Europe

The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world.

Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1961, this worldwide bestselling classic chronicles the most infamous era of our times.

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400....

The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated....

Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, the SAS launched one of the most intense and secretive operations in its history: Task Force Black.

The British Secret Service has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created 100 years ago. MI6 provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction....

‘Paddy' Mayne was one of the most outstanding special forces leaders of the Second World War....

In this New York Times bestselling biography, Eric Metaxas takes both strands of Bonhoeffer's life—the theologian and the spy—and draws them together to tell a searing story of incredible moral courage in the face of monstrous evil.

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own....

Told through seven fascinating burial sites, this groundbreaking prehistory of Britain teaches us more about ourselves and our history: how people came and went, how we came to be on this island....

The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in history....

This broad and panoramic series, ripe with the telling detail on which history can turn, will help you pull an enormous sweep of history together into one coherent framework....

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero? Most Australians have heard of the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero....

The new book by Sunday Times bestselling author of Ancestors and Buried - the final instalment in Professor Alice Roberts' acclaimed trilogy....

Best-selling historian David Hill tells the story of the first three decades of Britain's earliest colony in Australia in a fresh and compelling way....

One of the classic volumes of autobiography, My Early Life is a lively and colourful account of a young man's quest for action, adventure and danger....

This erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled....

Ten years after the walk across Central Asia and Afghanistan that he memorialized in The Places in Between, Rory Stewart set out on a new journey, traversing a thousand miles....

The war on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945 was the bloodiest combat theater in the bloodiest war in history. Oberleutnant Friedrich Wilhelm Sander experienced this bloodshed firsthand when serving with the 11th Panzer-Regiment....

Don Hollway vividly depicts the violence and spectacle of the late Viking era and delves into the dramatic events that brought an end to almost three centuries of Norse conquest and expansion....

Killing England chronicles the path to independence in gripping detail, taking the listener from the battlefields of America to the royal courts of Europe....

The fighting between the German and Russian armies in the Rzhev Salient during World War II was so grisly, so murderous, and saw such vast losses that the troops called the campaign 'The Meat Grinder'....

Complete your knowledge of the ancient world with this comprehensive look at the dozen empires that flourished in the 2,000 years before the conquests of Alexander the Great....

A riveting and authoritative history of the single most important event in English history: The Norman Conquest....

Beginning with the Renaissance, the culture of the West exploded....

Eagle Days transforms the Luftwaffe’s historical role during the RAF’s ‘Finest Hour’ from a cartoonish antagonist to a multidimensional, flawed-yet-formidable opponent. The narrative contains not just the voices of the air crews who conducted the fighting, but uniquely never-before-translated primary source material of other contemporary eyewitnesses, (Luftwaffe’s paratroopers, anti-aircraft gunners and air signalmen). Eagle Days will offer all fans of this period a refreshing, comprehensive and exciting account of the Luftwaffe’s real experiences during the Battle of Britain.

I moti del 1848 in Sicilia come pretesto per rivalse trasformistiche da parte del notabilato: in questo contesto si svolgono due efferate stragi sulle quali le autorità si affrettarono a stendere un velo di silenzio. La prima strage avvenne a Porto Empedocle, dove il maggiore Sarzana si liberò in un sol colpo di 114 detenuti, soffocandoli e bruciandoli vivi in una cella comune; la seconda ebbe luogo a Pantelleria, dove ad opera di mafiosi e proprietari furono giustiziati 15 contadini in base a pretestuose accuse.

Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion.

In the 1880s, control over northeastern Africa was a political minefield into which Prime Minister Gladstone did not want to step—until his emissary Charles Gordon was besieged in Khartoum, and the city became the focal point for war. It was the height of European colonialism. Injustices were administered, bloody battles fought, and civilians caught in the crossfire. Among the British officers were figures who would later adopt starring roles in the First World War, such as Egyptian Army sapper Captain Herbert Kitchener.

The American Revolution is replete with seminal moments that every American learns in school, from the “shot heard ‘round the world” to the Declaration of Independence, but the events that led up to the fighting at Lexington & Concord were borne out of 10 years of division between the British and their American colonies over everything from colonial representation in governments to taxation, the nature of searches, and the quartering of British regulars in private houses.

