History

This revisionist, unauthorized biography of Winston Churchill, challenges the myth that has grown up around the war leader, much of it propagated by Churchill's own writings, and draws on recently-released...

Catherine de Medici was half French, half Italian. Orphaned in infancy, she was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at fourteen to the future Henri II...

Britain's most popular historian uncovers the truth about Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

This is the first biography of the fateful relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. It was the defining relationship of their lives, and marked the intersection of...

In this celebrated, landmark history of the Balkans, Misha Glenny investigates the roots of the bloodshed, invasions and nationalist fervour that have come to define our understanding of the south-eastern...

'Brisk and thoughtful, this book could hardly be more timely' Dominic Sandbrook, BBC History Magazine, Books of the YearFrom a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prize-winning author of...

This is a landmark intellectual history of Britain's working classes from the preindustrial era to the twentieth century. Drawing on workers' memoirs, social surveys, library registers, and more, Jonathan Rose...

Frederick Douglass (1818 1895) is best known for the telling of his own emancipation. But there is much more to Douglass s story than his time spent enslaved and his...

One of the most influential political texts ever written on America, and an indispensable authority on the nature of democracy In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and...

'Sicily is the key to everything' Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The author of the classic book on Venice turns his sights to Sicily in this beautiful book full of maps...

Peter Popham's major new biography of Aung San Suu Kyi draws upon previously untapped testimony and fresh revelations to tell the story of a woman whose bravery and determination have...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers, a remarkable, behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to run the world's most powerful intelligence agency, and how the CIA...

An entertaining and eye-opening look at the French Revolution, by Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French and A Year in the Merde. The French Revolution and...

Following the success of Rees' bestselling Auschwitz, this substantially revised and updated edition of The Nazis - A Warning from History tells the powerfully gripping story of the rise and...

This is a brutal story - but, from the safety of fifty years distance in time - it is an extremely compelling one. It is also an enduring lesson that...

This survey is a synthesis of the economic, social, cultural and political history of the Atlantic slave trade. It provides the general reader with a basic understanding of the current...

This book is an updated and revised edition of a classic introduction to one of the key periods in modern European history. Olwen Hufton not only illuminates the complex and...

River Gods, snake spirits, mountain and Immortals, Chinese mythology is alive with ancient passions. China's unique set of mythological tales are derived from its vast expanse, diverse culture and the...

India, one of the great, ancient civilizations spawned a fascinating canon of myths and legends. With multiple gods, and a riot of colour and character this fantastic new book, Indian...

Japan's mythology is alive with gods, spirits and monsters. It draws on Buddhist and Shinto traditions to explain the nature of the world of the island of Japan, and the...

Strange Days Indeed tells the story of how the paranoia exemplified by Nixon and Wilson became the defining characteristic of western politics and culture in the 1970s. Francis Wheen will...

Taking readers on a global journey through human history, Natasha Tidd examines how lies can change the world around us, from Julius Caesar's deceptive PR machine to the cover-ups that...

Taking readers on a global journey through human history, Natasha Tidd examines how lies can change the world around us, from Julius Caesar's deceptive PR machine to the cover-ups that...

An in-depth and revealing portrait of the most powerful woman in the world today On 26 January 2005 Condoleezza Rice became the 66th Secretary of State of the USA (only...

The violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August AD 79 was one of the greatest natural disasters of all time. Thousands of people were suddenly entombed in the town...

Despite the last days of Rome being around 1,500 years ago, the shadow of its empire - and what those who lived in it had to say - still looms...

'The pre-eminent historian of the secret world . . .' Mick Herron, author of Slow HorsesFrom the multi-million copy bestselling historian, the remarkable, unknown Cold War story of how one...

In his new book on Scotland 1815 - 1914, Michael Fry goes well beyond the conventional analyses of the economy and society to which previous histories have confined themselves. Here...

NOW THE TV SERIES 'THE SERPENT QUEEN', STARRING SAMANTHA MORTONThe bestselling revisionist biography of one of the great women of the 16th centuryOrphaned in infancy, Catherine de Medici was the...

'This is the history we so badly needed' ANTONY BEEVOR'Essential reading for understanding Asia's present' RICHARD OVERYA momentous new history of World War II in Asia. In the early twentieth...

'Stimulating and insightful' JONATHAN FREEDLAND'The perfect observer of a UK in crisis' JAMES HAWESWelcome to the Kingdom of Contradictions.Global yet insular, tolerant yet suspicious, proudly pragmatic yet profoundly sentimental. The...

The career of this erratic genius is an extraordinary story. The son of a Cornish mine captain, Trevithick single-handed totally changed the unwieldy steam engines of Newcomen and Watt to...

Entire neighbourhoods flattened. Human beings torn to pieces or buried under the rubble. People shot as they queue for a bag of flour.Words cannot begin to describe the suffering that...

With the world in turmoil there is is considerable global interest in the record of military commanders in various countries throughout the ages. But what made them successful? And why...

'Enthralling and profoundly relevant' Salman Rushdie'Joyful, illuminating and engaging ' Madeline Miller'A masterclass in translation' Blake Morrison, GuardianHow do we give old words new voices? What must a translator lose...

One late summer's day in 1642 two rival armies faced each other across the rolling Warwickshire countryside at Edgehill. There, Royalists faithful to King Charles I engaged in a battle...

In July 1789, 237 women convicts left England for Botany Bay in Australia on board a ship called The Lady Julian, destined to provide sexual services and a breeding bank...