History

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws....

When Autobiography of a Yogi first appeared in 1946, it was acclaimed as a landmark work in its field....

This is the incredible true story of a Galilean stonemason who changed the course of the world forever. He lived and died over 2,000 years ago, fulfilling expectations that existed long before his birth.

‘Stop screaming, I'm scared too!' is not what you'd expect to see on the back of a loadmaster's helmet in a Chinook helicopter flying over southern Afghanistan, but for Rod Henderson it sums up his 22 years of service as a soldier in the Australian Army.

In a quiet Sydney street in 1937, a seven-year-old immigrant boy drowned in a ditch that had filled with rain after being left unfenced by council workers. How the law should deal with the trauma of the family’s loss was one of the most complex cases to reach Australia’s High Court....

Forged in Fire takes us inside the secretive world of the Australian commandos.

When raised to the level of art, seduction, an indirect and subtle form of power....

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

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.

The iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller....

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history....

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

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....

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice

An intellectual detective story, this history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain....

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

Hailed by critics as an American masterpiece, David McCullough's sweeping biography of Harry S. Truman captured the heart of the nation....

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave.

Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity....

Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world....

Harry Potter: A History of Magic reveals some of the hidden stories behind real-world magic and explores some of J.K. Rowling's magical inventions alongside their folkloric, cultural and historical forebears....

January 1991. IRAQ. Eight members of the SAS regiment embark upon a top secret mission to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines....

The past truly comes alive as you take a series of imaginative leaps into the world of history's anonymous citizens....

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

Late one evening investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data....

Borneo: The Last Campaign tells the story of Operation OBOE, the massive, three-pronged assault on the vast Japanese-held island of Borneo in 1945. It was one of the largest amphibious invasions of the entire war, and a virtually all-Australian operation. Over the final twelve weeks of World War Two, the 1st Australian Army Corps chased down and fought the remnants of the Japanese army over burning oil fields, up languid tropical rivers, along leech-ridden jungle tracks and across endless hills, valleys and ridges.

Tyler Grey was the epitome of the warrior archetype: a Delta Force operator, a master of counterterrorism. He hunted the worst bullies on the world’s playground—high-value targets, bomb makers, warlords—executing covert missions that never made the news. He had perfected the persona—ruthless, efficient, untouchable—until one mission in Sadr City, Iraq changed everything. Stripped of everything that defined him, Tyler reached for chaos: sex, substances, a romance that was either a love worth fighting for or his ultimate kryptonite. But beneath it all, the hunger for chaos never died.

When the Germans took thousands of Allied prisoners during the catastrophic Greek campaign of 1941, a handful of Australian soldiers escaped from prison trains in occupied Yugoslavia. What awaited them was not passage home, but a brutal underground war where the fate of a nation was at stake. Told through the eyes of two of the Australian escapees - mineworker Ross Sayers and storeman Ronald Jones - Anzac Guerrillas is the incredible true story of how these men became resistance fighters, double agents and spies, evading the Nazis and exposing a group of genocidal collaborators.

Jews vs. Rome is a gripping account of one of the most momentous eras in human history: the two hundred years of ancient Israel’s battles against Rome that reshaped Judaism and gave rise to Christianity. Barry Strauss vividly captures the drama of this era, highlighting the courageous yet tragic uprisings, the geopolitical clash between the empires of Rome and Persia, and the internal conflicts among Jews.

Waking The Giant takes you inside one of the most extraordinary revival acts in modern football, from the last-minute takeover by billionaire duo Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens which saved the club, through the promotion and equally remarkable Premier League survival inspired by boyhood supporter Dean Smith, right up to the present day and their return to the European elite under Unai Emery.

Kurz vor einem Turnier kommt der Falkner der gastgebenden Markgrafschaft Baden tragisch ums Leben. Alles sieht nach einem Unfall aus, doch der Vogelhändler Theobald und Walther von der Vogelweide, als Bote König Philipps unterwegs, vermuten ein Komplott und begeben sich auf die gefährliche Suche nach dem Mörder. Als die Gastgeber nur knapp einem Anschlag entkommen, sich auf der Hochburg die Unfälle häufen und eine geheimnisvolle Fremde Wunden der Vergangenheit aufreißt, beginnt ein Wettlauf mit der Zeit.

Most people picture archaeologists digging through dirt in search of ancient artifacts and lost cities. And sometimes that’s exactly right—as at the mound of Troy, where excavations suggest there may be truth behind Homer’s tales. But archaeology is much more than excavation. It blends science, history, and detective work, using tools like CT scans, astronomical modeling, and even cryptographic analysis to solve puzzles from across the ages.

In this insightful book, the author examines the exploitation that Korea endured during the period of Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945. The book sheds light on economic, resource, and labor exploitation, highlighting the lasting impact of Japan's control on Korea. It also explores the resistance movements that emerged in response to this exploitation and the subsequent efforts to rebuild Korea after liberation.

