Europe

A classic book now available on audio With narration by Phyllida Nash, who gives a captivating account of the legendary empire that made the modern Western world possible Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism—gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils...

The first joint biography of the women who have shaped - and shaken - the modern Royal Family. Diana. Camilla. Catherine. Meghan. Outsiders by birth, insiders by marriage. Four women united by their decision to enter the most famous family in the world, and by their place in the centre of its...

*THE SENSATIONAL NEW ROYAL BIOGRAPHY FROM THE NO.1 BESTSELLING INVESTIGATIVE BIOGRAPHER, TOM BOWER* 'Juicy... A Bower news bomb is always something of a publishing event' Tina Brown, Observer 'Explosive' - The Times 'A fascinating read' - Evening Standard 'Sensational... A brutal, forensic...

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. But who was the real James Cook? This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and...

Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the twentieth century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how...

Bloomsbury presents The Last Viking by Don Hollway, read by Mark Meadows. ‘The Last Viking is a masterful and pulse-pounding narrative that transports the reader into the middle of the action.’ Carl Gnam, Military Heritage Harald Sigurdsson burst into history as a teenaged youth in a Viking...

'The bloodstained drama of the last decades of the Roman republic... is told afresh with tremendous wit, narrative verve and insight' 'I owe a debt of gratitude to Tom Holland not just for reminding me of the great figures who bestrode the Roman world - Pompey and Crassus, Cato, Cicero and...

Bestselling classical historian Barry Strauss delivers “an exceptionally accessible history of the Roman Empire…much of Ten Caesars reads like a script for Game of Thrones” (The Wall Street Journal)—a summation of three and a half centuries of the Roman Empire as seen through the lives...

In an attempt to appeal to the Medici family during the Italian Renaissance, Machiavelli outlines the way to acquire and retain political power, and how great men should behave in a princely government....

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

For Australians, Kokoda is the iconic battle of World War II, yet few people know just what happened and just what our troops achieved....

The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in Australian history. New York, 1874. Members of the Clan-na-Gael - agitators for Irish freedom from the English yoke - hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote...

Few queens of England are as famous as Anne Boleyn. Yet, who was this woman? What was her life like before Henry VIII became infatuated with her? And just how influential was she in reshaping English religious and political life during the early years of the Reformation? Marie Louise Bruce's...

In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person.....

Bloomsbury presents The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, read by Sid Sagar. THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 A...

Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat....

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 and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. But Morant was a complicated man. Born in...

The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide....

In the early days of April 1941, the 14,000 Australian forces garrisoned in the Libyan town of Tobruk were told to expect reinforcements and supplies within eight weeks...

Ghost Empire is a rare treasure - an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller....

At the dawn of the last millennium, Europe was among the world's stagnant regions, with illiteracy, starvation, and disease the norm for almost everyone...

Bloomsbury presents Warsaw: A City at War, 1939–45 by Prit Buttar and Lottie Taylor read by James Parsons Discover the history of Warsaw’s six-year struggle through the devastation of war and the city’s enduring spirit. In Warsaw: A City at War 1939–45, historians Prit Buttar and Lottie...

‘Paddy’ Mayne was one of the most outstanding special forces leaders of the Second World War. Hamish Ross’s authoritative study follows Mayne from solicitor and a rugby international to troop commander in the Commandos and then the SAS, whose leader he later became and whose annals he...

The definitive history of the Vikings - from arts and culture to politics and cosmology - by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise The Viking Age - from 750 to 1050 saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders...

A BBC History Magazine and Aspects of History Book of the Year 2025 'Terrific – full of drama … it has profoundly altered my understanding of the Second World War' PATRICK BISHOP FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SBS COMES AN EPIC HISTORY OF THE ALLIED VICTORY IN NORTH AFRICA...

Join Stephen Fry as he delves in to the secrets of one of the most extraordinary monarchs in one of our most extraordinary eras in English history. A woman in a man’s world. And not just any woman – but Elizabeth I, one of the greatest and most secretive monarchs of all time. This queen realised that her sex, far from being a weakness, could be deployed as a strength. It’s not an overstatement to say that England’s politics, religion, and culture have all been shaped by what she did and said. And what she kept secret. This wasn’t just a time of poets, playwrights and poachers.

'What is it that makes the history of the Second World War so compelling? Why are the Afflicted afflicted? With these chapters we hope to offer some idea of our approach to, and understanding of, the war, while never forgetting the tumult and terror that came with defeating tyranny. Maybe you...

Bloomsbury presents Warsaw: A City at War, 1939–45 by Prit Buttar and Lottie Taylor read by James Parsons Discover the history of Warsaw’s six-year struggle through the devastation of war and the city’s enduring spirit. In Warsaw: A City at War 1939–45, historians Prit Buttar and Lottie...

"This dazzling book is full of brilliant detail, behind-the-scenes wit and humor, and a great tenderness for her subjects. All seen through the lens of Lucy Worsley's career working as Chief Curator at Hampton Court, her scholarship, passion for her subject and deep knowledge is lightly worn...

Explorer, soldier, statesman, writer, key to the English Renaissance—Sir Walter Ralegh fashioned his life as a work of art. Exposing the tensions and contradictions of Renaissance England, Stephen Greenblatt presents Sir Walter Ralegh as a symbol of his age. The interplay between life and art...

