History

An examination of the Royalist armies and their role in the English Civil War. It describes and analyses the organization, recruitment, training, arms, equipment, tactics and performance of the Royalist...

A portrait of Stephanie von Hohenlohe (1891-1972), notorious as a secret go-between and even a professional blackmailer. Despite her Jewish roots, Stephanie always claimed to be of pure Aryan descent....

The history of Shakespeare's England

Eddie Chapman was a womaniser, blackmailer and safecracker. He was also a great hero - the most remarkable double agent of the Second World War. Chapman became the only British...

In May 2005 Penguin will publish 70 unique titles to celebrate the company's 70th birthday. The titles in the Pocket Penguins series are emblematic of the renowned breadth of quality...

At the heart of the English Civil War stands the wife of Charles I, Henrietta Maria. She came to England in 1625 at the age of fifteen, undermined by her...

Once again, Nigel Cawthorne takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the strange, hidden sexual history of England. The history of sex in Britain has been largely glossed over...

Our understanding of the twentieth century and beyond hinges upon the First World War. In this new and comprehensive book, the fascinating facts are presented in an accessible way, allowing...

Rome was first ruled by kings, then became a republic. But in the end, after conquering the world, the Republic collapsed. Rome was drowned in blood. So terrible were the...

A history of the great Mughal rulers of India, one of the world's greatest empires.In December 1525 Babur, the great grandson of the Mongol conqueror Tamberlaine, crossed the Indus river...

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 de-colonialisation began in the mid-1950s,...

'This book is brilliant. Utterly, utterly brilliant' Jeremy Clarkson'F*cking brilliant' Sarah KnightAN EXHILARATING JOURNEY THROUGH THE MOST CREATIVE AND CATASTROPHIC F*CK-UPS OF HUMAN HISTORYIn the seventy thousand years that modern...

The English Revival of the eighteenth century was an exciting time. What caused the Revival? Why did it spread? Did it prevent a revolution in the UK, similar to that...

Mainstream nationalist narratives and political movements have dominated the Israeli-Palestinian situation for too long. In this much-needed book, Ran Greenstein challenges this hegemony by focusing on four different, but at...

This is the history of the world, from the origins of the Cosmos to the present day, seen through three major narratives: work, sex and power - the forces that...

What causes genocide? Through an examination of four modern genocides - the Native Americans, the Armenians, the Jews and the Rwandan Tutsis - Sabby Sagal formulates a theoretical framework for...

Sir Francis Drake: pirate, explorer and Protestant zealot, a man princely in his bearing, heroic if sometimes foolhardy in his enterprise, a genius at once awe-inspiring and riddled with faults....

This sequel to D-DAY opens at 00:01 hours, June 7, 1944 on the Normandy Beaches and ends at 02:45 hours, May 7, 1945. In between comes the battles in the...

One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after...

When the German High Command encircled Leningrad it was a deliberate policy to eradicate the city's civilian population by starving them to death. As winter set in and food supplies...

We live in a world polarized by the ongoing conflict between Muslims, Christians and Jews, but - in an extraordinary narrative spanning fourteen centuries - Zachary Karabell argues that the...

Alfred is the only English king ever to be called 'Great'. It was not a title given by political supporters, not the sycophantic gift of an official biographer, nor a...

After a three-day romance Brooklyn-born Jennie Jerome married into the British aristocracy, becoming Lady Randolph Churchill. At a time when women were afforded few freedoms, she was a behind-the-scenes political...

The book is structured around a collection of letters written by a nineteen year old Irish officer in the 6th Royal Irish Regiment, 2nd Lieutenant Michael Wall from Carrick Hill,...

The arms race, on the run up to the Second World War, followed the faultless logic of paranoia. Before the First World War, the Great Powers measured the strength of...

The arms race, on the run up to the Second World War, followed the faultless logic of paranoia. Before the First World War, the Great Powers measured the strength of...

For over 800 years Newgate was the grimy axle around which British society slowly twisted. This is where such legendary outlaws as Robin Hood and Captain Kidd met their fates,...

The Spitfire and the Lancaster were the two RAF weapons of victory in the Second World War, but the glamour of the fighter has tended to overshadow the performance of...

A biography of a daring and an unprecedented decade: the 1650sEvents moved fast in the 1650s. Something cataclysmic happened every year, something that would thrust the newly formed republic, its...

While the most conspicuous components of the US Army Air Forces in World War II were the air units, there were also hundreds of ground units and organisations. Besides assigned...

In June 1941 the US Army's air organisations were consolidated under a single command, the Army Air Forces or AAF. Its expansion was rapid and massive, and its contribution to...

After a chance conversation in Egypt in 2008, bestselling historian Gavin Menzies launched himself on a quest that would reveal the truth behind the mystery of Atlantis and her destruction....

In this enthralling historical detective story, the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail trace the flight after 1309 of the Knights Templar from Europe to Scotland, where...

The Russian Connection is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry. After US-Russia relations soured, as...

John Pocock's edition of Burke's Reflections is two classics in one: Burke's Reflections and Pocock's reflections on Burke and the eighteenth century.

Winner of the Jerry Bentley Prize in World History (American Historical Association).Award-winning historian Priya Satia presents a new history of the Industrial Revolution that positions war and the gun trade...

In the long run, we're all dead. But for some of the most influential figures in history, death marked the start of a new adventure. The famous deceased have been...

'A shocking tale of heroes and villains.' Sir Ian McKellenIn 1918, the Imperialist newspaper made a startling claim. The German Secret Service had the names of 47,000 members of the...

The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) remains one of the most catastrophic and complicated political movements of the twentieth century. Almost no visual documentation of the period exists and that which...

A fascinating recreation of the world of one of England's most charismatic monarchs, from award-winning author and historian Richard BarberThe destruction of the French army at Crecy in 1346 and...

In a move that would forever alter the map of the Middle East, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula in 1967's brief but pivotal...

The history of the Second World War, with its horrible twists and turns, is so well known that the major events and their outcomes have taken on a sort of...