History

'Page-turning . . . a sizzling high-stakes tale' JAMES HOLLAND'This book might read like the screenplay of a gripping movie, yet every word is accurate and verified' ANDREW ROBERTS 'Giles...

The publication of Wild Swans in 1991 was a worldwide phenomenon. Not only did it become the best-selling non fiction book in British publishing history, with sales of well over...

The civil war that tore Spain apart between 1936 and 1939 and attracted liberals and socialists from across the world to support the cause against Franco was one of the...

Moederland is a courageous and modern appraisal of what it means to be descended from the people who created the ultraracist apartheid system in South Africa. Illuminating its turbulent history...

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS 2024**An instant Sunday Times bestseller, Radio 4 Book of the Week and Guardian Best Summer Read* Selected as a book to look out for...

'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...

Humanity has always used symbols-material objects used to denote difficult, abstract concepts-to describe thoughts and feelings, or to protect secret truths from common knowledge. This concise A-Z guide is a...

Pharaoh.Icon.Enigma.Lost for three thousand years, misunderstood for a century.A hundred years ago, a team of archaeologists in the Valley of the Kings made a remarkable discovery: a near-complete royal burial,...

In a narrative beginning almost 1.5 million years ago with the emergence of Homo erectus, Frank Welsh takes the reader from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, from the Industrial...

*A BBC RADIO 4 Book of the Week*'A fantastic achievement' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads'Bright, expansive, and iconoclastic, this deliciously witty book has the potential to upset the...

Discover the world's most significant events through a detailed, dynamic, book-long timeline of over 7 million years.When did Hannibal cross the Alps? What caused the War of Jenkins' Ear? Who...

Burke's seminal work was written during the early months of the French Revolution, and it predicted with uncanny accuracy many of its worst excesses, including the Reign of Terror. A...

By the time Stephen Matthews was six years old, he had been bombarded by the Luftwaffe and deported from Nazi-occupied Guernsey, along with his family, to a prison camp in...

This book is firstly a testament to those of many nationalities who found themselves imprisoned at Stalag Luft VII, Bankau (Luft 7 for short) in Upper Silesia, the Luftwaffe's last...

As the bombs began to fall in September 1940, as homes were flattened and people emerged from cramped shelters and sleepless nights into barely recognisable streets, something very British happened...

In the early modern world three dominant cultures of war were shaped by a synergy of their internal and external interactions. One was Latin Christian western Europe. Another was Ottoman...

Wounded traces the journey made by a casualty from the battlefield to a hospital in Britain. It is a story told through the testimony of those who cared for him...

During the First World War and its immediate aftermath, hundreds of women wrote thousands of poems on multiple themes and for many different purposes. Women's poetry was published, sold (sometimes...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2014WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE 2015One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, seal hunter and abolitionist Captain...

Praise for Small's earlier work on Nightingale: 'Hugh Small, in a masterly piece of historical detective work, convincingly demonstrates what all previous historians and biographers have missed . . ....

Established in June 1940, the Long Range Desert Group was the inspiration of scientist and soldier Major Ralph Bagnold, a contemporary of T.E Lawrence who, in the inter-war years, explored...

'A travelogue and memoir to rank alongside anything by Chatwin or Thubron' Jim Crace'A most absorbing and rewarding book' Michael PalinA moving portrait, part history, part memoir, of Sudan -...

After rewriting history with their discovery of a Nazi U-boat off the coast of New Jersey, legendary divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler decided to investigate the great enduring mystery...

Bess of Hardwick was one of the most remarkable women of the Tudor era. Gently-born in reduced circumstances, she was married at 15, wedded at 16 and still a virgin....

THE AGE OF EXTREMES is eminent historian Eric Hobsbawm's personal vision of the twentieth century. Remarkable in its scope, and breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, this immensely rewarding book...

Amsterdam is not just any city. Despite its relative size it has stood alongside its larger cousins - Paris, London, Berlin - and has influenced the modern world to a...

CLOSING THE RING covers the decisive 12 months between June 1943 and June 1944. Command of the seas had returned to Allied hands, the U-boats were mastered and the Luftwaffe...

SOLDIER, ESCAPER, SPYMASTER, POLITICIAN - Airey Neave was assassinated in the House of Commons car park in 1979. Forty years after his death, Patrick Bishop's lively, action-packed biography examines the...

How did the most wanted man in the country outwit the greatest manhunt in British history? In January 1649, King Charles I was beheaded in London outside his palace of...

Spies, bed-hopping, treachery and executions - this story of espionage in wartime Bordeaux is told for the first time. Game of Spies uncovers a lethal spy triangle at work during...

The epic true-life story of one of the most notorious maritime disasters of the nineteenth century - and inspiration for `Moby-Dick' - reissued to accompany a major motion picture due...

From the bestselling author of 'Fighter Boys', the true story of two ruthless adversaries and a wartime killing that shook the modern world. On a cold, bright morning in February...

Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But...

Fresh, exciting and vividly readable, this is popular history at its very best.Our understanding of world history is changing, as new discoveries are made on all the continents and old...

An extraordinary French Resistance wartime memoir, combining the best kind of adventure story with a coming of age testimony of unforgettable resonance and poignancy.September 2011, Halkidiki, Northern Greece. A solitary...

'Masterly' Observer'Brilliant' Independent on Sunday'Sparks of life' Daily MailThomas More is one of the great figures in English history. Pre-eminent as a courtier and as a humanist, a friend to...

Does America's pro-Israel lobby wield inappropriate control over US foreign policy? This book has created a storm of controversy by bringing out into the open America's relationship with the Israel...

'If you love Indiana Jones, this is the real thing' DAN SNOW'Fascinating' GREG JENNER'A thrilling investigation' SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB'An essential read for anyone with even a fleeting interest in exploring the...

8th April 2009 was just an ordinary day for 53 -year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the United States-registered cargo vessel, the Maersk Alabama, as it headed towards the port of...