History Books

Book Synopsis''A triumphant family memoir'' Hallie Rubenhold''Powerfully told...an impressive work'' The Times''Gives a voice to the voiceless'' Australian Book ReviewIn this remarkable book, Carmen Callil discovers the story of her British ancestors, beginning with her great-great grandmother Sary Lacey, born in 1808, an impoverished stocking frame worker. Through detailed research, we follow Sary from slum to tenement and from pregnancy to pregnancy. We also meet George Conquest, a canal worker and the father of one of Sary''s children. George was sentenced - for a minor theft - to seven years'' transportation to Australia, where he faced the extraordinary brutality of convict life.But for George, as for so many disenfranchised British people like him, Australia turned out to be his Happy Day. He survived, prospered and eventually returned to England, where he met Sary again, after nearly thirty years. He brought her out to Australia, and they were never parted again.A miracle of research and fuelled by righteous anger, Oh Happy Day is a story of Empire, migration and the inequality and injustice of nineteenth-century England.''A remarkable tale...drawing chilling parallels to the inequalities of our times'' ObserverTrade Review[A] remarkable tale...drawing chilling parallels to the inequalities of our time... A book that is both a heartfelt outpouring of pity and sorrow and an irate demand for restitution... Oh Happy Day deserves to be called Dickensian. -- Peter Conrad * Observer *Fascinating... [Oh Happy Day] evokes echoes of the present in speaking about the past, as all great works of history do. It's a gripping narrative. -- Erica Wagner * Harper's Bazaar *Oh Happy Day gives a voice to the voiceless and adds another major work to Carmen Callil's formidable achievements. -- Brenda Niall * Australian Book Review *Oh Happy Day is a phenomenal achievement... The book covers great swathes of history... These are intriguing stories. -- Dani Garavelli * Herald Scotland *An absorbing account of empire, migration, the poverty of injustice and enduring love... The book bristles with Callil's righteous anger at the injustices meted out to her forbears, and at the parallels for our own times. -- Caroline Sanderson * The Bookseller *

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Book SynopsisNothing experienced in human history, before or since, eclipses the terror, tragedy and scale of the Black Death, the disease which killed millions of people in Medieval Europe. The Scourging Angel tells the story of Britain immediately before, during and after this catastrophe. Against a backdrop of empty homes, half-built cathedrals and pestilence-saturated cities, we see communities gripped by unimaginable fear, shock and paranoia. By the time it completed its pestilential journey through the British Isles in 1350, the Black Death had left half the population dead. Despite the startling toll of life, physical devastation and sheer human chaos it inflicted, Britain showed an impressive resilience. Amid disaster many found opportunity, and the story of the Black Death is ultimately one of survival.Trade ReviewThis remarkable, ambitious book by a new, young historian is positive about the new society that survived disaster * The Times *Benedict Gummer's highly impressive book charts the subsequent spread of the disease in meticulous and terrible detail * Sunday Telegraph *A rich, thoughtful and utterly riveting historical narrative... A treasure chest of detail * Daily Telegraph *A fearsomely ambitious book from an exciting new writer... A compelling and sobering picture of a world - peopled with kings, soldiers, bishops, peasants - that is both remote and familiar -- Simon Russel BealeThe enormous value of Gummer's book, for all its apparent narrowness of focus, is that it concentrates attention on the plague as an episode in the Hundred Years War and the new mercantilism that was opening up northern seas and nations to world trade - (a) fine book * Herald *