On August 25, 1944, Rose Valland, a woman of quiet daring, found herself in a desperate position. From the windows of her beloved Jeu de Paume museum, where she had worked and ultimately spied, she could see the battle to liberate Paris thundering around her. The Jeu de Paume, co-opted by Nazi leadership, was now the Germans’ final line of defense. Would the museum curator be killed before she could tell the truth—a story that would mean nothing less than saving humanity’s cultural inheritance?

1742: the famous dome atop Saint Peter's Basilica, designed by Michelangelo, is fractured and threatened with collapse. The dome is the pride of Italy and the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. And no one knows how to fix it. This engaging and colorful narrative tells the overlooked story of how Michelangelo's Dome was saved from disaster by three mathematicians and Pope Benedict XIV, who had asked them for help.

The enduring image of World War I is of men stuck in muddy trenches, and of vast armies deadlocked in a fight neither could win. It was a war of barbed wire, poison gas, and horrific losses as officers led their troops on mass charges across No Man’s Land and into a hail of bullets. While these impressions are all too true, they hide the fact that trench warfare was dynamic and constantly evolving throughout the war as all armies struggled to find a way to break through the opposing lines.

In Plato and the Tyrant, acclaimed historian and classicist James Romm draws on personal letters of Plato to show how a philosopher helped topple the leading Greek power of the era: the opulent city of Syracuse. There, Plato encountered two authoritarian rulers, a father and son both named Dionysius, and tried to steer them toward philosophy. At the same time, he worked on his masterpiece, Republic, in which he conceived a ruler who unites perfect wisdom with absolute power.

Gales tiene una larga e ilustre historia, repleta de hazañas heroicas, personajes legendarios y momentos cruciales. En este conciso libro de historia, descubrirá la fascinante historia de Gales, desde sus antiguos orígenes celtas hasta la nación moderna. Desde el reinado del Rey Arturo y las batallas de los príncipes galeses hasta la revolución industrial y el auge del nacionalismo galés, este libro ofrece una visión general completa de los momentos clave y las figuras que han moldeado Gales a lo largo de los siglos.

Aachen saw some of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War. Through the determined defense of their city the citizens of Aachen held off the oncoming American forces for six weeks, giving the Nazis time to mobilize their troops for what would become the Battle of the Bulge. Had it not been for dogged resistance of these men and women the last great German offensive in the West might have never occurred, potentially ending the war in Europe six months earlier and saving the lives of thousands.

Häxprocessernas tid är en oerhört omskriven epok och fortsätter att fascinera. Men allt är inte som vi förletts att tro. Vår bild av händelserna har blivit mer myt och politisk saga än verklighet. Och häxjakten är förvisso den märkligaste följden av Karl IX:s bibliska lag, men antalet dödsoffer överskuggades vida av de som fick sätta livet till för andra sedlighetsbrott, såsom tidelag och barnamord.

An unprecedented examination of the ways in which the uninhibited urban sexuality, sexual experimentation, and medical advances of pre-Weimar Berlin created and molded our modern understanding of sexual orientation and gay identity.

Qu’est-ce que la nation française ? La question s’est posée à de multiples reprises au fil de l’histoire, parfois de manière très vive comme lors de la Révolution, de la perte de l’Alsace-Lorraine, du régime de Vichy et jusqu’à nos fractures contemporaines. S’agit-il d’une communauté ethnique, linguistique, territoriale, d’une organisation politique de citoyens désireux de vivre ensemble ou bien encore d’une construction historique d’un autre type ? Doit-on la faire remonter à 1789, à la bataille de Bouvines, au baptême de Clovis, voire à " nos ancêtres les Gaulois " ?

Charlotte Beradt began having unsettling dreams after Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. She envisioned herself being shot at, tortured and scalped, surrounded by Nazis in disguise, and breathlessly fleeing across fields with storm troopers at her heels. Shaken by these nightmares and banned as a Jew from working, she began secretly collecting dreams from her friends and neighbors, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Disguising these "diaries of the night" in code and concealing them in the spines of books from her extensive library, she smuggled them out of the country one by one.

This book was originally planned to be about people, places and events in beautiful Kintyre but, like Topsy, “it just growed”—northwards and southwards—eventually including tales from Norway and the entire west coast of Scotland, down as far as the Irish Sea. Events in time vary from the reality of the present-day, sweeping back into history, and including Myth and Legend from our ancient Celtic heritage. There is humour and, inevitably, pathos as well as the happenings of every-day life—naturally occurring ingredients from the comedy and tragedy of every nation’s story.

