Secondhand History Books

Late in the tenth century, the Norse Vikings embarked on a voyage of no return. Leaving Iceland first for Greenland, from there they sailed onwards to North America, setting foot...

Backed by a wealth of new research, John Cornwell tells for the first time the story of the career of Eugenio Pacelli, the man who was Pius XII, during World...

Beautiful, powerful and sexy, Madame Chiang Kai-shek was at the centre of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century: the founding of modern China, beginning with a revolution...

Shock horror! A little book of the art of Britain's favourite pastime, grumbling, and its expression of the English language and complaining culture. Authors of these letters were surprised, niggled,...

The writings of one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century - revolutionary leader Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. These diaries follow on from the events recorded in 'The Motorcycle Diaries'...

The Pitkin Guide to Britain's Kings & Queens presents a concise, informative history, in words and pictures, of Britain's 56 sovereigns from Alfred the Great in the 9th century to...

Famous for lampooning the schoolboy view of the medieval world in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", Terry Jones has a real passion for and detailed knowledge of the Middle...

'A book of big questions, and big answers' Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens Why has human history unfolded so differently across the globe? And what can it teach...

'An incisive, inspiring and vitally illuminating account of a city which changed the ancient world and which deserves to be remembered by the modern. A masterful book written by a...

Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country's roiling disaffection produced sixteen of the...

The compelling love story of two extraordinary individuals - Nancy Mitford and Free French commander Gaston Palewski - living in extraordinary times - immortalised in THE PURSUIT OF LOVE'A delicious...

Born into the famous, sometimes scandalous, theatrical clan of Colley Cibber, Charlotte was an actress destined for greatness. But she rebelled, and started dressing as a man. When her father...

Two boys travel three continents to follow one monk's dream, in this untold story from Australia's colonial history. In 1848, the Spanish missionary Rosendo Salvado, founder of New Norcia Monastery...

The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in...

In 1994, Professor Bryan Sykes, a leading authority on DNA and human evolution, was called in to examine the frozen remains of a man trapped in glacial ice in Northern...

In the late 1890s Edmund Morel, a shipping company official working in Antwerp, noticed something suspicious. When his company's ships docked from the Congo, they were filled with valuable cargoes...

Winner of the Political Book Awards 2013 Best Political Biography. The era of sensational tabloid journalism began in Britain in the summer of 1885 when W. T. Stead, editor of...

In November 2008 the United States will elect a new President. But the imminent collapse of twenty years of Republican conservativism means the country is already conducting an intense self-examination...

China constitutes a fifth of the world's population. Over the last twenty years its economy has doubled to make it the fifth largest economy in the world; if the pace...

With startling speed, Spanish conquistadors invaded hundreds of Native American kingdoms, took over the mighty empires of the Aztecs and Incas, and initiated an unprecedented redistribution of the world's resources...

In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing complete annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic journey,...

An account of one journalist's experience from 1992-93 of the conflict in Bosnia, this work is an attempt to come to terms with the overwhelming questions that are provoked by...

'Stunning. History at its very best: a blend of impeccably researched scholarship, genuinely revelatory primary sources, and a beautifully written narrative.' - James Holland'The sheer brutal intimacy of his descriptions...

Elizabeth of York would have ruled England, but for the fact that she was a woman. The eldest daughter of Edward IV, at seventeen she was relegated from pampered princess...