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Book SynopsisThis is the incredible rise and unbelievable fall of a woman whose energy and ambition is often overshadowed by Napoleon's military might. In this triumphant biography, Kate Williams tells Josephine's searing story, of sexual obsession, politics and surviving as a woman in a man's world.Abandoned in Paris by her aristocratic husband, Josephine''s future did not look promising. But while her friends and contemporaries were sent to the guillotine during the Terror that followed the Revolution, she survived prison and emerged as the doyenne of a wildly debauched party scene, surprising everybody when she encouraged the advances of a short, marginalised Corsican soldier, six years her junior. Josephine, the fabulous hostess and skilled diplomat, was the perfect consort to the ambitious but obnoxious Napoleon. With her by his side, he became the greatest man in Europe, the Supreme Emperor; and she amassed a jewellery box with more diamonds than Marie Antoinette's. But as Trade ReviewKate Williams' entrancing biography of Josephine is a sparkling account of this most fallible and endearing of women. * Daily Mail *Williams is the Cole Porter of 18th century history. Her serious and thorough investigation is presented in an accessible and playful way. * The Times *A whirlwind tour of French history. -- Virginia Rounding * Telegraph *Scintillating . . . Williams illuminates [Josephine's character] with skill. * Country Life *

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Book SynopsisA vivid, brutal and enthralling account of the Burma Campaign – one of the most punishing and hard-fought military adventures of World War Two.The Burma Campaign was one of the most punishing and protracted military adventures of World War Two.Trade ReviewEpic...a comprehensive and engrossing account -- Brian MacArthur * Literary Review *McLynn gives an honest, gruelling account of the longest most punishing campaign fought by the British during the Second World War -- Iain Finlayson * The Times *Easily one of the best books he has written in a long and distinguished career... A marvellous subject, too -- Trevor Royle * Sunday Herald *Magnificent...a closely woven, tightly argued and beautifully written account of the extraordinary men and women who were responsible for the higher direction of the war... This book delights, page after page. McLynn held me spellbound -- Robert Lyman * BBC History Magazine *A riveting read -- Christopher Sylvester * Daily Express *

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Book SynopsisPhilip Parker was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He has travelled widely including the whole length of the Roman frontier and large parts of the Viking World. He is the author of The Empire Stops Here: A Journey Along the Frontiers of the Roman World, published by Jonathan Cape in 2009.www.philipparker.netTrade ReviewIt is quite a feat to write history this good... Everyone who visits the British Museum's Viking exhibition should go clutching a copy of this engaging and splendidly written book. -- Dan Jones * Sunday Times *Parker has a traveller's eye for landscape and a storyteller's sense of events and character; The Northmen's Fury is probably the most lively and well-informed introduction to the subject available today. * New Statesman *Particularly fascinating... [Parker] proves expert at treading a delicate line between scholarship and his relish