Secondhand History Books

Prisoners of Geography meets Bill Bryson: a funny, fascinating, beautifully illustrated - and timely - history of countries that, for myriad and often ludicrous reasons, no longer exist. 'Countries are...

THE TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023A BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK FOR THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT AND FINANCIAL TIMESA BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF...

Peter Pugh presents his selection of - not the best, fastest, most successful or richest - but the 50 most influential British men and women of the modern world -...

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) began his celebrated diary on 1st January 1660 immediately prior to the Restoration of Charles II to the throne and the subsequent loosening of the rigid moral...

Despite the all-pervading influence of television ninety per cent of people in Britain still listen to the radio, clocking up over a billion hours of listening between us every week....

China Mieville's brilliant reading of the modern world's most controversial and enduring political document: the Communist Manifesto.In 1848 a strange political tract was published by two emigres from Germany. Marx...

The Sunday Times bestseller Now a major BBC TV series presented by Andrew Marr David Attenborough. Marcus Rashford. Jan Morris. Diana Dors. Bob Geldof. David Olusoga. Elizabeth David. Zaha Hadid....

Argo by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio - the declassified CIA story behind the Oscar-winning filmWINNER OF 'BEST PICTURE' AT THE ACADEMY AWARDS, THE BAFTAS AND THE GOLDEN GLOBESTehran, November...

From the acclaimed author of John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life, the biography of one of America's greatest presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt.'Meticulously researched and authoritative, heroically objective and wide-angled ......

'Odd Arne Westad's daring ambition, supra-nationalist intellect, polyglot sources, masterly scholarship and trenchant analysis make The Cold War a book ofresounding importance for appraising our global future as well as...

The Story of Israel is an illuminating book that explores the nation's history. Seventy years after Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948, the dramatic events before and since this...

The bestselling, prize-winning author explores the impact of the Second World War - for nations, cities and families around the world. How does the experience and memory of the Second...

This is the true story of the Battle of Trafalgar, Britain's most significant sea battle, as seen through the smoke-hazed gunports of the fighting ships. In an atmosphere of choking...

In early 1942 the Germans opened a top-security prisoner-of-war camp in occupied Poland for captured Allied airmen. Called Stalag Luft III, the camp soon came to contain some of the...

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...

'Expertly researched, zestfully written, acutely intelligent in its historical judgements, this masterly biography finally does justice to a forgotten Tudor princess' John GuySometime heir to the English throne, courtier in...

THE STORY OF THE SAVOY HOTEL'S FOUNDERS, THROUGH A CENTURY OF LUXURY."For The Gondoliers-themed birthday dinner, the hotel obligingly flooded the courtyard to conjure the Grand Canal of Venice. Dinner...

In Good Faith is the first of a two-volume, accessible narrative history of America's involvement in Indochina, from the end of World War II to the Fall of Saigon in...

'A scary portrait of put-upon servants and potty aristos ... this is arguably the most riotously funny volume published this year' Max Hastings, Sunday Times'One of the funniest, most eccentric...

Although the ultimate prize of the Great Game played out between Great Britain and Imperial Russia in the 19th century was India, most of the intrigue and action took place...

The turbulent Tudor age never fails to capture the imagination. But what was it actually like to be a woman during this period? This was a time when death in...

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'...

Eugene Victor Debs led the Socialist Party in the early twentieth-century to federal and state office across the country, helped to pioneer a fighting union politics that organized all workers,...

Boris Pahor spent the last fourteen months of World War II as a prisoner and medic in the Nazi camps at Bergen-Belsen, Harzungen, Dachau and Natzweiler-Struthof. Twenty years later, as...

The 15:17 to Paris is the amazing true story of friendship and bravery, and of near tragedy averted by three heroic young men who found the unity and strength inside...

Archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author, poet, photographer, mountaineer and nation builder, Gertrude Bell was born in 1868 into a world of privilege and plenty, but she turned her back on...

Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette. Over fifty incredible years at the heart of the Age of Revolution, he fought courageously on both...

From the co-author of the bestselling 'The Dangerous Book for Boys', this is a book of heroes, new and old, known and sadly forgotten, now to be glorified as they...

Horace 'Jim' Greasley was twenty years of age in the spring of 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and latterly Poland. There had been whispers and murmurs of discontent from...

Here, from Bill Clinton, is a call to action. 'Giving' is an inspiring look at how each of us can change the world. First, it reveals the extraordinary and innovative...

Bestselling biography of the enduringly fascinating Wallis SimpsonOne of Britain's most distinguished biographers turns her focus on one of the most vilified women of the twentieth century. Historian Anne Sebba...

Overlooking the significance of America's Hispanic past, the United States is typically perceived as an offshoot of Britain, with its history unfolding east to west, beginning with the first settlers...

In this entertaining and insightful biography, award-winning writer Andrew Morton, author of Diana, Her True Story and Elizabeth & Margaret: The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters, takes you behind...

Irish Sunday Times Bestseller A true story of war, peace and friendship: a Nazi colonel and an Irish priest The story begins in Rome at the outbreak of WWII, when...

What is the meaning of love and death in a remote, forgotten, impossibly conflicted part of the world? In "Rebel Land" the acclaimed author and journalist Christopher de Bellaigue journeys...

This volume examines the development of two sovereign nations over seventy-four momentous years.

'I have always been fascinated by that charismatic hero of the Resistance, Josephine Baker, but it turns out I didn't know the half of it. Lewis' story-telling blew my mind....

Asne Seierstad began her writing career as a Moscow correspondent; the conflict in Chechnya was the first war she covered. Now ten years later, she returns to Chechnya and discovers...