History

'A delightful storybook . . . a portrait of our whole world created from the contents of the ground' Literary Review'A real cabinet of curiosities' Sunday TimesFrom the hematite used...

Discover the latest frontiers in dinosaur research with Dr David Hone.Ever since we first started discovering dinosaurs in the early-1800s, our obsession for uncovering everything about these creatures has been...

*LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2019**SHORTISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2020*How do you pack for a one-way journey back to a country you left when you...

1 November 2006. Alexander Litvinenko is brazenly poisoned in central London. Twenty two days later he dies, killed from the inside. The poison? Polonium; a rare, lethal and highly radioactive...

A brilliantly researched and gripping history of the BBC, from its origins to the present day.'The book could scarcely be better or better timed. It is elegantly written, closely argued,...

The Ulster volunteers began by organizing against the British during the Home Rule Crisis and finished by fighting and dying as British soldiers at the Somme. Their tragic story has...

Since its original publication in 1983, Fateful Triangle has become a classic in the fields of political science and Middle East affairs. This new edition features new chapters and a...

A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or...

'A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world' YUVAL NOAH HARARI, author of SAPIENS*SELECTED AS A BOOK...

Between April 20th and June 22nd of 1945 the anonymous author of A Woman in Berlin wrote about life within the falling city as it was sacked by the Russian...

The shocking, untold story of how African independence was strangled at birth by America's systematic interference.Accra, 1958. Africa's liberation leaders have gathered for a conference, full of strength, purpose and...

The Macdonald sisters -- Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa -- started life among the ranks of the lower-middle classes, with little prospect of social advancement. But as wives and mothers...

Contrasting strong women and multiculturalism with portrayals of a heroic white male leading the nation into battle, The Prime-Time Presidency explores the NBC drama The West Wing, paying particular attention...

'Brilliantly written ... evokes the wonder of an entire civilisation.' Tom Holland, author of Pax and co-host of The Rest is History'Splendid - an intimate portrait of the Viking Age....

The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unparalleled ferocity far beyond its European epicentre, it broke the century of relative peace and prosperity which we associate...

'A Mumbai slum understood and imagined as never before in language of intense beauty' Salman Rushdie'If Bollywood ever decides to do its own version of The Wire, this would be...

The bombing campaign conducted against Germany and German-occupied Europe in the Second World War was, and remains, one of the most controversial operations of the entire war. Much of Bomber...

Tom Hicks' story begins when he joins the LMS straight from school and follows his early life on the railways in the 1930s, through enlistment, training as a paratrooper, wartime...

Young or old, everyone has heard of the Lancaster bomber. Such is the legacy handed down by this aviation icon that although it is not the most numerous aircraft ever...

From the bestselling author of Everything Bad is Good For You, Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map vividly recreates Victorian London to show how huge populations live together, how cities can...

In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British Empire to the...

Black Sea is at once a homage to an ocean and its shores and an amazingly readable meditation on Eurasian history from the earliest times to the present. It evokes...

The Lives of the Caesars include the biographies of Julius Caesar and the eleven subsequent emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitelius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian. Suetonius composed...

In the second half of the sixteenth century, most of the Christian states of Western Europe were on the defensive against a Muslim superpower - the Empire of the Ottoman...

'A sparkling tour through the stories of the symbols we know so well' - Tim MarshallStarting with flags that we know, this captivating history explains the origins and hidden meanings...

Democracy today is widely regarded as an ideal form of government. Yet in practice it sometimes seems a sham, a political puppet show in which hidden elites pull all the...

Capital punishment for murder was suspended in Great Britain in 1965, an Act finally made permanent in 1969, but remained as the punishment for treason until as recently as 1998,...

A fascinating account from award-winning author, Adam Nicolson, on the history of Nicolson's own national treasure, his family home: Sissinghurst. Sissinghurst is world famous as a place of calm and...

"Knighthood lies above eternity; it doesn't live off fame, but rather deeds."Knights were the ultimate warriors in European warfare for a period of almost 500 years. From the mid eleventh...

At its peak in January 1945, 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park, reading 4000 messages a day, decrypting German and Japanese communications and helping the Allies to victory. But while...

In this delightful and engagingly eccentric treasury of life lessons, redoubtable Victorian Elspeth Marr (1871-1947) reflects on the fundamental topics of life as well as the nuts and bolts of...

In the dying months of World War I, Spanish flu suddenly overwhelmed the world, killing between 50 and 100 million people.German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers called it Flanders...

From vanished villages and bygone businesses to abandoned architecture, forgotten pastimes and projects put on hold, Lost Britain tells the intriguing story of Britain's buildings, counties, transport, languages, roads and...

The full story of a remarkable woman who has become legendary in the history of the French Resistance.In May 1943, a young Frenchwoman called Lucie Aubrac engineered the escape of...

Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same.These were the words uttered by the seventeen-year-old Lady Jane Grey as she...

A charming guide to the story of the English village, celebrating this beloved heart of the countryside.The village remains a quintessential and much-loved treasure that is often representative of England....

We've always measured the world around us, from how big things are, to how fast they go, how much they're worth and practically everything in between. But who decided how...

The true story of Edward Windsor and Wallis Simpson's involvement with the Nazi regime, and the post-war cover-up.The story of the love affair between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII,...

The true story of Edward Windsor and Wallis Simpson's involvement with the Nazi regime, and the post-war cover-up.The story of the love affair between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII,...

An alternative journey around England, visiting the sights that are definitely not on the average tourist trail.In this charming book, David Long introduces the reader to some of the oddest...