History

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...

Looking at defining moments in Winston Churchill's life and revealing his key principles, philosophies and decisions, this book will teach you how to think just like Churchill.Remembered for his leadership...

Nelson Mandela was one of the few men in recent history who genuinely changed the world - how we think about our place in society among other ethnic, political and...

The British are well known for their unique sense of humour - for the ability to see the funny side even in the most dire situation - and it was...

Harry Lamin was born in Derbyshire in 1877 and left school at thirteen to work in the lace industry, but by December 1916 he had been conscripted into the 9th...

"Erika Fatland [is] shaping up to be one of the Nordics' most exciting new travel writers" National Geographic**SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORDS DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020**"A hauntingly lyrical...

'This riotous and engaging biography has it all'GUARDIAN'As much fun to read as a good political thriller'WALL STREET JOURNALThe book that inspired the major documentary Edward vs George: The Windsors...

'A thrilling biography, filled with the imperial ambitions and merciless intrigues' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORECleopatra: lover, seductress, and Egypt's greatest queen.A woman more myth than history, immortalized in poetry, drama, music,...

Every day, a powerful and sophisticated underground business delivers thousands of refugees along the Mediterranean coasts of Europe. A new breed of criminals, risen from the post-9/11 political chaos and...

The extraordinary story of the British women who made the perilous journey to Jamestown, Virginia, to become wives for tobacco planters in the New Colony.In 1621, fifty-six English women crossed...

India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, an Empire that needed a rail network to facilitate its exploitation and reflect its ambition. But, by building India's...

A monumental, wholly accessible work of scholarship that retells human history through the story of mankind's relationship with the sea.An accomplishment of both great sweep and illuminating detail, The Sea...

Posterity has not been kind to Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front for much of the First World War. Haig has frequently been...

The German campaign in France during the summer of 1940 was pivotal to Hitler's ambitions and fundamentally affected the course of the Second World War. Having squabbled about fighting methods...

A thrilling tale of incredible courage and resilience, a true wartime story of William Ash.The Cooler King is at once uplifting and inspirational, and stands as a testament to the...

In Masters of the Word, Bernstein chronicles the development of the technology of human communication, or media, starting with the birth of writing thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. In...