The full story of an industry, a city, and two men—one who got everything he ever wanted, one who never got what he thought he deserved—and what happened the night it all came apart.

On a thrilling whistle-stop tour of how the world's criminal underbelly has shaped state-making, capitalism, globalisation and all forms of so-called legitimate power, Homo Criminalis shows the emergence of modern society through the evolution of the underworld and its crimes. From Chinese banditry and eighteenth-century English tea smuggling to today's cocaine submarines and the high-tech crimes of tomorrow, this book shows us how the world's dark underbelly shapes us, no matter how we try to outpace it.

In this remarkable narrative history, acclaimed author Mark Urban tells the story of World War II through the eyes of this brave regiment. In many ways, the fighting Fifth's journey reflects Britain - early losses turned to eventual victory through ingenuity, daring and exceptional bravery.

Through raw and compelling testimonies from both sides of the community, Dillon explores the overlooked perspectives of women whose lives were impacted by the brutal conflict. Some were directly involved in violence as members of paramilitary organisations. Many witnessed the ruthless murders of family members. All were profoundly and irrevocably affected by the violence and its aftermath.

In this panoramic account, Nir Arielli explores the history of the Dead Sea from the first Neolithic settlements to the present day. Moving through the ages, Arielli reveals the religious, economic, military, and scientific importance of the lake, which has been both a source of great wealth and a site of war. The Dead Sea weaves together a tapestry of the lake's human stories—and amidst environmental degradation and renewed conflict, makes a powerful case for why it should be saved.

Grego Casanova, historiador, periodista y youtuber, revela con gran pulso narrativo y rigor en las páginas de este libro lo que nunca te contaron de una contienda que hasta el final fue destrucción, discordia y sangre. Ochenta años después del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, son muchos los episodios y secretos que se guardaron a toda prisa en favor de la reconstrucción del mundo.

A defense technology expert and military leader reveals the future of robotic warfare, and illuminates the path to navigate the approaching storm of global change.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Leon Trotsky, Reinhard Heydrich, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Osama bin Laden, Qasem Soleimani: assassination—the murder of a specific individual by an organized conspiracy in pursuit of political ends—has rarely failed to grip the imagination. In this incisive new history, Simon Ball shows how targeted political murder has become a tool of democratic states but also a key strategy of those who wish to topple them.

They arrived in Annapolis as teenagers the year Hitler re-occupied the Rhineland and graduated as young men the week the British Army evacuated Dunkirk. Annapolis Goes to War tells the story of their transformative years at the Naval Academy and the annealing years in the cauldron of war. More than a hundred of them were on duty in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Ten of them died that day—seven remain entombed in the USS Arizona still.

What if human cloning isn’t a modern discovery, but an ancient technology rediscovered? Long before modern science, civilisations like the Sumerians and the Anunnaki may have practiced genetic manipulation, creating humanity as engineered slaves for labour and obedience, not children of gods. Myths like Adam and Eve and divine bloodlines could be encoded records of this lost history. Occultists like John Dee weren’t just dabbling in magic, they sought to create life, continuing a hidden tradition of cloning.

Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier tell the Denisovans’ story in The Secret World of Denisovans. Leading us through the excavation of Denisova cave, the sequencing of the Denisovan genome, and recent research on Denisovan fossils, Condemi and Savatier uncover how the Denisovans migrated to Asia, who they interacted with along the way, and why traces of Denisovan DNA can be found in modern-day humans.

Does Plato matter? An ancient philosopher whose work has inspired and informed countless thinkers and poets across the centuries, his ideas are no longer taught as widely as they once were. But, as Angie Hobbs argues in this clear-sighted book, that is a mistake. If we want to understand the world we live in – from democracy, autocracy and fake news to celebrity, cancel culture and what money can and cannot do – there is no better place to start than Plato.

Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands is the bold, witty memoir of Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse and businesswoman who defied racism and sexism to care for soldiers during the Crimean War in the 1850s. Writing in her own voice, Seacole recounts her travels across the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe, sharing vivid stories of healing, hardship, and independence.

In the 1980s, Phil Bellfy pondered the question: Why does Sault, Ontario, appear to be so prosperous, while the "Sault" on the American side has fallen into such a deplorable state? Could the answer be that the "American side" was little more than a "resource colony"--or to use the academic jargon of "Conflict and Change" Sociology--an "Internal Colony."

In Vietnam, the sweeping history of the nation unfolds—from its earliest origins to the present day. Across millennia, emperors, revolutionaries, religious leaders, and foreign powers have all left indelible and often complex marks on this dynamic land. Successive periods of Chinese domination, French colonization, and Japanese occupation brought profound changes, shaping Vietnam’s political, cultural, and social landscape.

Charlotte is a tale of one city, a meditation and inquiry into the inner life of one Southern metro of 2.6 million. It is also a story of life in cities across America. It is about a profound and prevalent experience of daily life, yet so seldom acknowledged or allowed expression, it has no name. This book calls it Soul, referring to Sense of Place, Home, the universal and innate need of people to form attachment to and shape where they live.