Showing titles in Great Britain

Pocket History: The Troubles chronicles the 30 year long Irish Troubles. It begins right at the start with the first English invasion of Ireland and continues right up until present day, answering the question of what does the legacy of the troubles mean for modern day Irish and British people.

Robert Cecil, statesman and spymaster, lived through an astonishingly threatening period in English history. Queen Elizabeth had no clear successor and enemies both external and internal threatened to destroy England as a Protestant state, most spectacularly with the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot. All His Spies is a wonderfully engaging and original work of history. Many listeners are familiar with the great events of this tumultuous time, but All His Spies shows how easily these dramas could have turned out very differently.

A charismatic leader, a warrior whose prowess in battle earned him the epithet Whiteblade, an exiled prince who returned to claim his birthright, the inspiration for Tolkein's Aragorn: Oswald of Northumbria was the first great English monarch, yet today this legendary figure is all but forgotten. In this panoramic portrait of Dark Age Britain, archaeologist and biographer Max Adams returns the king in the North to his rightful place in history.

Since the days of Adam Smith, economists have grappled with a series of familiar problems - but often their ideas are hard to digest, before we even try to apply them to today's issues. Linda Yueh is renowned for her combination of erudition, as an accomplished economist herself, and accessibility, as a leading writer and broadcaster in this field.

In February, 1815, after nine months in exile, Napoleon Bonaparte, the deposed Emperor of the French, escaped from the Isle of Elba. Seizing the initiative while the European powers bicker amongst themselves at the Congress of Vienna, Napoleon advances towards Belgium with an enormous army, where the combined forces of Prussia and England are cantoned. In Belgium, Captain James Henry Webster has finally returned to a line regiment after being terribly wounded at the Siege of Badajoz three years prior.

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors is the National Archives' official guide and is written in an accessible style from the unique perspective of a custodian of the records. It details all the latest internet developments, including a chapter on family history on the web. It also points to more traditional resources, explaining step by step how to research records of births, marriages, and wills.

Unforgettable as it was, the public response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 was not without precedent. When her great-grandfather King Edward VII - glamorous, cosmopolitan and extraordinarily popular - died in May 1910, the political, social and cultural anxieties of a nation in turmoil were temporarily set aside during a summer of intense and ritualised mourning. In The King Is Dead, Long Live the King! Martin Williams charts a period of tension and transition as one era slipped away and another took shape.

After his sudden rise to power in the summer of 2019 amid the Brexit deadlock, Boris Johnson presided over the most dramatic period of British history in almost a century. From the controversial prorogation of Parliament in August 2019 to the historic landslide victory later that year, the agonising upheaval of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic—and the scandals unleashed by both—the Afghanistan crisis, and the conflict in Ukraine, Johnson's premiership was more turbulent than any other in living memory.

From the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century to the entry into peace talks in the late 20th century, the Northern Irish people have been engaged in conflict - Catholic against Protestant, Republican against Unionist. Marc Mulholland explores the pivotal moments in Northern Irish history - the rise of republicanism in the 1800s, Home Rule and the civil rights movement, the growth of Sinn Fein and the provisional IRA, and of the opposition, the DUP, led by Dr. Ian Paisley.

William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, permanently changing the landscape of the English countryside and the course of English history. No one debates his importance; whether the influence was good or bad is a much more involved conversation. To understand English history over time, it is important to understand the transition from Anglo-Saxon history of the country to the Anglo-Norman control that existed until approximately the 15th century.

Alathea's home life was an unhappy one. Her parents had separated and so during the war she was sent to live with her grandfather, Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent, at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. There Alathea found the affection and harmony she craved as she became a close friend of the two princesses, visiting them often at Windsor Castle, enjoying parties, balls, cinema evenings, picnics and celebrations with the royal family and other members of the court.

Who lived to regret her "deathbed" confession? Was Amelia Dyer mad or wicked? Why did the judiciary look compassionately on women who committed infanticide? Among over 80 women whose stories appear in this book, some were tragic; some were evil; some were mad; and several were undoubtedly innocent of the murders for which they were hanged.

Great Britain? is a much-needed antidote to the pervading sense that Britain is going backwards rather than forwards. It is both a clear-eyed and rigorous diagnosis of the problems facing our country – a unique toxicity of huge inequality and stagnant economic growth – and a hopeful case for reclaiming a different future: by building an investment nation of good work, resilient communities and secure homes, a society in which both burdens and prosperity are shared.

For more than a century, some of the world’s most important thinkers and leaders—men like Arthur Conan Doyle and William Butler Yeats—gathered once a month and discussed the supernatural at The Ghost Club in London. In the early 1900s the club's chairman was Harry Price, the world’s most well-known ghost hunter. He and other members, like Harry Houdini, sought to debunk the charlatans who preyed on vulnerable people with fake seances, tarot readings, and spiritual encounters.

Coffee with Hitler tells the astounding story of how a handful of amateur British intelligence agents wined, dined, and befriended the leading National Socialists between the wars. With support from royalty, aristocracy, politicians, and businessmen, they hoped to use the recently founded Anglo-German Fellowship as a vehicle to civilize and enlighten the Nazis. Straddling the porous border between hard and soft diplomacy, their activities fueled tensions between the amateur and the professional diplomats in both London and Berlin.

The British Army won a convincing series of victories between 1916 and 1918. But by 1939 the British Army was an entirely different animal. The hard-won knowledge, experience and strategic vision that delivered victory after victory in the closing stages of the First World War had been lost. In the inter-war years there was plenty of talking, but very little focus on who Britain might have to fight, and how. Victory to Defeat is a captivating history of the mismanagement of a war-winning army.

Churchill: A Life follows Winston Churchill from his earliest days to his moments of triumph. Here, the drama and excitement of his story are ever-present. Martin Gilbert gives us a vivid portrait, using Churchill's most personal letters and the recollections of his contemporaries, both friends and enemies, to go behind the scenes of some of the stormiest and most fascinating political events of our time.

Almost 2000 years ago, Boudica led the greatest rebellion Britain has ever seen. Within the space of a single blood-soaked year, she united the tribes to deliver blow after devastating blow to the Roman regime, culminating in a brutal, decisive battle. Archaeologist Duncan Mackay has spent a lifetime on the trail of Boudica. Beginning near his home in Norfolk, in the heart of Boudica's tribal territory, he embarks on a journey in the footsteps of Romans and Britons, exploring their villages, towns, forts and roads.

Labour has shifted from the New Left, to New Labour, to Corbynista Labour. Now, it may see power again with a most unlikely group of activists from the 1970s becoming the fourth generation to win power since 1945. Only Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair have won power from a sitting Conservative government. Of the 10 general elections since 1979, Labour has won three, all under Blair. This record of failure, if applied to any other walk of life, would raise the fundamental question of why continue to fight a losing battle?

In December 1936, Britain faced a constitutional crisis that was the gravest threat to the institution of the monarchy since the execution of Charles I. The ruling monarch, Edward VIII, wished to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson and crown her as his queen. His actions scandalised the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the king was rumoured to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary.