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This is the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Simon Baker charts the rise and fall of the world's first superpower, focusing on six momentous turning points that shaped Roman history. Welcome to Rome as you've never seen it before—awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. From the conquest of the Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction of the Roman Empire at the hands of barbarian invaders some seven centuries later, we discover the most critical episodes in Roman history.

Bordeaux, 1367. Having angered the bloodthirsty Don Pedro, King of Castile, Sir Thomas Blackstone is thoroughly sick of his mission for the Prince of Wales, but must remain true to his oath. But this is the Hundred Years' War, and tensions are rising once more. With the Prince of Wales deeply unpopular in his Aquitainian lands, Blackstone, King Edward's Master of War, must return to French soil to help stem the tide of support for the King of France. Meanwhile, Henry, Blackstone's son, faces an incognito ride across France with his own motley band of outlaws and mercenaries.

June 1940. Despite losing her mother at a young age and her father away on important war work, 17-year-old Rita Smith has plenty of people to turn to in the close-knit community of Cliffhaven. Until Italy sides with Germany and Rita's closest friends and neighbours are interned as enemies of the state. As war rages across Europe, Rita is more determined than ever to do her bit for the war effort. Although she is forced to give up her dream of joining the WAAF, she volunteers as a fire warden.

A Short History of England sheds light on all the key individuals and events, bringing them together in an enlightening and engaging account of the country's birth, rise to global prominence and then partial eclipse. There have been long synoptic histories of England, but until now there has been no standard short work covering all significant events, themes and individuals.

This superb account of the siege emphasises the crucial importance of the siege while at the same time putting it in a far wider context. While seen as a climactic battle between the West and the East, it was also much more nuanced than that – both sides had many other interests and priorities beyond Malta. Suleiman the Magnificent had conquered and subsumed regions from Hungary to the Persian Gulf; Philip II was building an empire in America and Asia.

What happened when Jane Austen’s heroines and heroes were finally wed? Marriage is at the center of Jane Austen’s novels. The pursuit of husbands and wives, advantageous matches, and, of course, love itself, motivate her characters and continue to fascinate people today. But what were love and marriage like in reality for ladies and gentlemen in Regency England? Rory Muir uncovers the excitements and disappointments of courtship and the pains and pleasures of marriage, drawing on fascinating first-hand accounts as well as novels of the period.

Brought to you by Penguin History is swamped by patriotic myths about the aerial combat fought between the RAF and the Luftwaffe over the summer of 1940. In his gripping history of the Battle of Britain, Len Deighton drew on a decade of research and his own wartime experiences to puncture these...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Gypsy by Lesley Pearse, read by Heather Bleasdale. Gypsy is a compelling historical novel of survival from international number one bestselling author Lesley Pearse. Liverpool, 1893, and tragedy sends Beth Bolton on a journey far from home...

Political intriguers. Abducted nuns who demanded divorces. Murderers. Our princesses have been mothers willing to risk anything for their children, wives who followed their husbands to the very ends of earth, and spinsters who demanded their intellectual and societal freedom. This book explores what it meant to be royal, how sons came to be valued higher than daughters, and just how England might have looked under a royal matriarchy.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER This “excellent, all-embracing” (The New York Times) biography of Queen Elizabeth II is a magisterial study of the woman known only from a distance—and a captivating window into her decades-long reign. From the moment of her ascension to the throne in 1952 at...

Nothing offends liberals more than Western imperialism—it is racism, sexism, and chauvinism all in one. And of course the epitome of Western imperialism is the British Empire, covering at its height a quarter of the globe’s surface and ruling a quarter of the world’s population. Here, best-selling author H. W. Crocker III exposes how the British Empire was actually one of the greatest establishers and defenders of freedom in history.

The OSS - Office of Strategic Services - created under the command of William Donovan, has been celebrated for its cloak-and-dagger operations during World War II and as the precursor of the CIA. As the "Oh So Social", it has also been portrayed as a club for the well-connected before, during, and after the war.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE TIMES BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2025 The death of Edward I in 1307 marked the beginning of a period of intense turmoil and change in England. The fourteenth century ushered in the beginning of the bloody Hundred Years’ War with France, an epic conflict with...

Richard Freiherr von Rosen was a highly decorated Wehrmacht soldier and outstanding panzer commander. After serving as a gunlayer on a Pz.Mk.III during Barbarossa, he led a company of Tigers at Kursk. Later he led a company of King Tiger panzers at Normandy and in late 1944 commanded a battle group (12 King Tigers and a flak company) against the Russians in Hungary in the rank of junior, later senior lieutenant (from November 1944, his final rank). Only 489 of these King Tiger tanks were ever built. 

Imagine a Viking, and a certain image springs to mind: a nameless, faceless warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorise the hapless local population of a northern European country. Yet while such characters define the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. This is the history of all the other people - children, enslaved people, seers, artisans, travellers, writers - who inhabited the medieval Nordic world. For the first time, you can immerse yourself in the day-to-day lives of extraordinary culture which spanned centuries.

As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire.

Now a major film, this is a dramatic reinterpretation of the life of Mary Queen of Scots by one of the leading historians of this period. Who was the real Mary Queen of Scots? The most enigmatic ruler of England lived a life of incredible drama and turmoil: crowned Queen of Scotland at nine...

In Kaput, Wolfgang Münchau argues that the weaknesses of Germany's economy have, in fact, been brewing for decades. The neo-mercantilist policies of the German state, driven by close connections between the country's industrial and political elite, have left Germany technologically behind over-reliant on authoritarian Russia and China—and with little sign of being able to adapt to the digital realities of the 21st century. It is an essential read for anyone interested in the future of Europe's biggest economy.

'ENORMOUS FUN' GUARDIAN 'SO ENTERTAINING' THE TIMES 'GOSSIPY, LIGHT AND FUN' TLS Queen Bees looks at the lives of six remarkable women who made careers out of being society hostesses, including Lady Astor, who went on to become the first female MP, and Mrs Greville, who cultivated relationships...

Here at last is a history of England that is designed to entertain as well as inform and that will delight the armchair traveler, the tourist, or just about anyone interested in history. No people have engendered quite so much acclaim or earned so much censure as the English: extolled as the Athenians of modern times, yet hammered for their self-satisfaction and hypocrisy. But their history has been a spectacular one.