History

100 Speeches that Roused the World tells the stories behind the most inspiring, rousing and memorable speeches, from ancient Greece to the present day. A concise introduction and analysis of...

A spectacular, large-format collection of Adam Dant's fine art maps giving a unique view of our history and life today.Artist and cartographer Adam Dant surveys London's past, present and future...

An ancient Chinese proverb suggests, "They are wise parents who give their children roots and wings - and a map."Maps That Changed the World features some of the world's most...

To mark the centenary of the start of World War I, the Antiques Roadshow team filmed a series of specials at the Somme, where the public brought in their family's...

Aviation security expert Philip Baum delves into the archives to reveal the stories behind the most astonishing and shocking crimes in aviation history, calling on real-life testimonies from hijackers, crew...

The image of the Roman legionary is as familiar today as it was to the citizens - and enemies - of the vast Roman Empire two thousand years ago. This...

Pompey, or Pompey the Great, was one of the best military leaders of the late Roman Republic. His campaigns against the Marians, his battles in Hispania and his defeat of...

'Iceland's 1100 Years' recounts the history of a society on the margin of Europe as well as on the margin of reaching the size and wealth of a proper state....

At the summit of his power, John Law was the most famous man in Europe. Born in Scotland in 1671, he was convicted of murder in London and, after his...

'Vividly imagined and prodigiously researched' Helen Davies, The Times, Books of the Year 'A rewarding read' John Preston, Daily Mail, Books of the YearMaxwell Knight was a paradox. A jazz...

Wryly humorous and quintessentially British, Three Men and a Bradshaw collects the previously unpublished holiday journals of John Freeman, who travelled Britain with his brothers during the 1870s. Each year...

For two hundred years, the abolition of slavery in Britain has been a cause for self-congratulation - but no longer. In 1807, Parliament outlawed the slave trade in the British...

Europe - and the question of whether to stay in or leave - has dominated British politics for the last three years. Yet how much do you really know about...

*** WINNER OF THE 2019 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019SHORTLISTED FOR THE NAYEF AL-RODHAN PRIZE FOR GLOBAL UNDERSTANDINGSHORTLISTED FOR DEUTSCHER PRIZE***'Revelatory and instructive... [a]...

Shortly before 8 a.m. on 16 March 1968, C-Company, First Battalion, Twentieth Infantry, Eleventh Brigade, American Division, on a search-and-destroy mission in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam, entered the small...

After finally achieving what eluded even his grandfather Ghengis Khan - the conquest of China - and inheriting the world's largest navy, Khubilai Khan turned his sights to Japan, which...

Joseph Goebbels was one of Adolf Hitler's most loyal acolytes. But how did this club-footed son of a factory worker rise from obscurity to become Hitler's malevolent minister of propaganda,...

For better, for worse, the great public speakers have always had the power to change the world. Brian MacArthur's anthology includes the most famous and notorious speeches delivered in English...

D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history, took place on 6 June 1944. The subsequent battle of Normandy involved over a million men, and helped seal the fate of The...

The book is based on twenty years research and, crucially, the author has been helped to understand what is encoded in key texts by a high level initiate of more...

This gripping audio pack provides genuine historical recordings of 20 of the most significant speeches of the 20th century and is accompanied by a deluxe illustrated book containing the transcripts...

This book commemorates the enduring legacy of the world's most famous ship - TITANIC.Her story is one of all those bound together on that fateful voyage. On board were: writers,...

'In the last couple of years I realised that, as one of the last witnesses, I must speak out.'Tomi Reichental, who lost 35 members of his family in the Holocaust,...

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two Germanies reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. In Stasiland, winner of the 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize, Anna Funder tells...

Map of a Nation tells the story of the creation of the Ordnance Survey map - the first complete, accurate, affordable map of the British Isles. The Ordnance Survey is...

Over twenty years ago, Sven Lindqvist, one of the great pioneers of a new kind of experiential history writing, set out across Central Africa. Obsessed with a single line from...

WINNER OF THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2010A spectacularly revealing and harrowing portrait of ordinary lives in the world's least ordinary country, North KoreaNorth Korea is Orwell's 1984...

The Spanish Civil War captured the imaginations of writers and readers around the world. !No Pasaran! collects thirty-eight of the most vivid, poignant stories to come out of the conflict,...

The fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 has become the commemorative symbol of the French Revolution. But this violent and random act was unrepresentative of the real work...

In the late Iron Age, Rome was a small collection of huts arranged over a few hills. By the third century BC, it had become a large and powerful city,...

Imperial Triumph presents the history of Rome at the height of its imperial power. Beginning with the reign of Hadrian in Rome and ending with the death of Julian the...

In 264 BC, a Roman army was poised to cross from southern Italy into Sicily. They couldn't know that this crossing would be Rome's first step on its journey from...

The ancient world that Alexander the Great transformed in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death. The imperial dynasties of his successors incorporated and reorganized the fallen Persian...

WINNER of the International Affairs Book of the Year at the Political Book Awards 2014Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2013The First World War followed a period of sustained peace...

The First Emperor gave us the name by which China is known in the West and, by his unification or elimination of six states, created imperial China. He stressed the...

Every time you try to say 'Africa is...' the words crumble and break. From every generalisation you must exclude at least five countries. And just as you think you've nailed...

In 1889, the first Official Secrets Act was passed, creating offences of 'disclosure of information' and 'breach of official trust'. It limited and monitored what the public could, and should,...

WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2020A SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, THE TIMES AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEARFor most of human history, the seas and oceans have...

'A vivid, absorbing read' Sunday Times'Magisterial' Literary ReviewThe magnificent new biography of Gandhi by India's leading historianA New York Times Notable Book of 2018Gandhi lived one of the great 20th-century...

Alistair Cooke was the greatest of all twentieth century reporters of life in America to the rest of the world. Published to celebrate the centenary of his birth, this book...

From the celebrated author of Never Again and Having It So Good, a wonderfully vivid new history of Britain in the early 1960sHarold Macmillan famously said in 1960 that the...

There was life before the fall.1989 was a year of astonishing and rapid change: the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and an...

THE AWARDWINNING, INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'The Choice is a gift to humanity. One of those rare and eternal stories that you don't want to end and that leave you forever changed'...

Democracy is Britain's gift to the world. Most of the ideas and ideals that have shaped the world's democracies can be traced back to arguments and reforms that first erupted...

When The Great Terror was first published in 1968, it was universally acclaimed as one of the most important books ever written about the Soviet Union. Such was the wealth...

Sister Mary Cooper died in a Japanese prison camp on 26 June 1943, from the combined effects of starvation, brutality and tropical diseases. Timothy Kenneally and Patrick Fitzgerald tried to...

From General Yamashita's blistering capture of Singapore in early 1942 to the final decisive victory by General Slim at Rangoon four years later, this scintillating account of war in Asia...