History

For almost two centuries, followers of the Baha'i faith, Iran's largest religious minority, have been persecuted by the state. They have been made scapegoats for the nation's ills, branded enemies...

What happens when authorities you venerate condone something you know is wrong?Every major religion and philosophy once condoned or approved of slavery, but in modern times nothing is seen as...

'Immensely learned and ambitious...seam-bursting eclecticism and polymathic brio... This is by any standards a significant book and its author deserves high praise.' Literary Review To imagine - to see that...

A Book of the Year for The Times and the Sunday Times'The writer is the engineer of the human soul,' claimed Stalin. Although one wonders how many found nourishment in...

For a decade America's share of the global economy has been in decline. Its diplomatic alliances are under immense strain, and any claim of moral leadership has been abandoned. America...

Uniquely imprisoned, most Palestinians in Gaza cannot travel beyond the confines of the Strip, and in times of war escape is impossible. They live under siege - economic and armed...

Shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards 2017A powerful, groundbreaking history of the Occupied Territories from one of Israel's most influential historiansFrom the author of the bestselling study of the 1948...

If you boil a kettle twice today, you will have used five times more electricity than a person in Mali uses in a whole year. How can that be possible?Decades...

The Cold War is one of the furthest-reaching and longest-lasting conflicts in modern history. It spanned the globe - from Greece to China, Hungary to Cuba - and lasted for...

'All the power and intrigue of a cinematic thriller ... immersive, dramatic, and historically edifying' KirkusMoscow in the late 1970s: one by one, CIA assets are disappearing. The perils of...

In August 1939, curators at the Louvre nestled the world's most famous painting into a special red velvet-lined case and spirited her away to the Loire Valley as part of...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEThe Dead Hand is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative history of Reagan, Gorbachev and the final decade of the Cold War. Washington Post journalist David E. Hoffman...

'All the power and intrigue of a cinematic thriller ... immersive, dramatic, and historically edifying' KirkusMoscow in the late 1970s: one by one, CIA assets are disappearing. The perils of...

Castles and palaces around the world are structures of grandeur, might and beauty. From the flamboyance of Germany's fairy tale-Neuschwanstein Castle to the gothic, Dracula-inspiring Bran Castle, perched high in...

'Tim Tate, in Hitler's British Traitors, [explores] the entire grimy landscape of British treachery during the Second World War and the astonishing rogues' gallery of traitors working to help Nazi...

You probably know, or think you know, quite a bit about what happened in the 20th century - chances are, if you're reading this, you lived through at least some...

April 1945. As Alliedbombs rain down on Europe, a 400-year-old institution looks set to be wiped offthe face of the Earth. The famous white Lipizzaner stallions of the SpanishRiding School...

Of all the tomes published on the centenary of the Russian Revolution, none will reckon with a key part of the story: what if the revolutionaries' dreams had come true,...

A WATERSTONES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2022'Simon Jenkins, as ever, writes with clarity and insight' Times'One of the liveliest commentators in Britain, always worth reading and pleasingly contrarian' Jeremy Paxman,...

An illustrated, behind the scenes look at medieval castles and how they combined two purposes, a weapon of war and a home for an entire community. Using the beautiful construction...

In the summer of 793 AD Viking raiders attacked and looted the monastic island of Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland. This assault was only the beginning, within 18 months...

'I was riveted: this is a fascinating social history.' NIGELLA LAWSON'Five stars... history on a scale at once intimate and grand.' TELEGRAPH'A magnificent book... endlessly fascinating.' JEWISH CHRONICLE'How the Lyons...

A thrilling new account of the tragic life and troubled times of Henry VI. 'The best life of Henry VI now in print' DAN JONES. 'Vivid, absorbing and richly detailed'...

The extraordinary story of an obscure German princess who became one of the most powerful women in history. Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into empress of...

Located at the far-flung and wild edge of the Roman Empire, Hadrian's Wall was constructed by Emperor Hadrian in the 120s AD. Vast in size and stretching from the east...

A major new biography of the Black Prince. 'A clear-eyed and thrilling vision of the man behind the legend' DAN JONES. 'Pacy, vivid and extremely readable' TLS. In 1346, at...

'Exquisitely written and ripe with detail' Sunday Times. 'An engaging book ... He knows his British stuff' The Times. 'One of England's most skilled and alluring prose writers in or...

In the 50s BC, Julius Caesar conducted a brutal war against the tribes of ancient Gaul. On the pretext of curbing an imminent barbarian threat to the Roman Republic, he...

Tom Wolfe's genre-defining magical mystery tour through the 1960s published in Vintage Classics for the first time to mark its fiftieth anniversary.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JARVIS COCKERIn the summer of...

A wonderful novel and perfect book club choice, The Right Stuff is a wildly vivid and entertaining chronicle of America's early space programme.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY US ASTRONAUT SCOTT KELLY'What...

Upsets received views to show how rebellious colonies changed British attitudes to empire Much has been written on the how colonial subjects took up British and European ideas and turned...

Since the upsurge of the Arab Spring in 2011, the Syrian civil war has claimed in excess of 200,000 lives, with an estimated 8 million Syrians, more than a third...

Upsets received views to show how rebellious colonies changed British attitudes to empire Much has been written on the how colonial subjects took up British and European ideas and turned...

One hundred years after the Russian Revolution the Soviet Union remains the most extraordinary, yet tragic, attempt to create a society beyond capitalism. Yet its history was one that for...

An entertaining and eye-opening look at the French Revolution, by Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French and A Year in the Merde. The French Revolution and...

An entertaining and eye-opening look at the French Revolution, by Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French and A Year in the Merde. The French Revolution and...

During WW2, a group of Jewish refugees (intellectuals, writers, artists and athletes - most from Germany and Austria) escaped to Britain and were interned as 'enemy aliens'. In 1942, they...

A vivid, deeply researched work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman in Edo - now known as Tokyo - and a portrait of a great city...

'Moorehead paints a wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the women of the Italian Resistance...an excellent book... She depicts a tragic fate that is timeless, of dreams forged in adversity,...

Read the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals the Earth's awesome impact on the shape of human civilisations.'Stands comparison with Sapiens... Thrilling' Sunday Times Human evolution in East Africa was driven...

Donald Maclean was a star diplomat, an establishment insider and a keeper of some of the West's greatest secrets. He was also a Russian spy...Codenamed 'Orphan' by his Russian recruiter,...

A fascinating and dramatic investigation into the events that led to Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister against the odds.'A gripping story of Churchill's unlikely rise to power' Observer London, May...

At 9am on 13 April 1933 deputy prosecutor Josef Hartinger received a telephone call summoning him to the newly established concentration camp of Dachau, where four prisoners had been shot....

In Tangier, the Moroccan novelist Mohamed Choukri wrote, 'everything is surreal and everything is possible.' In this intimate portrait of a city, the former BBC North Africa correspondent, Richard Hamilton,...

A facsimile edition of Bradshaw's wonderfully illustrated guide to Victorian London, dating from 1862. Bradshaw's guide to London was published in a single volume as a handbook for visitors to...

The parish church is a symbol of continuity, a cornerstone of the urban and rural landscape, and a treasure trove often as rich in cultural history as any museum. This...

Illuminated manuscripts are among the most beautiful, precious and mysterious works of Western art. Before the printing press was invented, books were produced by hand and their illustration using brightly...