for the fantastical. -- Tom Holland * The Times *This book is a treasury with treats galore. Lucid, comprehensive, it is a work of reference which deserves to become a classic. * Historical Novel Society *Perfectly timed for the forthcoming British Museum exhibition. * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisBerlin was the nerve-centre of Hitler's Germany - the backdrop for the most lavish ceremonies, it was also the venue for Albert Speer's plans to forge a new 'world metropolis' and the scene of the final climactic bid to defeat Nazism.Trade ReviewRoger Moorhouse has a deep knowledge of Wartime Germany... Moorhouse has a nice eye for social detail -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *As a leading historian of modern Germany, Moorhouse has chronicled a largely unknown story with scholarship, narrative verve and, at times, an awful, harrowing immediacy -- Ian Thompson * Sunday Telegraph *Moorhouse's evocative social history of Hitler's capital brings all these aromas together, along with the sights, sounds, thoughts and feelings of the ordinary Germans who lived here -- Keith Lowe * Daily Telegraph *Few books on the war genuinely increase the sum of our collective knowledge of this exhaustively covered period, but this one does... By trawling through the complex, often deeply morally compromised personal stories of many survivors, Moorhouse has produced new insights into the way ordinary Berliners tried to escape the disastrous ill-fortune of living in the belly of the beast -- Andrew Roberts * Financial Times *Roger Moorhouse's measured, sympathetic book offers a fascinating corrective to that Anglocentric perspective... After reading this thorough and engaging book you'll never be able to watch a war film or even a World Cup football match in quite the same way -- James Delingpole * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisThe last years of the nineteenth century saw the birth of a new phenomenon: international terrorism. Bombings and assassinations shook the great cities of Europe and America, threatening social order. Fiendish networks of anarchist conspiritors were blamed and the public whipped into a frenzy of anxiety. The reality was rather different. These dramatic events were only the most visible part of a longer, clandestine struggle waged between the forces of revolution and reaction, in which little was as it seemed. Alex Butterworth interweaves group biography, cultural history and meticulous detective work to create a revelatory account of the age. Both intimate and panoramic, it is a story with uncanny resonances for today.Trade ReviewExhilarating...almost any paragraph packs more action than an entire Dan Brown novel * Financial Times *Butterworth has created an impressive work which will captivate those unfamiliar with anarchist history and teach even specialists much that they did not know before * Independent *Compelling and insightful... The World That Never Was is a compelling narrative history both of a generation of demonised and battered - but optimistic - revolutionaries...and of the political police forces ranged against them -- Stuart Christie * Guardian *A rich and passionate account of the world's first international terrorist campaign... Brilliant... A thrilling and important book * Sunday Times *One of the most absorbing depictions of the dark underside of radical politics in many years...a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters * New Statesman *

