History

When we think of archaeology, most of us think first of its many spectacular finds: the legendary city of Troy, Tutankhamun's golden tomb, the three-million-year-old footprints at Laetoli, the mile-high...

As we move toward trials challenging the legitimacy of the Bush administration's use of detentions in Guantanamo and elsewhere, Roosevelt's response to the captured Germans - military tribunals, a secret...

This is a biography of Napoleon III who ruled over 18 years of glittering success in France known as the Second Empire. Modern Paris was created out of its medieval...

Labour's second term is drawing to a close. What have they really achieved in the last four years? Did Iraq overshadow all? Did public services improve after all? Were the...

This is a probing of the realities, as distinct from the theory, of politics in the UK. It concentrates on two main issues. One is the role of Parliament with...

At the heart of the Regency period - nine years from 1811 to 1820 - lies the mismatch between the Prince and Princess of Wales. The Prince Regent, later George...

In his revealing biography of British politician and diplomat Malcolm MacDonald, Clyde Sanger gives a full account of MacDonald's central role in the decolonization of the British Empire. The son...

A delightful, entertaining and illuminating investigation into our peculiar fascination with making things small, and what small things tell us about the world at large.Simon Garfield reveals the secret histories...

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been locked in conflict with the United States and Europe. Personified in the West by a series of bogeymen from Ayatollah Khomeini to Mahmoud...

In 480 BC, Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For seventy years, victory - rapid, spectacular victory -...

In Republic vs. Autocracy, Andrzej Kaminski analyzes a pivotal period in the relationship between two Eastern European powers. By this time Poland-Lithuania had lost control of East-Bank Ukraine and Kiev...

The book centres around the Sun King and his relationship with numerous and fascinating women. Naturally dividing into five parts it will concentrate on the King's mother, Anne of Austria,...

Intrigue, double-dealing and conspiracy in the Eternal City. 'A fascinating narrative of the intermingling of secular and religious power' New Statesman 'A highly enjoyable and thrilling read... Hollingsworth has peeled...

As France emerged from the Franco-Prussian War she embarked on a period of active colonialism, acquiring territories in South-East Asia and Africa. By the turn of the century much of...

The mighty struggle for the Somme sector of the Western Front in the second half of 1916 has come to be remembered for the dreadful toll of casualties inflicted on...

The short but savage Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 pitched well-equipped but complacent British soldiers into combat with the Zulu, one of history's finest fighting forces. The clashes between these two...

This is a concise and authoritative account of the course of the First World War, with analysis of decisive encounters and landmark engagements. It offers a full description of every...

Intelligence specialist Leigh Neville identifies, describes and illustrates the Special Operations Forces (SOF) of the British, American and other Coalition forces committed to the 'War on Terror' in Afghanistan since...

The restoration of the Meiji Imperial dynasty in 1868, after 250 years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, decisively opened Japan to the outside world and the monarchy embraced modernization, including the...

The lives and loves of the great condottieriFederigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, was the archetypal 'Renaissance man': a brilliant soldier, scholar and ally of the pope, he spent much...

In April 1478, a plot to murder the two heads of the powerful Medici family dramatically miscarried. The younger of the two brothers was killed, but Lorenzo the Magnificent, the...

The Siege of Vienna in 1683 was one of the turning points in European history. It was the last serious threat to Western Christendom and so great was its impact...

Drawing on a vast range of sources, from manga comics to MacArthur's report to Congress, this monumental new work by America's foremost historian of modern Japan traces the impact of...

During the 20th century, Russia, Ukraine and other territories of the former Soviet Union experienced more violent and avoidable deaths than anywhere else on earth. Two World Wars and one...

One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a...

In the African kingdom of Kasch the king should be sacrificed when the stars come into a particular alignment. One day a stranger arrives who tells such good yarns the...

In 1863, the French painter Ernest Meissonier was one of the most famous artists in the world and the darling of the 'Salon' - that all important public art exhibition...

America is in crisis. In the space of a generation, it has become more than ever a country of winners and losers, as industries have failed, institutions have disappeared and...

This biography concentrates on Cleopatra's ever-shifting identity. Depending on the audience, she might present herself as a goddess, a political leader, or an alluring and exotic woman. Roman statesmen likewise...

Featuring a new prologue and conclusion and two new chapters on recent developmentsWith Hezbollah's entry into the Lebanese government in 2009 and forceful intervention in the Syrian civil war, the...

'Beautifully written, sumptuously illustrated, constantly fascinating' - The TimesOn 26 November 1922 Howard Carter first peered into the newly opened tomb of an ancient Egyptian boy-king. When asked if he...