Secondhand History Books

142 Strand was the home of the brilliant, unconventional young publisher John Chapman. All the daring and avant-garde writers and thinkers of Victorian London gathered here, among them Thomas Carlyle,...

Emilie du Chatelet was one of the greatest thinkers of the 18th century, a woman whose work was of vital use to Einstein and who, until now, has been largely...

'A pleasurable, fascinating read that is superbly researched and told' Sydney Morning Herald'Captivating ... a brilliant many-layered social history of women's ambition and a rapidly changing New York' Observer'Fascinating' Daily...

John Briley is the award-winning script writer of Ghandi. He has worked with Attenborough and Woods to write a first-rate screenplay for the film "Cry Freedom" and this novelisation of...

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of...

In 1926, at the age of twenty, a trainee dentist called Bruno Langbehn joined the Nazi party. Growing up in a Germany that was impoverished and humiliated by the defeat...

Examines the beginning of the Christian movement during the first centuries AD, and the explosive force of its expansion throughout the Roman world

In The Favourite, Mathew Lyons strips away the myth - and the self-mythologising - to find Sir Walter Ralegh in the one role in which his contemporaries knew him best:...

'Books such as this are essential: they remind modern readers of events that should never be forgotten' - Caroline MooreheadOn March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women...

Catherine Merridale's book is the first to put the experience of the ordinary Russian soldier at the heart of a narrative of the war on the Eastern Front, displacing the...

The imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, in May 1536 was unprecedented in English history. It was sensational in its day, and has exerted endless...

For more than 70 years until his death on 9 April 2021, Prince Philip was the Queen's constant companion and support, but his vital role in the monarchy too often...

Hailed as one of the finest books to emerge from the Vietnam War, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a fascinating insight into the lives of the soldiers...

Art imitates life. Or does it? One sleepy Sunday morning in Buenos Aires, the protagonist of Martinez's brilliant new mystery finds himself unexpectedly tangled up in the story of Luciana,...

Barack Obama is quickly becoming America's most popular politician, and his run for the presidency has brought huge crowds at home and an unprecedented wave of international attention as well....

Pompeii's tragedy is our windfall: an ancient city fully preserved, its urban design and domestic styles speaking across the ages. This richly illustrated book conducts us through the captured wonders...

The last of the nine Frontier Wars fought between 1799 1877 was in many ways a 'prequel' to the more famous Zulu War of 1879, featuring as it did many...

Many chaplains were not permitted to go near the Front in the First World War - others insisted on doing so, like Kenneth Best in the Gallipoli Campaign. Best had...

The young George III was a poignant figure, humdrum on the surface yet turbulent beneath: hiding his own passions, he tried hard to be a father to his siblings and...

From New York Times bestseller Maureen Callahan, a fierce, character-driven expose of the real Kennedy Curse-the family's generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem-and the women who have paid the...

In the wake of the loyalist ceasefire of October 1994, many were surprised by the appearance of a new, open-minded breed of spokesmen such as David Ervine, whose ready wit...

The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830 marked the beginning of a transport revolution. Blood, Iron and Gold reveals the huge impact of the railways as they...

'Compelling, laudably unsentimental and deeply significant.' -- Frances Stonar Saunders, GuardianIn 1922, Lenin personally drew up a list of some 220 'undesirable' intellectuals to be deported in preparation for the...

This is the story of how our modern world was forged - in rivets, grease and steam; in blood, sweat and human imagination. The 19th century saw the creation of...

The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller 'A compelling read' - Financial Times 'A sporadically absorbing, pleasingly vengeful and often darkly funny account of one woman's bid for presidential history.' Sunday...

This series of memoirs covers successive attempts by father and son to address the problem of building a rational, inclusive, national political superstructure on an all-Ireland basis, making use of...

Haunts of the Black Masseur is a dazzling introduction to the great swimming heroes: Byron leaping into the surf at Shelley's beach funeral, Hart Crane, swallow-diving to his death in...

Between 1856 and 1876, five explorers, all British, took on the seemingly impossible task of discovering the source of the White Nile. Showing exceptional courage and extraordinary resilience, Richard Burton,...

Adam Hart-Davis, one of the nations favourite TV presenters, returns to our screens with a tour through the Top Ten developments of each of the great civilisations of the past....

The young George III was a poignant figure, humdrum on the surface, yet turbulent beneath: hiding his own passions, he tried hard to be a father to his siblings and...

From the bestselling author of "Rifles", the remarkable lives - and battles - of ten of Britain's greatest generals. Mark Urban tells the story of ten exceptional soldiers who left...

In 1776 Foote's was the most talked-of name in the English-speaking world. By 1777 it was almost unmentionable. Samuel Foote, friend of David Garrick and Dr Johnson, is the greatest...