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Book Synopsis**NOW A HIT STAGE PRODUCTION**Take a journey around the archaeological and cultural remains of Roman Britain with the award-winning author of Greek Myths. This is a book about the encounter with Roman Britain: about what the idea of ''Roman Britain'' has meant to those who came after Britain''s 400-year stint as province of Rome - from the medieval mythographer-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edward Elgar and W.H. Auden. What does Roman Britain mean to us now? How were its physical remains rediscovered and made sense of? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Charlotte Higgins has traced these tales by setting out to discover the remains of Roman Britain for herself, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a splendid, though not particularly reliable, VW camper van. Via accounts of some of Britain''s most intriguing, and often unjustly overlooked ancient monuments, Under Another Sky invites us to see the British Trade ReviewWonderfully written and full of unexpected facts. Higgins brings Roman Britain into the present. -- Richard SennettBeautifully crafted… The beauty of this book is not just in the elegant prose and the precision with which she skewers her myths. It is in the sympathy that she shows for the myth-makers, the men and woman who so very much wanted their very own Roman Britain. -- Peter Stothard * The Times *Mesmerising… Sophisticated and passionate. She personalizes the story in a diaristic, almost poetic tone…her prose reminds me at times of W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn…similarly haunted by a sense of a past slipping away. -- Tim Whitmarsh * Guardian *Smart and up-to-date, sensitive but hard-headed, impeccably researched but gloriously poetic. The layering of themes, moods and topics is staggering. There's nothing like quite it. -- Tom Holland, author of 'Rubicon' and 'Persian Fire'Under Another Sky should be on every shelf in the UK. Part travelogue, part handbook and part revisionist history, it is a personal and vivid encounter with landscapes, artefacts and people… Beautifully considered and written. -- Ruth Padel * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisDr Ian Mortimer is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England and The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England, as well as four critically acclaimed medieval biographies, and numerous scholarly articles on subjects ranging in date from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998. His work on the social history of medicine won the Alexander Prize (2004) and was published by the Royal Historical Society in 2009. He lives with his wife and three children in Moretonhampstead, on the edge of Dartmoor.Trade ReviewMortimer's book roars, races and sings... with a sense of passion and drama and an unrelenting pace * Daily Telegraph *Ian Mortimer's exacting standards of scholarship mean that this book will undoubtedly remain the standard authority on its subject * Independent on Sunday *A compelling page-turner -- Alison Weir * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisIsrael: Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel.Trade ReviewIntelligent, sympathetic, resonant and accessible -- Nick Hornby * Sunday Times *Outstanding... Unblinkingly harsh, this journey is also, in its sheer honesty and decency, a work of hope * Observer *The Yellow Wind established Grossman as one of Israel's finest political writers. His latest examination of the Palestinian tragedy is of equal quality, sympathetic without being patronising, sensitive to the point of pain -- Robert Fisk * Independent *A writer of passionate self-honesty, unafraid to ask terrible questions -- Nadine GordimerA fine, sympathetic book... Its insights reverberate far beyond the Middle East * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisA powerful prescient memoir of life in 1970s Britain for a child of Windrush generation parents. ''This book is a classic'' Sunday TelegraphTo his fellow West Indians who assemble every weekend for the all-night poker game at Mrs Knight''s, he is always known as Bageye. There aren''t very many black men in Luton in 1972 and most of them gather there: Summer Wear, Pioneer, Anxious, Tidy Boots - each has his nickname. Bageye already finds it a struggle to feed his family on his wage from Vauxhall Motors, but now his wife Blossom has set her heart on her sons going to private school and she will not settle for anything less.This is the story of a father seen through the eyes of his ten-year-old son. It's a wry and gentle comedy about unfulfilling day jobs and late night poTrade ReviewI loved every word * Independent *[A] vivid and bittersweet window into a vanished world of 1970s suburbia * Metro *A quietly unforgettable book * Guardian *A fabulous example of storytelling * Glasgow Herald *A classic * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisGranite, a tough composite of quartz, feldspar and mica, is the stuff of Dartmoor, the most formidable of the five granite bosses punctuating Britain's southwest peninsula. A miserable place of rain and bog or a sunny upland of exquisite natural beauty, here the elements are raw, the sky huge and nature seems ascendant.But it is no less a place made by human beings. Stone circles, crosses, dwellings and boundaries speak of the ancient, medieval and modern people that extracted a living from the moorscape and created what it is today. Where convicts are incarcerated, backpackers roam freely; where commoners graze livestock, the army is trained; where the National Park Authority exercises control, the Duchy of Cornwall claims ownership. And Dartmoor remains a place that provides. Reservoirs hold the water drunk by local people. China clay is extracted from its mineral reserves. Not long ago granite was quarried from its hillsides. What is modern Dartmoor and what shoulTrade ReviewKelly’s fine book, with its rigorous deconstructionist approach, acts as a better guide to the moor than any hikers’ map. -- Philip Marsden * Spectator *Will give you plenty to think about...covers subjects including biodiversity and social history, [and] conveys this mysterious moorscape's story from ancient rights to rewilding. -- Max Liu * Independent *Impressively researched, and passionate… A valuable, heartfelt, well-written work. -- Joanna Briscoe * Guardian *Elegantly written, shrewdly observed, and a perfect read for those “staycationing” [at Devon and Cornwall] in particular. -- Neil Gregor * Times Higher Education *An imaginative cultural history, exploring with élan geological, literary and historical associations. -- Roy Foster * Times Literary Supplement *