Operation Mincemeat is the story of a handful of men who believed in using their imaginations to help the Allies defeat the Axis Powers during the Second World War. Their plan was to dupe the Germans into relocating troops away from Sicily, the Allies' true target, as part of the larger deception known as Operation Barclay. Members of Britain's intelligence services hit upon the audacious idea of planting a dead body to deliver false information to the Germans, convincing Hitler that Greece and Sardinia, not Sicily, were next.

Bloomsbury presents Osprey Campaign Series: Stalingrad 1942-43 (2): The Fight for the City by Robert Forczyk, read by Phillipe Bosher The second in a three-part series examining the Stalingrad campaign, one of the most decisive military operations in World War II, that set the stage for the...

Bloomsbury presents Osprey Campaign Series: Stalingrad 1942-43 (2): The Fight for the City by Robert Forczyk, read by Phillipe Bosher The final part in a three-book series on the Battle of Stalingrad, examining the Soviet encirclement, German relief efforts, and the final surrender of Paulus’...

Bloomsbury presents Osprey Campaign Series: Stalingrad 1942-43 (1): The German Advance to the Volga by Robert Forczyk, read by Phillipe Bosher The first in a three-book series examining the Stalingrad campaign, one of the most decisive military operations in World War II that set the stage for...

The Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini was killed in 1945, his body exhibited upside down in Milan before an angry crowd. The repudiation by the people of the dictator who had led them to disaster was complete. But his story did not end there. The Duce continued to live on thanks to a legacy...

William Pitt the Younger sometimes gets lost in the historical shuffle, overshadowed by his famous father and the drama of Napoleon Bonaparte in France. But few prime ministers in any country have left a deeper mark. Taking office at just 24 years old, making him the youngest prime minister in world history, he spent nearly two decades reshaping Britain's finances and steering it through a war that would define a generation. He might not have been a smooth operator, but he was certainly a shrewd one.

Bloomsbury presents Aelfred's Britain by Max Adams, read by Kris Dyer. The story of Aelfred the Great, his war against the Vikings and the foundations of modern Britain. In AD 865, a 'great host' of battle-hardened Norse warriors landed on England's eastern coast, overwhelmed East Anglia with...

In September 1944, the Allies seized Antwerp in Belgium, the largest deep-water port in northwestern Europe at the time. It should have been a great boon. The Scheldt River was wide enough and deep enough to bring ocean-going supply ships from the North Sea directly into the heart of the Allied advance, finally easing the logistics crisis that had slowed the march toward Germany. However, the port was useless without control of the Scheldt Estuary, a 60-mile (100-kilometer) waterway connecting Antwerp to the sea.

A Pulitzer Prize Winner and landmark book from one of the truly original scholars of our time: a magnificent revelation of turn-of-the-century Vienna where out of a crisis of political and social disintegration so much of modern art and thought was born. "Not only is it a splendid exploration of...

An American historian and a German sociologist seek answers from those who lived through Nazi Germany: how did the country stand by while one of the biggest genocides in history took place? “A very important book.” —Financial Times The horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust still...

Bloomsbury presents The Stay Behinds: Sweden's Cold War Guardians written and read by Johan Wennström Packed with first-hand accounts and previously classified government documents, this book reveals the secrets of Sweden's resistance network, created to deter a potential Soviet occupation...

The story of Artemisia, formidable queen of the Greek city-state of Halicarnassus, that counters longstanding misconceptions about women's roles in antiquity Herodotus's listeners never doubted that Artemisia I of Caria had commanded a fleet in the naval Battle of Salamis. After all, she was the...

Ireland and India seem far apart, with apparently little in common in terms of culture, language, and tradition. Yet appearances can be deceiving: there are, in fact, remarkable similarities between the cultures that, once noticed, are impossible to ignore. They point to a shared kinship thousands of years ago that upends the concept of separation between Eastern and Western cultures.

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. How did a solitary, taciturn young man of humble origins transform into the military strategist who rewrote the history of Europe? Immerse yourself in the life of the man who forged an epic destiny through this revealing audiobook. From the wild...

Step into an atmospheric historical fiction adventure where a fierce shield-maiden faces a looming Viking raid. As dawn breaks over the icy shores, the scent of hearth smoke and sea spray signals a day of brutal survival. For listeners seeking a gritty, immersive escape during a busy commute...

"A bold and glorious book . . . brilliantly crafted at the level of the sentence and image, adventurous in its forms and tones, and its themes—memory, love, loss, care, value—are as embracing and urgent as they come. It’s magnificent."—Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive? My...

Witness the dawn of a cultural revolution where radical art and cutthroat politics shattered the dark Middle Ages. Perfect for an intellectually stimulating morning commute, this immersive historical journey transports you straight to the bustling streets of Florence and Venice. Experience the...

Told through the natural beauty of the Irish landscape, The Wind Beneath the Stone is an inspirational story of hope and community that reveals how a simple challenge can take on a life of its own. When world kettle-bell lifting champion David Keohan heard the old tales of stone-lifting, he was...

A new history of the Renaissance's greatest feat of exploration: Sir Walter Ralegh's search for the legendary city of El Dorado, by New York Times bestselling author David Gibbins. In 1594, English adventurer Sir Walter Ralegh heard the story of a lost city in South America from a Spanish...

Dive into the ancient history of the Roman Empire's collapse, exploring centuries of political decay and warfare. Perfect for an engaging commute, this immersive narrative makes complex history instantly accessible. Feel the tremors of a superpower crumbling as internal rivalries fracture the...