British Nonfiction

In Sir Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders British, Sir Tony Robinson takes you on a headlong gallop through time, pointing out all the most important, funny, strange, amazing, entertaining, smelly and disgusting bits about the British! It's history, but not as we know it! Find out everything...

Brought to you by Penguin. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that interrogates the pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe...

Join Zakia Sewell on a journey across Britain, uncovering hidden stories, ancient rituals, and a side of the nation you've never heard before Zakia Sewell is on a quest for another Britain. Traversing the length and breadth of our island from Somerset to Scotland, she's seeking out a different...

'Tony is the real deal.' Andy McNab Sierra Leone, 2000. While on patrol as part of a peacekeeping mission, eleven British soldiers are kidnapped. The captors are a dangerous rebel group known as the West Side Boys. Fuelled by alcohol and drugs, the behaviour of the rebels is notoriously...

Brought to you by Penguin. Roger Deakin set out in 1996 to swim through the British Isles. The result a uniquely personal view of an island race and a people with a deep affinity for water. From the sea, from rock pools, from rivers and streams, tarns, lakes, lochs, ponds, lidos, swimming pools...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman, read by Patience Tomlinson. How to be a Victorian - a time traveller's guide to Victorian Britain by the BBC's Ruth Goodman We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner...

Brought to you by Penguin. What if climate change isn’t an environmental challenge, but an energy challenge? In this visionary book, Dr Tim Gregory urges us to rethink the path to net zero. He argues that the solution to climate change lies not simply in replacing fossil fuels with renewables...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Tanya Reynolds, star of Sex Education. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Fiona Stafford. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane...

Brought to you by Penguin. Churchill. Hitler. Stalin. Mussolini. Roosevelt. Five of the most impactful leaders of WW2, each with their own individualistic and idiosyncratic approach to warfare. But if we want to understand their military strategy, we must first understand the strategist. In THE...

How, for just over a century, Britain ensured it would not face another Napoleon Bonaparte—manipulating European powers while building a global maritime empire At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, a fragile peace emerged in Europe. The continent's borders were redrawn, and the French...

The dramatic, absolutely outrageous story of Caroline of Brunswick, a beloved icon of the Regency era, who uplifted the voice of the public and unabashedly defied society’s expectations, yet was shockingly robbed of her crown, from the host of the Vulgar History podcast. Caroline Amelia...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Appeasing Hitler by Tim Bouverie, read by John Sessions. 'Appeasing Hitler is an astonishingly accomplished debut. Bouverie writes with a wonderful clarity and we will no doubt hear a lot more of his voice in future' ANTONY BEEVOR On a wet afternoon...

Brought to you by Penguin. A vivid and visceral portrayal of the most famous naval battle in history, focusing on the human cost of war, by a brilliant military historian At or about 1.15 in the afternoon of 21 October 1805, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson was struck by a 22-gramme, 15-millimetre...

Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book, Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarization and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity, and diversity.  

The monumental struggle fought against Imperial Japan in the Asia/Pacific theater during World War II is primarily viewed as an American affair. While the United States did play a dominant role, the British and Commonwealth forces also made major contributions. It was a difficult and often desperate conflict fought against a skilled and ruthless enemy that initially saw the British suffer the worst series of defeats ever to befall their armed forces.

A groundbreaking history of modern Britain that puts the experiences of disabled people to the fore for the first time. Despite there being more than 16 million disabled people in the UK today, disability rarely features in mainstream accounts of our past. That absence is not down to lack of...

Brought to you by Penguin. Over the last decade, Britain has been rocked by a series of political revolts. The rise of national populism, the vote for Brexit, Boris Johnson's emphatic 2019 election victory, the fall of Labour's Red Wall, and the emergence of a very different brand of...

In the early morning of 20th April 1949, HMS Amethyst was fulfilling orders to travel to Nanking to stand guard for the British Embassy during the height of the Chinese Civil War when she was fired upon by guns from the riverbank. Shells pounded into the ship, killing the commanding officer and destroyed the bridge before the ship grounded on the bank. How did the Amethyst escape the battering of Chinese Communist guns?

Brought to you by Penguin. This book tells the story of Mearsdon, the house where Ian Mortimer lives in Moretonhampstead, on the edge of Dartmoor. We very rarely have a continuous account of a particular place over a long stretch of history, but Mortimer has a documentary record of all the...

Brought to you by Penguin. The story of the last generation of British miners: fathers and sons, brothers and comrades, big hitters and broken men, strikers and scabs. Mining Men explores how these men felt when the pits were closed and what happened next, including former miners who became...