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For the very first time, The War That Never Was tells the fascinating story of a secret war fought by British mercenaries in the Yemen in the early 1960s. In a covert operation organised over whisky and sodas in the clubs of Chelsea and Mayfair, a group of former SAS officers - led by the irrepressible Colonel Jim Johnson - arranged for a squadron of British mercenaries to travel to the remote mountain regions of the Yemen, to arm, train and lead Yemeni tribesmen in their fight against a 60,000-strong contingent of Egyptian soldiers. It was one of the most uneven running battles ever waged; the Egyptians fielded a huge, professionally-trained army. The British fought back at the head of a ragtag force of tribal warriors and, ultimately, won. Egypt''s President Nasser described the battle in the Yemen as ''my Vietnam''. It''s a fascinating, forgotten, and rip-roaringly entertaining pocket of British military history, much in the spirit of Ben MvIntyre''s bestse

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Book SynopsisAn eye-opening book, an intricate and fascinating story' Hilary Mantel1527. Henry, desperate to marry Anne Boleyn and ensure the Tudor line asks Pope Clement VII to grant him a divorce. Enter Gregorio Casali, an Italian diplomat hired to represent Henry's interests in the Vatican. Through six years of persuasion, threats and bribery Casali lives by his wits, playing off one powerful patron against another, negotiating with ambassadors from Spain, France and beyond, each crowding the Vatican to press their interests in the Tudor break up. Before it is done, Henry will decide to divorce not just Catherine, but the Church itself. Set against the backdrop of war-torn Renaissance Italy, The Divorce of Henry VIII combines a gripping family saga with a highly charged political battle between the Tudors and the Vatican to reveal the extraordinary true story behind history's most infamous divorce. (Originally published with the title Our Man in Rome)Trade ReviewAn eye-opening book, an intricate and fascinating story of an elusive man with an impossible job. A brilliant and impressive feat of original research, and necessary reading for anyone fascinated by the story of Henry’s divorce... Catherine Fletcher has allowed the story to tell itself, except that she’s been so clever in the telling of it, cutting through to what matters without over-simplifying * Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall *A glittering debut...drawing on the unexplored riches of Italian Renaissance archives, enlarges the well known story, and to magnificent effect -- Miranda Seymour * Sunday Times *A marvel of close-up detective work -- Duncan Fallowell * Daily Express *Fletcher does her subject great credit. She makes no attempt to either embellish or simplify. She simply tells a cracking story well, in plenty of detail with clarity and insight. Above all she resists the temptation to overlay past events with modern cultural and emotional responses. Her protagonists are never anything but true to their selves and Fletcher richly deserves the title of historian. Jonathan Rhys Meyers need not apply. -- Sarah Vine * The Times *The greatest joy of this splendid book is that it dwells on context. You'll emerge with a keener sense of why the dynastic priorities of Henry VIII ("a mid-ranking northern monarch, a player on the European stage but far from the star of the show") managed to cause such a fuss -- Jonathan Wright * The Herald *

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Book SynopsisLeanda de Lisle is the highly acclaimed author of several bestselling and prize-winning books on the Tudors and Stuarts including Tudor: The Family Story, White King: The Tragedy of Charles I and Henrietta Maria: Conspirator, Warrior, Phoenix Queen. She writes and speaks on historical matters for TV, radio and publications including The Times, the Spectator and History Today.Trade ReviewA wonderfully fluent portrait of five generations... de Lisle brings an entirely fresh feel to the Tudor story, reminding us of the one thing the monarchs themselves wanted us to forget: the sheer improbability of their royal rule -- Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets * The Times (Saturday Review) *Violent, heady, glamorous stuff, this is popular history of a very superior sort -- Lucy Worsley * Country Life *Vivid... Part of the interest of this book lies in the portraits of strong women -- Charles Moore * Daily Telegraph *Tudor is a gripping account of a family riven by passionate jealousies, murderous ambitions and crippling tragedies. Leanda de Lisle is a master storyteller, and this is her greatest work yet. Immersive and exhaustively researched, Tudor is a triumph. * Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire *While many Tudor fans have been crying out for an accessible narrative history of the entire period, few historians have felt able to rise to the challenge... [de Lisle] manages to achieve that very feat... should now be the go-to book -- Chris Skidmore * History Today (Books of the Year 2013) *

