History

The author, Roger Annett, experienced first-hand the events detailed here. Flying with 215 Squadron, and co-piloting Argosy transport aircraft deep over Malayan jungle terrain from 1963 to 65, he is...

Through this magnificent collection of historical maps, travel writer Francisca Matteoli takes us on a geographical adventure, telling the stories of twenty-three places and voyages that inspired her, as they...

Over 20,000 deserters and war resisters paid the ultimate price at the hands of Hitler's brutal war judges and bloody executioners. Thousands of others died in prison camps and penal...

'Well written and persuasive ...objective and well-rounded...this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography' **** Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday 'A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero...

During the dark days of 1940, when Britain faced the might of Hitler's armed forces alone, the RAF played an integral role in winning the Battle of Britain against the...

Imagine sitting behind a desk, in a classroom, miles from anywhere in the English countryside, alongside dozens of fellow students, dreaming of being parachuted into Occupied France to undertake daring...

At eleven o'clock on the morning of the 11th November 1919 the entire British Empire came to a halt to remember the dead of the Great War. During that first...

'A typical day on the 4 to 12 shift, as I am at present, so that the sheer agony of it may be placed on record for me to look...

From the acclaimed author of Britain's Lost Cricket Grounds and Britain's Lost Breweries, comes a journey underground to the mines that built the nation and defined a century. Twenty minutes...

'The First World War from a refreshingly unfamiliar angle . . . masterly' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'Compelling . . . The Eastern Front is essential reading' Margaret Macmillan, Financial...

** Longlisted for the 2024 Cundill History Prize**'A dozen pages in I realized that I had been waiting for much of my life to read this extraordinary book' Annie ProulxA...

'History is made up of myths,' writes the renowned Russian dissident journalist Mikhail Zygar. 'Alas, our myths led us to the fascism of 2022. It is time to expose them.'...

All serious politicians are supposed to possess a hinterland, but not all do. Chris Mullin was one who did. By the time he entered parliament he had reported from the...

WINNER OF THE 2024 SOMERSET MAUGHAM AWARDIts name means 'centre of the world', and since the dawn of history the Mediterranean Sea has formed the shared horizon of innumerable cultures....

'Beautiful, moving, profoundly imaginative in itself - this book is as entertaining as it is relevant and practical' ALAIN DE BOTTON'Anyone who has an imagination - that is, everyone -...

'Deeply researched and written with verve... thoughtful as well as action packed' The Times'Gripping, moving and important' Simon Sebag Montefiore'Agent Zo is a triumph. Absolutely essential reading' Hallie RubenholdThis is...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'A great, thrusting codpiece of a book. It is big, bombastic and richly brocaded... A jewel in its own right' The Times'Evokes the...

A gripping account of the little-known plot that could have put end end to JFK's historic presidency - before it even began.From the New York Times bestselling authors of The...

'An acerbic, compelling and always accessible account of how opium corrupted the world' TLS'The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb' Sunday TelegraphWhen Amitav Ghosh began...

What difference do individuals make to history? Are we all swept up in the great forces like industrialisation or globalisation that change the world? Clearly not: real people-leaders in particular-and...

Shortlisted for the Military History Monthly Book of the Year AwardBy August 1918, the outcome of the Great War was not in doubt: the Allies would win. But what was...

Every man who served in the Great War is now deceased, but they have left behind them an enormous collection of oral history, which captures the authentic voices of the...

Every man who served in the Great War is now deceased, but they have left behind them an enormous collection of oral history, which captures the authentic voices of the...

At last the Roman self-help book the world has been waiting for. Marcus Sidonius Falx sets out the characteristics that have made the Romans the most successful people in history...

Ideas in Profile: Small Introductions to Big TopicsThis introduction to the ancient world, part of the Ideas in Profile series, covers all its different cultures, from the million people crammed...

Berlin 1941. Marie Jalowicz Simon, a nineteen-year-old Jewish woman, makes an extraordinary decision. All around her, Jews are being rounded up for deportation, forced labour and extermination. Marie takes off...

China's War of Resistance against Japan, as WWII is known in China, was never about the defeat of Japan alone. China was also at war with itself. Between 1937 and...

It is often the smallest details of daily life that tell us the most. And so it is under occupation in Palestine. What most of us take for granted has...

Senan Molony caused a worldwide media flurry in 2017 by revealing publicly there was an uncontrolled coal bunker fire aboard Titanic. Experts held the fire would have significantly weakened a...

Salamis tells the story of possibly the greatest naval battle of the ancient world. Involving hundreds of thousands of combatants and well over a thousand triremes - the ranking naval...

Sir Joseph Banks, botanist, explorer, President of the Royal Society and one of Australia's founding fathers, was among the most influential figures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As a...

"Victory in Europe" is a graphic account of the storming and taking of Hitler's "Fortress Europe" by the Allies during the final eleven months of the Second World War. From...

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese offensive in the Far East seemed unstoppable. Allied forces engaged in a futile attempt to halt their rapid advance, culminating in the...

Africa is forever on our TV screens, but the bad-news stories (famine, genocide, corruption) massively outweigh the good (South Africa). Ever since the process of decolonialisation began in the mid-1950s,...

What was the life of an eighteenth-century British genteel woman like? In this lively and controversial book, Amanda Vickery invokes women's own accounts of their intimate and their public lives...

'I hope my passion for Rome's past has not impaired my judgement; for I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer...

Napoleon's 1807 campaign against the Russians came close to being his first defeat. At Eylau the Emperor was outnumbered by the army of the Russian commander Bennigsen, yet he accepted...

'A historically insightful read' Financial Times 'A wry, rollicking, and provocative history' Michael Taylor, author of The Interest 'A thought-provoking analysis of Africa's relationship with economic imperialism' Astrid Madimba and...

A bestseller in 2008, Remember Remember has continued to enlighten and entertain readers wanting to brush up on their history. Lively, exciting, full of great stories and humorous asides, this...

**WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING****WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY***Book of the year: The Times, Sunday Times, New Statesman, Spectator, Evening Standard*'Outstanding . ....

A BBC History magazine Book of the Year and an amazon.com Best Book of the MonthAs religion divided sixteenth-century Europe, an extraordinary group of women rose to power. They governed...

A Guardian best history book of 2016Eccentric, shy aristocrat ... or mad, bad and dangerous to know?Neighbour Jane Austen found the 3rd earl of Portsmouth a model gentleman and Lord...

Joseph Stalin began life as a frail child, with an abusive father and an inferiority complex. This triggered an early desire for greatness and respect that would eventually turn the...

Moura Budberg: spy, adventurer, charismatic seductress and mistress of two of the century's greatest writers, the Russian aristocrat Baroness Moura Budberg was born in 1892 to indulgence, pleasure and selfishness....