History
Showing 1–16 of 25 results
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1942
£20.001942
In 1942 there was a domestic crisis in Britain. Public morale collapsed with a widespread feeling that Winston Churchill was no longer the right man to lead the nation. In the course of the crisis, motions of No-Confidence were debated in Parliament. A credible rival for Prime Minister emerged. This panic followed a series of major military fiascos. If its war effort folded, Britain would have had to negotiate a truce with Hitler. Had Britain been forced out of the war by this in 1942, it would have been almost impossible for the US to fight back in Europe. The survival of fascism, the outcome of the titanic battles on the Eastern Front and the ultimate result of the war could all have been very different.1942 tells the story of this precarious moment when the British people nearly lost it.
£20.00 -
A Brief History of Germany
£10.99A Brief History of Germany
The history of Germany is intricately woven. Threaded in time through its struggles and triumphs with religion, industrialisation, enlightenment, politics, unification, and war. In ‘A Brief History of Germany’, Jeremy Black questions how the Germany we know today came to be, chronicling the events that shaped its past, present and future in a fascinating new way.
£10.99 -
A Brief History of the Atlantic
£12.99A Brief History of the Atlantic
The Atlantic has borne witness to major historic events that have drastically shaped humanity with each crossing of its path. In this broad and readable book, Jeremy Black takes the reader through its evolution to becoming one of the most important oceans in the world. Black discusses the importance of the Atlantic in relation to world history as well as addressing topics such as those bravest to attempt to cross the ocean before Columbus, the beginnings of slavery from 1400-1600, the struggle for control between empires in the 1600s, the way technology adapted with steamships to telegraph cables, the battle of the Falkland, and the Cold War.Black also touches on the Atlantic we know today, and the struggles it faces due to urgent global issues including climate change, pollution, and the trials of the economic rise in the Indo-Pacific world.
£12.99 -
A Short History of Humanity
£14.99A Short History of Humanity
Humanity has often found itself on the precipice. We’ve survived and thrived because we’ve never stopped moving. In this eye-opening book, Johannes Krause, Chair of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Humanity, offers a new way of understanding our past, present and future. Marshalling unique insights from archaeogenetics, an emerging new discipline that allows us to read our ancestors’ DNA like journals chronicling personal stories of migration, Krause charts two millennia of adaption, movement and survival, culminating in the triumph of Homo Sapiens as we swept through Europe and beyond in successive waves of migration – developing everything from language, the patriarchy, disease, art and a love of pets as we did so.
£14.99 -
Accidental Gods
£20.00Accidental Gods
Spanning the globe and five centuries, ‘Accidental Gods’ introduces us to a new pantheon: of man-gods, deified politicians and imperialists, militants, mystics and explorers. From the conquistadors setting foot in the New World to Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, elevated by a National Geographic article from emperor to messiah for the Rastafari faith, to the unlikely officers hailed as gods during the British Raj, this endlessly curious and revelatory account chronicles an impulse towards deification that persists even in a secular age, as show of defiance or assertion of power. In her bravura final part, Subin traces the colonial desire for divinity through to the creation of ‘race’ and the white power movement today, and argues that it is time we rid ourselves of the white gods among us.
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Anatomy of a Nation
£30.00Anatomy of a Nation
Britain is experiencing an acute trauma of identity, being pulled simultaneously towards its European, Atlantic, and wider heritages. One way to understand the dislocation and collapse in consensus is by looking to Britain’s rich history: its evolution, achievements, complexities, and tensions. ‘Anatomy of a Nation’ explores over 800,000 years of British identity by examining 50 documents that tell the story of what makes Britain unique. They are not Britain’s most famous documents, but each reveals something key about who the British have been down the ages. A few of the documents are well known. Most are not. The result is an anthology that offers a rich and unusual insight into the development of the British people and their sense of place in the world.
£30.00 -
Ancestors
£20.00Ancestors
How seven remarkable British burial sites reveal so much about our ancestors and how they lived.
£20.00 -
Art of War, The
£7.99Art of War, The
First time in paperback for new translation–a new translation of the ancient Chinese military classic that is widely admired by military and business strategists.
