History

On April 18, 1775, a riot over the price of flour broke out in the French city of Dijon. That night, across the Atlantic, Paul Revere mounted the fastest horse...

Claudia Roth Pierpont expertly mixes biography and criticism, history and reportage, to bring these portraits to life and to link them in surprising ways. It isn't far from Wharton's brave...

A stunning new book from one of Britain's most highly regarded military historians destined to be the Keegan of his generation One of the greatest military feats during the Second...

'When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake' Plato'Extraordinary how potent cheap music is' Noel CowardIn The People's Songs, Stuart Maconie argues that what we...

The Emperors of Rome charts the rise and fall of the Roman Empire through profiles of the greatest and most notorious of the emperors, from the autocratic Augustus to the...

Michael Fry here applies his uniquely wide-ranging procedures of Scottish historical analysis to the eighteenth century, which gave this small nation its one era of truly global significance. He adds:...

We have all heard about the great generals of military history, and those whose heroic deeds changed the course of war. This is not their book. Instead, this offbeat and...

The story of the Renaissance city and palace of Urbino, and the life of the extraordinary man who created it: Federico da Montefeltro. 'Painstakingly researched and yet unfailingly readable' Ross...

'IF YOU CAN TAKE IT, YOU CAN MAKE IT'Louis Zamperini lived one of the most amazing lives imaginable. As a young boy he was a troublemaker but his will to...

Social agitation is as essential a part of public life today as it has ever been. In Eric Hobsbawm's masterful study, Primitive Rebels, he shines a light on the origins...

'The cruelty and magnificence of Restoration London provides endless fascination . . . there's much to delight in this volume' The Times'Don Jordan's history captures the shifts [Charles II] engineered...

Paralysis. Stuttering. The 'shakes'. Inability to stand or walk. Temporary blindness or deafness.When strange symptoms like these began appearing in men at Casualty Clearing Stations in 1915, a debate began...

In this fascinating and enlightening collection of essays, one of the most important historians of our time reflects on the ways our understanding of Nazi Germany have been transformed in...

In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he...

A bullet misses its target in Sarajevo, a would-be Austrian painter gets into the Viennese academy, Lord Halifax becomes British prime minister in 1940: seemingly minor twists of fate on...

COROMANDEL. A name which has been long applied by Europeans to the Northern Tamil Country, or (more comprehensively) to the eastern coast of the Peninsula of India.This is the India...

This work should rank among the classics of war in our time, both as a historical document and as an eye-witness testament to human savagery. An epic study of the...

By now everyone knows the basic facts of China's rise to pre-eminence over the past three decades. But how did this erstwhile sleeping giant finally manage to arrive at its...

Born almost a hundred years ago in Vienna - the cultural heart of a bourgeois Mitteleurope - Eric Hobsbawm, who was to become one of the most brilliant and original...

The Battle of Culloden has gone down in history as the last major battle fought on British soil: a vicious confrontation between Scottish forces supporting the Stuart claim to the...

Shortly after completing The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi committed suicide. The manner of his death was sudden, violent and unpremeditated, and there are some who argue that he...

Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England explores the real England of Jane Austen's lifetime. It was a troubled period, with disturbing changes in industry and agriculture and a constant dread of...

When Charles I was executed, his son Charles II made it his role to search out retribution, producing the biggest manhunt Britain had ever seen, one that would span Europe...

London, 15 September 1940. The air battle over Britain on that day saw two of the most advanced fighter planes, the British Supermarine Spitfire and the German Messerschmitt Bf 109,...

The archetype of the stern, silent Englishman dedicated to his duty, the Duke of Wellington had all the subtlety and variety of genius. WELLINGTON uncovers the sensitive child of Irish...

The bloodbath at Waterloo ended a war that had engulfed the world for over twenty years. It also finished the career of the charismatic Napoleon Bonaparte. It ensured the final...

Sea Wolves is the story of the crews who bravely manned British submarines in the Second World War. This small band of highly trained and highly skilled individuals fought in...

When she disappeared in 1937 over a shark-infested sea, Amelia Earhart had lived up to her wish - internationally famous, a daring and pioneering aviator, and ambassador extraordinary for the...

The Royal Navy to which Admiral Lord Nelson sacrificed his life depended on thousands of sailors and marines to man the great wind-powered wooden warships. Drawn from all over Britain...

In 1789 the world stood at the threshold of the modern age. While the French Revolution and the election of George Washington seemed to herald a new global order, Britain...

This book investigates the major changes in world history and world economy during the past five hundred years and explains to what extent world forces have been responsible for shaping...

Of all the great movements of population to and from the United States, the least heralded is the migration, in the depths of the Depression of the nineteen-thirties, of thousands...

The SS was one of the most important institutions of Third Reich Germany, yet it is also among the least well understood. From the end of 1935, the SS had...

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865 and spent his early years there, before being sent, aged six, to England, a desperately unhappy experience. Charles Allen's great-grandfather brought the...

D-Day, 6th June 1944, was the climactic battle of the Second World War. Allied triumph was anything but inevitable - there was everything to play for and everything to lose....

1967 did not mark the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it was a year that changed the course of history. When Egypt's President Nasser closed the straits of Tiran...

E. H. Carr's classic work on international relations published in 1939 was immediately recognized by friend and foe alike as a defining work. The author was one of the most...

*A TABLET AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE YEAR*Shortlisted for the Wingate Literary Prize'A tremendous feat of storytelling, propelled by numerous twists and revelations, yet anchored by a deep...

'Majestic ... [an] excitable, illuminating and sure to be enduring work' Financial Times'Elegant, erudite and entertaining ... a superbly detailed picture of an architectural era' The Times'A magnificent monument in...

'Fascinating ... not only a history of graffiti, but also a history of the 18th century through lost voices of the people who lived through it.' The TimesWhat if walls...

Recommended on The Rest is Politics and Empire'A masterly engagement with the most delicate and important of subjects - filled with gentle empathy, learning and rare balance' Rory Stewart'Rogerson is...

'Strikingly original, utterly absorbing' Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the Third ReichA Financial Times 'Book to Read in 2023'1930s Europe - as the Roaring Twenties wind down and the...