History

There was life before the fall.1989 was a year of astonishing and rapid change: the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and an...

Democracy is Britain's gift to the world. Most of the ideas and ideals that have shaped the world's democracies can be traced back to arguments and reforms that first erupted...

When The Great Terror was first published in 1968, it was universally acclaimed as one of the most important books ever written about the Soviet Union. Such was the wealth...

Sister Mary Cooper died in a Japanese prison camp on 26 June 1943, from the combined effects of starvation, brutality and tropical diseases. Timothy Kenneally and Patrick Fitzgerald tried to...

From General Yamashita's blistering capture of Singapore in early 1942 to the final decisive victory by General Slim at Rangoon four years later, this scintillating account of war in Asia...

From April 1942 to March 1944, Helene Berr, a recent graduate of the Sorbonne, kept a journal that is both an intensely moving, intimate, harrowing, appalling document and a text...

Almost from the moment the Cunard liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine in May 1915, controversy has surrounded her. Why did she sink so quickly? Had the liner...

The unrestricted U-Boat war threatened the very survival of Britain, whose reliance on imported food and war materials was her Achilles' Heel. A significant element of the German submarine fleet...

The invasion was launched to round off Hitler's Balkan Campaign against Crete in May 1941. The Island was important to Britain's control of the Eastern Mediterranean and Churchill was determined...

In Spring 1945 the outcome of the war was ritually certain but the mighty River Rhine still stood in the way of the Allies. Eisenhower's strategy was to guarantee a...

Many of the 617 Squadron crews who took part in the famous attacks on the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe Dams and also the raids on the Dortmund-Ems Canal did not...

Napoleon's attack on Egypt in 1798 was the first on a Middle Eastern country by a Western power in modern times. With 335 ships and 40,000 men, it was the...

On 5 September 1886, America rejoiced as the news flashed from the Southwest that the Apache war leader Geronimo had surrendered to Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles. With Geronimo, at...

Attila the Hun - godless barbarian and near-mythical warrior king - has become a byword for mindless ferocity. His brutal attacks smashed through the frontiers of the Roman empire in...

Beautifully illustrated narrative history of the English country church In his engaging account, Sir Roy Strong celebrates the life of the English parish churchFrom the arrival of the missionaries from...

Authoritative and immediate, this is a brilliant account of the most powerful of the American Indian tribes. T. R. Fehrenbach traces the Comanches' rise to power, from their prehistoric origins...

This is a devastating book. It is matter-of-fact, makes no attempt to score political points, does not attempt to solicit sympathy for its protagonist and yet is among the most...

Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for...

The Ukraine is one of the most neglected countries in the world. It has a population of 52 million - larger than Britain's - and a land mass the size...

The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was an aircraft that had near mythical performance qualities in terms of speed, range, climb and manoeuverability, and its performance made it an infamous weapon in...

In 1991, almost overnight, an ethnically diverse region that had enjoyed decades of peaceful coexistence descended into bitter hatred and chaos. Communities fractured along lines of ethnic and religious affiliation...

The Vietnam War was arguably the most important event, or series of events, of the "American century". America entered the brutal conflict certain of its moral mission to save the...

Tacitus was the greatest historian of the Roman empire. Born in about AD 55, he served as administrator and leading senator. This career gave him an intimate view of the...

Tom Holland's 'stirring new translation' (Telegraph) of Herodotus' Histories, one of the great books in Western history - now in paperbackThe Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of...

'The first example of non-fiction, the text that underlies the entire discipline of history ... it is above all a treasure trove' Tom HollandOne of the masterpieces of classical literature,...

In The Persian Expedition, Xenophon, a young Athenian noble who sought his destiny abroad, provides an enthralling eyewitness account of the attempt by a Greek mercenary army - the Ten...

Josephus' account of a war marked by treachery and atrocity is a superbly detailed and evocative record of the Jewish rebellion against Rome between AD 66 and 70. Originally a...

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who led the Macedonian army to victory in Egypt, Syria, Persia and India, was perhaps the most successful conqueror the world has ever seen. Yet...

His last work, regarded by many as the greatest work of contemporary scholarship, Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome recount with depth and insight the history of the Roman Empire...

'The Penguin History of Europe series ... is one of contemporary publishing's great projects' New StatesmanThe world known as the 'Dark Ages', often seen as a time of barbarism, was...

This second volume of Niall Ferguson's acclaimed, landmark history of the legendary Rothschild banking dynasty concludes his myth-breaking portrait of one of the most powerful and fascinating families of modern...

'A masterpiece ... In its field it is the best book ever' GuardianWinner of the Wolfson Prize for history, Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700 charts a seismic shift in European...

The Pity of It All is a passionate and poignant history of German Jews, tracing the journey of a people and their culture from the mid eighteenth century to the...

This landmark book uncovers for the first time in detail one of the greatest horrors of the twentieth century: the vast system of Soviet camps that were responsible for the...

'The Penguin History of Europe series ... is one of contemporary publishing's great projects' New StatesmanTo an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world....

Winner of the Wolfson Prize for History, Ian Kershaw's Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis is the concluding second volume of one of the greatest biographies of modern times. No figure in twentieth...

The story of how a group of warriors, driven by faith, greed and wanderlust, carved out new Christian-ruled states in the Middle East is one of the most extraordinary of...

In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals...

Elie Wiesel's harrowing first-hand account of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, Night is translated by Marion Wiesel with a preface by Elie Wiesel in Penguin Modern Classics.Born into a...

The central volume in the definitive biography of America's most important First Lady. "Engrossing" (Boston Globe).The captivating second volume of this Eleanor Roosevelt biography covers tumultuous era of the Great...

At its height Renaissance Florence was a centre of enormous wealth, power and influence. A republican city-state funded by trade and banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by...

The first volume in the life of America's greatest First Lady, "a woman who changed the lives of millions" (Washington Post).Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. Three: 1938-1962, will be published in November...

'Every Scot should read it. Scotland now has the lively, provocative and positive history it deserves.' Irvine Welsh, Guardian A dramatic and intriguing history of how Scotland produced the institutions,...

With an Introduction and Notes by Bernard Waites, The Open University.In 1795 Mungo Park, a twenty-four year old Scottish surgeon, set out from the Gambia to trace the course of...

Boris Pahor spent the last fourteen months of World War II as a prisoner and medic in the Nazi camps at Bergen-Belsen, Harzungen, Dachau and Natzweiler-Struthof. Twenty years later, as...

Mongolia remains a beautiful barren land of spectacularly clothed horse-riders, nomadic romance and windswept landscape. But modern Mongolia is now caught between two giants: China and Russia; and known to...

Based on unprecedented access to Kurdish-governed areas of Syria, including exclusive interviews with administration officials and civilian surveys, this book sheds light on the socio-political landscape of this minority group...