£7.99 -
Barbarossa
£9.99Barbarossa
Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of Russia in June 1941, was the largest military operation in history, its aim nothing less than ‘a war of extermination’ to annihilate Soviet communism, liquidate the Jews and create lebensraum for the so-called German master race. But it led to the destruction of the Third Reich, and was entirely cataclysmic; in six months of warfare no less than six million were killed, wounded or registered as missing in action, and soldiers on both sides committed heinous crimes behind the lines on a scale without parallel in the history of warfare. In ‘Barbarossa’, drawing on hitherto unseen archival material – including previously untranslated Russian sources – in his usual gripping style, Jonathan Dimbleby recounts not only the story of the military campaign, but the politics and diplomacy behind this epic clash of global titans.
£9.99 -
Before Evil
£14.99Before Evil
Should we humanise the world’s most inhumane leaders? These cruel dictators wrote their names on the pages of history in the blood of countless innocent victims. Yet they themselves were once young people searching for their place in the world, dealing with challenges many of us face – parental authority, education, romance, loss – and doing so in ways that might be uncomfortably familiar. Historian Brandon K. Gauthier has created a fascinating work – epic yet intimate, well-researched but immensely readable, clear-eyed and empathetic – looking at the lives of these six dictators, with a focus on their youths.
£14.99 -
Captain John Smith, Adventurer
£14.99Captain John Smith, Adventurer
Captain John Smith is best remembered for his association with Pocahontas, but this was only a small part of an extraordinary life filled with danger and adventure. This swashbuckling Elizabethan adventurer was resourceful, intelligent and outspoken, with a vision of what America could become. In this riveting book, Pritchard tells the rip-roaring story of a remarkable man who refused to give in.
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Dracula
£9.99Dracula
In ‘Dracula: The Origins and Influence of the Legendary Vampire Count’, author Giles Morgan examines the roots of the vampire myth and the creation of Bram Stoker’s masterpiece of horror.
£9.99 -
Goose Green Uncensored Voices
£20.00Goose Green Uncensored Voices
On 28th May 1982, 450 men of the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, stood poised to retake the settlement of Goose Green on East Falkand, where 1500 Argentine soldiers had captured, and were holding in squalid conditions, 119 Falkand Islanders – men, women, children and one baby. 2 Para’s mission – to capture the settlements of Darwin and Goose Green and save the lives of the hostages. This is a true story of a great victory against all the odds. Forty years on, Goose Green is still the biggest, bloodiest battle the British Army has fought in modern times. In chronological order and in their own voices, the author has compiled a living narrative of the battle by the men who fought it; the men of 2 Para, the SAS, the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy, and others, in more than a hundred exclusive and untold personal accounts.
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Making History
£25.00Making History
An epic exploration of who writes about the past and how the biases of certain storytellers – whether Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare or Simon Schama – continue to influence our ideas about history (and about who we are) today. Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses (such as the writers of the Bible, major novelists, dramatists, journalists and political propagandists) influence what become the accepted records of human experience. Is there, he asks, even such a thing as ‘objective’ history?
£25.00 -
New Rome
£30.00New Rome
Long before Rome fell to the Ostrogoths in AD 476, a new city had risen to take its place as the beating heart of a late antique empire, the glittering Constantinople: New Rome. In this magisterial work, Professor Paul Stephenson charts the centuries surrounding this epic shift of power. He traces the cultural, social and political forces that led to the empire being ruled from a city straddling Europe and Asia, placing all into a rich natural and environmental context informed by the latest scientific research. Blending narrative with analysis, he shows how the city and empire of New Rome survived countless attacks and the rise of Islam. By the end, the wide world of linked cities had changed into a world founded on new ideas about government and God, art and war, and the very future of a Christian empire: Byzantium.
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The BBC
£25.00The BBC
In 1922, three men – only one of whom had previously heard of ‘broadcasting’ – founded the BBC. In doing so, Arthur Burrows, Cecil Lewis, and John Reith set out to accomplish something utterly bold: using what had been a weapon of war – Marconi’s wireless – to remake culture for the good of humanity. In ‘The BBC: A People’s History,’ professor and historian David Hendy traces the BBC from its maverick beginnings through war, the creation of television, changing public taste, austerity and massive cultural change. The BBC has constantly evolved, developing from one radio station, to television, then multiple channels and now the competition with the Internet and streaming services. This is a history of a now global institution that defines Britain and created modern broadcasting; it is also a reflection of 100 years of British history.
£25.00