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Book SynopsisOne Day: Saturday 13 July 1985, nearly two billion people woke up with one purpose. Nearly a third of humanity knew where they were going to be that day. Watching, listening to, attending: Live Aid. One Decade: Britain in the Eighties was different. The culture was different, the politics were different, and our engagement with the world was different. And it was just one day in 1985 that showed how different it was.In One Day, One Decade Dylan Jones tells the story of the Eighties through that day at Wembley, sweeping backwards to the end of the Seventies, and forward to the start of the Nineties. It draws on his personal reminiscences and perspective of music, media, fashion, politics and all forms of pop culture to frame the decade.This is a big book but not a exhaustive and dry social history. Live Aid was the decade's pinch point, when a nation''s attitudes and expectations were somehow captured and changed forever. The author suggests Trade ReviewFascinating ... a unique insight into the day, and the decade. * Observer *Live Aid was such an utterly humungous phenomenon that, in many ways, it came to define our memories of an entire decade ... Dylan Jones [is] perfectly poised at the heart of it all to give us an electric and sometimes eye-opening account. * Star magazine *Hugely pleasing ... Dylan Jones looks at the Eighties through the prism of Live Aid. * Evening Standard *This is a bumper Live Aid book containing a wealth of backstage anecdotes which paint a candid view of the 1980s pop aristocracy. * Herald *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE HESSELL-TILTMAN HISTORY PRIZE 2017AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016Religious strife, civil conflict, waves of immigration, the rise and fall of industry, great prosperity and grinding poverty the handful of streets that constitute modern Spitalfields have witnessed all this and much more. In Spitalfields, one of Britain''s best-loved historians tells the stories of the streets he has lived in for four decades. Starting in Roman times and continuing right up to the present day, Cruickshank explains how Spitalfields'' streets evolved, what people have lived there, and what lives they have led. En route, he discovers the tales of the Huguenot weavers who made Spitalfields their own after the Great Fire of London. He recounts the experiences of the first Jewish immigrants. He evokes the slum-ridden courts and alleys of Jack the Ripper''s Spitalfields. And he describes the transformation of the Spitalfields he first encountered in the 1970s from a war-damaged collection of semi-derelict houses to the vibrant community it is today.This is a fascinating evocation of one of London''s most distinctive districts. At the same time, it is a history of England in miniature.Trade ReviewGenial, erudite and companionable . . . this heroic and heartfelt book caps a career devoted to [Spitalfields'] heritage. * Spectator *With beguiling erudition, TV historian and local resident Cruickshank tells the story of Spitalfields from Roman times to today . . . This is people’s history at its tastiest. * Sunday Express *A passionate, scholarly energy and involvement with every era of the district's long history come off Spitalfields' pages . . . Absorbing detail. * Times Literary Supplement *Cruickshank writes perceptively and honestly . . . As well as being a fascinating account of a unique area of London, Spitalfields is a timely warning that helps us to appreciate what the city and country risk losing. * Country Life *Dan Cruickshank bores into the rich history of Spitalfields, the area of east London where he has lived for decades. -- Rowan Moore, Best Books of 2016 * Observer *

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Book SynopsisWhen Asad was eight years old, his mother was shot in front of him. With his father in hiding, he was swept alone into the great wartime migration that has scattered the Somali people throughout the world.This extraordinary book tells Asad's story. Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a sceptical remove from the adult world, living in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of inner-city Nairobi to towns deep in the Ethiopian desert. By the time he reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had made good as a street hustler, brokering relationships between hardnosed Ethiopian businessmen and bewildered Somali refugees. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya, and married her, to the astonishment of his peers. Buoyed by success in work and in love, Asad put $1,200 in his pocket and made his way down the length of the African continent to Johannesburg, whose streets he believed to be lined with gold. So began an adventure in a country richer and more violent than he could possibly have imagined. A Man of Good Hope is the story of a person shorn of the things we have come to believe make us human personal possessions, parents, siblings. And yet Asad's is an intensely human life, one suffused with dreams and desires and a need to leave something of permanence on this earth.Trade Review[A] testament to the human spirit... An epic African saga that chronicles some fundamental modern issues such as crime, human trafficking, migration, poverty and xenophobia, while giving glimpses into the Somali clan system, repression in Ethiopia and lethal racism in townships... [Steinberg] has delivered a strong insight into the lives of those buffeted by conflict and violence in this tale of a refugee driven by ambition, pride and dreams. Ultimately, it is a powerful testament to the resilience of humanity -- Ian Birrell * Observer *[A Man of Good Hope] tells one man’s extraordinary and moving story, revealing the reality of life at the bottom of the world’s worst pile. -- Richard Dowden * The Times *A masterpiece. Steinberg has illuminated a modern African odyssey to brilliant effect. -- Martin Meredith, author of The State of AfricaWhat a brave, important book. Steinberg’s writing is so human, so humane and so honest. Through the remarkable tale of the truly astonishing character of Asad Abdullahi, Steinberg returns all of us from the despair of distance to the dignity of brotherhood. Steinberg stands shoulder to shoulder with other great writers who have also made sensible and visible so much that might otherwise remain insensible and invisible out of the political and human tragedies all too common in Africa - Michela Wrong, Ryszard Kapuscinski and Ishmael Beah. Steinberg’s central question is one for all of us: what does it means to live a "fully human life" and whom among us has either the courage or the luck to live that life? -- Alexandra FullerAn engrossing book... The humanity, suffering and bravery of Mr Abdullahi are palpable and make A Man of Good Hope a book well worth reading. * The Economist *

