was the founder of the Roman Empire, adopted son of Julius Caesar, friend and later foe of Mark Antony, patron of Horace and Virgil. Frank and forceful, this putative...

Elizabeth of York would have ruled England, but for the fact that she was a woman. The eldest daughter of Edward IV, at seventeen she was relegated from pampered princess...

'Fighting was raging on the other side of the Channel, but in London, in the warmth of a drowsy late-September afternoon, the war seemed a long way away. The roads...

An essential collection of articles, tables and notes, to define and explain the modern uses and relationships - as well as the global origins, evolution and culture - of the...

Thoroughly updated and with a new foreword'The Viking Age is shot through with the spirit of adventure. For 300 years, from just before AD800 until well into the eleventh century,...

Now a major TV series, Mary & George, starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine.The King's Assassin is the scandalous story of George Villiers, lover - and murderer - of King...

Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin, brilliantly conveying the reality...

*THE INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**THE BOOK EVERYBODY IS TALKING ABOUT*'I can say without fear of contradiction that Lue has played a central and indispensable role in forever changing the...

The fascinating tale of one of the most remarkable inventions in human history and its effects on science, myth, religion, manners, and the arts. Of all human inventions, the mirror...

This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore...

Ian Kershaw's HITLER allows us to come closer than ever before to a serious understanding of the man and of the catastrophic sequence of events which allowed a bizarre misfit...

Everyone is familiar with the story of D-Day and the triumphal liberation of France by the Allies: a barbaric enemy was defeated by Allied ingenuity, courage and overwhelming military force,...

In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing complete annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic journey,...

Hitler's Irish Slaves tells the shocking story of 32 merchant seamen from Ireland who were held in conditions of great hardship in an SS slave labour camp from 1943 to...

An account of one journalist's experience from 1992-93 of the conflict in Bosnia, this work is an attempt to come to terms with the overwhelming questions that are provoked by...

Every map tells a story and this book tells the incredible history of our world through maps. From Babylonian tablets to digital mapping, the world has evolved rapidly, along with...

A landmark history of the U-Boat war told through the experiences and recollections of the U-Boat crews themselves. Winston Churchill famously remarked that the threat of the German U-Boats was...

Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country's roiling disaffection produced sixteen of the...

The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in...

THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLER A Times Best History Book of the Year; A Waterstones Best Book of the Year 'Reads like a thriller... I couldn't put Max Hastings's new...

Shock horror! A little book of the art of Britain's favourite pastime, grumbling, and its expression of the English language and complaining culture. Authors of these letters were surprised, niggled,...

Born into the famous, sometimes scandalous, theatrical clan of Colley Cibber, Charlotte was an actress destined for greatness. But she rebelled, and started dressing as a man. When her father...

Two boys travel three continents to follow one monk's dream, in this untold story from Australia's colonial history. In 1848, the Spanish missionary Rosendo Salvado, founder of New Norcia Monastery...