History

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce....

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws....

Longstanding political columnist and commentator Daniel Finkelstein's powerful memoir explores both his mother and his father’s devastating experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during the Second World War....

Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it. Us....

This gripping work of contemporary history maps Boris Johnson's time in power across ten decisive moments and sheds light on the most divisive and inscrutable prime minister since Margaret Thatcher....

A Radio 4 Book Club Selection.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's fascinating and humorous quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization....

In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, an unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their Nazi captors....

The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for 10 whole and very bloody years.... 

Concorde is an enthralling personal account of what it takes to fly planes faster than the speed of sound, and of the events that lay behind 114 needless deaths—the 113 victims of the crash and, ultimately, Concorde herself....

A vivid and authoritative account of the making of the modern Middle East, from the BBC’s long-serving correspondent in the region....

In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin share hard-hitting Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life....

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making - from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy....

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the best-selling Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, envisions a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges....

On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil....

A thrilling Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians - now with a new afterword.... 

This is the true story of the most extraordinary deception ever planned by Churchill’s spies: an outrageous lie that travelled from a Whitehall basement all the way to Hitler’s desk....

When raised to the level of art, seduction, an indirect and subtle form of power....

Nichol tells the remarkable tale of how the ejection seat was first conceived during the Second World War as countless lives were lost in accidents and in battle....

The popular broadcaster and columnist sets out to discover the unsung pleasures of drinking in moderation....

Tim Marshall's global best seller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation's choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn't changed, but the world has....

In this unflinching autobiography, Craig Harrison catapults us into the heat of the action as he describes his active service in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and gives heart-stopping accounts....

A thrilling history with enormous historical implications, The Escape Artist is the astonishing, forgotten story of the hero who escaped from Auschwitz to reveal the truth of the Holocaust....

A witty approach to 2,000 years of French history from legendary popular historian John Julius Norwich....

For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west—in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of adventure and riches....

A new and fascinating account of the life of Agatha Christie from acclaimed historian Lucy Worsley....

The life story and adventures of Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown - Britain's greatest-ever pilot. Brown's extraordinary flying career saw him fight in the Battle of Britain, narrowly escape death on a torpedoed aircraft carrier, achieve a litany of new records and firsts as a test pilot, and fly more kinds of aircraft than any other pilot in history. With a life as remarkable as his flying, Brown faced imprisonment in Germany at the outbreak of WWII, and after the Allied victory his fluent German saw him interviewing senior Nazi officials and participating in the liberation of Belsen.

When Thomas Roe arrived in India in 1616 as James I’s first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the English barely had a toehold in the subcontinent. Their understanding of South Asian trade and India was sketchy at best, and, to the Mughals, they were minor players on a very large stage. Roe was representing a kingdom that was beset by financial woes and deeply conflicted about its identity as a unified ‘Great Britain’ under the Stuart monarchy. 

At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war “at once.” Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet? So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb—and Japan’s decision to surrender.

Pacific War expert Mark Stille examines the key aspects of battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval encounter in history and probably the most decisive naval battle of the entire Pacific War, with new and insightful analysis and dismantles the myths surrounding the respective actions and overall performances of the two most important commanders in the battle, and the “lost victory” of the Japanese advance into Leyte Gulf that never happened.

Much has been written about Anne Frank’s life, but the story of her friend Bep Voskuijl has remained untold – until now. As the youngest of the five Dutch people who hid the Frank family, Bep Voskuijl was Anne’s closest confidante during the 761 excruciating days she spent hidden in the Secret Annex. In those cramped quarters, through daily meals and deep conservations, Bep and Anne’s friendship bloomed.

Why did women wear such heavy and uncomfortable skirts in the Elizabethan era? What the hell happened to Charles II's pubic hair wig? How did Princess Diana's revenge dress become so iconic? From the TikTok sensation Rosie Harte, The Royal Wardrobe dives into a horrible history and colourful past that will surprise and fascinate. From the Tudors to the Victorians right through to the 21st Century family rife with drama and division, there is so much still to uncover and explore.

The horse is etched on the Indian landscape, and to view the subcontinent’s past through the prism of the horse is to be swept up in its power and grace. Horses are a thread that connects Indian history, mythology, art, literature, folklore and popular belief. In this inspired and singularly erudite debut, Yashaswini Chandra takes us on the trail of the horse into and within India.

This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown's vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power.

For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way? The World of Sugar begins with the earliest evidence of sugar production.

The Pacific War in World War II pitted American fighting men against two merciless enemies: the relentless Japanese army and the combined forces of monsoons, swamps, mud, privation, and disease. The rowdy paratroopers of the eleventh Airborne Division-nicknamed "The Angels"—answered the call and fought in some of World War II's most dramatic campaigns, ranging from bloody skirmishes in Leyte's unforgiving rainforests to the ferocious battles on Luzon, including the hellscape urban combat of Manila. 

Unsettled tells the story of two hundred Highlanders who flee the Scottish Clearances in 1813 to establish a settlement on the Red River in what eventually became Winnipeg. They are sponsored by the Earl of Selkirk, a man who has never been west of Montreal. Families who have never left their Highland crofts take an epic journey over ocean, up wild rivers, and through boundless wilderness, surviving disease and brutal winter only to face the determined opposition of fur barons who want no sodbusters threatening their trade and are prepared to stop at nothing to destroy their dream.

This pamphlet offers a condensed history of Europe between the fall of the Roman empire and the twelfth century. The author’s profound anti-clerical bias becomes apparent as he explores the influence of Christianity on a world in which order was maintained by the imposition of violence, and in which the general populace was kept in a state of ignorance and serfdom. He supports his conclusions with quotes from his own translations of documents of the period.

While intensely attentive to its own tradition, Japanese literature has also embraced the outside world, particularly the influence of China. Beyond this, Japan boasts a powerful literary culture, made up of cultivated reading publics, both aristocratic and bourgeois, literary salons, specialized presses, authoritative judges of talent who cultivated and celebrated particular writers and styles, and a canon consisting of classics. This Very Short Introduction traces the rich history of Japanese literature from its beginnings over a millennium ago to the present day.

Since the dawn of civilization, humans had believed comets were evil portents. In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from these primordial superstitions, proving that Newtonian mechanics rather than the will of the gods brought comets into our celestial neighborhood. Despite this scientific advance, when Halley's Comet returned in 1910, newspapers gleefully provoked a global hysteria that unfolded with tragic consequences. Richard J. Goodrich examines the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet and the ensuing frenzy sparked by media manipulation, bogus science, and outright deception.

While it’s widely known in the US that the first president did not have any biological children, few are aware that he had several stepgrandchildren. In First Family, we see Washington as a father figure, as well as meet the children he helped raise and trace their complicated roles in American history. First Family brings new focus and attention to this surprisingly neglected aspect of George Washington’s life and legacy.