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Book SynopsisAlex Kershaw is the author of seven previous books, including the bestsellers The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter. He has written for several British newspapers, including the Guardian, Independent and Sunday Times. Born in York, England, he now lives in America with his wife and son.Trade ReviewExceptional... A worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. * Wall Street Journal *Gripping… Kershaw has produced another gem, with vivid combat scenes and an admirable character in the leading role. * Express *A poignant war story that culminates in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau… [A] fast-paced examination of a dedicated officer navigating – and somehow surviving – World War II. * Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisEd Vulliamy is a journalist and writes for the Guardian and Observer. For his work in Bosnia, Italy, the US and Iraq he has won a James Cameron Award and an Amnesty International Media Award and has been named International Reporter of the Year (twice) and runner-up at the Foreign Press Association Awards. In 1996 he became the first journalist to testify at an international crimes court, at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. Twitter: @edvulliamyTrade ReviewThe camps and their corrosive legacy are Vulliamy's subject in this searing book, in which he writes with controlled and righteous anger about the absence of any "reckoning" * Daily Telegraph *Impassioned ... riveting and chilling * Financial Times *Haunting * Sunday Times *A beautifully written and deeply heartfelt study in survival * Sunday Business Post *A stark and brilliant testimony about a massive human atrocity * Sunday Business Post *

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Book SynopsisAl Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multi-dimensional picture of the hunt for bin Laden over the past decade, as well as the recent campaign that gradually tightened the noose around him. Other key elements of the book include:* A careful account of Obama''s decision-making process throughout the final weeks and days during which the raid was planned, as well as what NSC cabinet members were advising him. The fascinating story of a group of (mostly female) analysts at the CIA in the HVT (High Value Target) section, who never gave up assembling the tiniest clues about OBL''s whereabouts.* The untold and action-packed history of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the SEALs, which accounts for the confidence Obama had in tasking them with the mission.* An analysis of what the death of OBL means for al Qaeda, for the wider jihadist movement that looked to him for inspiration and strategic guidaTrade ReviewTells the story of the search with considerable authority and conviction -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *His narrative has authority... Manhunt is packed with satisfying observations * The Economist *Meticulously reported, pacy and authoritative -- Jason Burke * Observer *A very good, well-sourced account, as good on the White House, the military and the CIA as on what happened in Abbottabad, and as good as we're likely to get, short of an official version -- Alan Judd * Spectator *The book makes for a rattling and thoroughly researched read on the last days of the world’s most notorious terrorist * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisRoger Moorhouse is an historian and author specialising in modern German history. He is the co-author, with Norman Davies, of Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City, and the author of Killing Hitler and Berlin at War.Trade ReviewThe Devils' Alliance is a marvellous achievement. No event was more crucial to the outbreak of the Second World War than the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, and no one is better qualified to explore its grim implications than Roger Moorhouse -- Norman DaviesSuperbly researched and academically impeccable, yet written with all the pace of a thriller, The Devils' Alliance shines a powerful beam into one of the undeservedly least known aspects of the Second World War -- Andrew RobertsMeticulous and vividly readable… Moorhouse’s grim and compelling book could not be more topical * Sunday Telegraph *A highly enjoyable history written with verve and attention to detail * Financial Times *Superb -- Brendan Simms * Wall Street Journal *