From the military kitchens which cook for soldiers and volunteers, to the chefs who shifted from fine dining to turning out hot meals and loaves of bread for families in need—food has become a central part of Ukraine's war effort. Food is a weapon, a lifeline, a means of survival. It's also a powerful symbol of national identity and memory for the millions of people who've been forced from their homes.

Timothy M. Gay writes that four-time major champion Rory McIlroy is "golf's ageless Opie Taylor," a superstar whose charm transcends national boundaries and enlivens the game. His swing is so powerful that Tiger Woods is teaching his own son to mimic Rory's action. But a charismatic persona and a pretty swing don't translate into winning championships. Rory has failed to win another major and fallen short of achieving the career Grand Slam. Rory Land tells the saga of a compassionate superstar living in a world where "money has no conscience."

When Rafael Benitez was appointed manager of under-achieving Liverpool at the start of the 2004-05 season, the reaction of many fans was 'Who the **** is Rafael Benitez?'. After a wonderful spell at Valencia, the Spaniard arrived to take over Liverpool's famous Boot Room, determined to change the club's fortunes and win over a disillusioned Kop. Featuring exclusive interviews with Benitez himself, assistant manager Pako Ayestarán and key first-team players, this is the behind-the-scenes story of Rafa's remarkable success with Liverpool.

La Resistenza a lungo è stata considerata solo una "cosa di sinistra": fazzoletto rosso e Bella ciao. Poi, negli ultimi anni, i partigiani sono stati presentati come carnefici sanguinari, che si accanirono su vittime innocenti, i "ragazzi di Salò". Entrambe queste versioni sono parziali e false. La Resistenza non è il patrimonio di una fazione, è un patrimonio della nazione. Aldo Cazzullo lo dimostra raccontando la Resistenza che non si trova nei libri.

Arguing that global communications have fragmented national cultures and that multiculturalism, intended to reduce social frictions, is today reinforcing them, Sacks argues for a new approach to national identity, making the case for "integrated diversity" within a framework of shared political values. Britain, he argues, will have to construct a national narrative as a basis for identity, reinvigorate the concept of the common good, and identify shared interests among currently conflicting groups.

In The First Fleets, Benjamin C. Schaffer reveals how, contrary to widespread beliefs, the American colonies had a long tradition of independent naval defense decades before the Revolution. He demonstrates that Anglo-American governments established and maintained significant provincial naval forces and that the history of provincial navies illuminates broader aspects of colonial history and the colonies' ultimate break with the British Crown. Based on meticulous research, Schaffer recounts the sea-borne threats that American colonies faced from the French, Spanish, pirates, and others.

A true saga that tells of the flight of Paul, his wife Sophia and two young daughters, Tamara, and Isa from their beautiful Black Sea home in Odesa*. He is a wealthy farm-estate owner and holds the sole Mercedes agency for south Russia. The invasion of Russia by Germany in 1914, followed by the Russian revolution in 1919 means they lose everything. In Spring 1919 Lenin announces the Red Terror. This aims at the extermination of all bourgeoisie. Paul and family must flee for their lives.

After the WWII, Germans began a generation-long debate about the status that should be accorded Wehrmacht deserters. The topic would be debated between the two Germanies and engaged survivors and perpetrators, playwrights, and judges, those who had stayed in the ranks and those who had not. Was the Wehrmacht a coward, a victim, or a role model? The book's discussion of this postwar debate explains how and why Germany finally decided to overturn military court-martial verdicts from the Second World War fifty years after its conclusion.

Monatelang brandete 1945 eine Selbstmordwelle durch Deutschland, die Tausende - Frauen, Männer und Kinder - in den Untergang riss. In welchen Abgrund hatten die Menschen geblickt, dass sie angesichts der Befreiung vom Dritten Reich nur im Tod einen Ausweg sahen? Aus der Sicht derer, die das unfassbare Geschehen selbst miterlebt haben, erzählt der Historiker Florian Huber von dem größten Massenselbstmord der deutschen Geschichte und seiner Verdrängung durch die Überlebenden – ein fesselnder Blick auf die Gefühle der kleinen Leute, die in ihren Untergang marschierten.