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Book SynopsisAmbitious and groundbreaking, Electric Shock tells the story of popular music, from the birth of recording in the 1890s to the digital age, from the first pop superstars of the twentieth century to the omnipresence of music in our lives, in hit singles, ringtones and on Spotify. Over that time, popular music has transformed the world in which we live. Its rhythms have influenced how we walk down the street, how we face ourselves in the mirror, and how we handle the outside world in our daily conversations and encounters. It has influenced our morals and social mores; it has transformed our attitudes towards race and gender, religion and politics. From the beginning of recording, when a musical performance could be preserved for the first time, to the digital age, when all of recorded music is only a mouse-click away; from the straitlaced ballads of the Victorian era and the coon songs' that shocked America in the early twentieth century to gangsta rap, deathTrade ReviewWitty and compelling * Esquire *Dauntlessly comprehensive, elegantly parlayed survey of pop’s recorded history * MOJO *a great history book, read it and stream -- Max Bell * Record Collector *What Electric Shock imparts… is delight and curiosity in the music it chronicles with such pithy vivacity. -- Neil Spenser * Guardian *this magnificent book is highly recommended for anyone with more than a passing interest in popular music over the last century or so -- Alwyn Turner * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisThe definitive account of North Korea - its veiled past and uncertain future - from former White House adviser and Korea expert Victor ChaWe killed Americans. We are killing Americans. We will kill Americans.'North Korean schoolchildren conjugating verbsHow did North Korea become The Impossible State, where citizens found humming South Korean pop songs risk being sent to a gulag, and yet a starving populace clings fiercely to its Dear Leader Kim Jong-un? What does the future hold for a regime with terrifying nuclear ambitions and an endless war with its southern counterpart? Former White House adviser and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University, Victor Cha, pulls back the curtain on the world's most isolated country to provide this unprecedented and timely insight into North Korea's history, present and future. In the era of the Trump administration and with South Korean relations seemingly on the brink of Trade ReviewEngrossing... It offers perhaps the best recent one-volume account of North Korea’s history, economics and foreign relations * The Economist *[This] excellent, comprehensive book explains as much as it is possible to explain the nature of this ‘impossible state’, how it has developed under the Kim dynasty and why it endures as a major thorn in the side of the global community -- Jonathan Fenby * The Times *This scrupulously researched account provides an alarming insight into how a long-running nightmare for North Koreans could soon become a geopolitical crisis for the rest of us -- Stephen Robinson * Sunday Times *He uses his first-hand and often surreal experiences of dealing with North Korean officialdom to telling effect in the book. But Cha is also a scholar of Korean and Asian affairs, so can take a historical view of the North Korean problem and set it in its wider international context… [An] impressive analysis -- Richard Cockett * Literary Review *Provocative, frightening, and never more relevant than today as an untested new leader takes charge of the world’s most unpredictable nuclear power -- Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent

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Book SynopsisChristopher de Bellaigue is the award-winning author of The Lion House: The Rise of Suleyman the Magnificent, which was chosen as a book of the year by The Times, Sunday Times, Spectator and New Yorker among others, as well as five previous books, including The Islamic Enlightenment, which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2017. As a reporter he has covered war, politics, society and the environment in five continents for the Economist, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian and the BBC. He is the founder of the Lake District Book Festival in Cartmel, Cumbria, an Honorary Fellow of the University of St Andrews and in 2026 he will take up a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. www.christopherdebellaigue.comTrade ReviewAn eye-opening, well-written and very timely book, which can help us understand better the complex relationship between the Muslim world and modernity. While both Islamic extremists and Western bigots find it convenient to stress the incompatibility of Islam and modernity, Christopher de Bellaigue shows that Islam is whatever Muslims make of it, and that at least some Muslims have made of it something very modern. -- YUVAL NOAH HARARI author of SAPIENS and HOMO DEUSThis book is an enlightenment in itself, and a salient one in this age when everyone seems to feel entitled to a firm opinion about Islam and Muslims. -- David Aaronovitch * The Times *A highly original and informative survey of the clashes between Islam and modernity in Istanbul, Cairo and Tehran in the last two hundred years. Brilliant. -- Orhan PamukChristopher de Bellaigue has long been one of our most resourceful and stimulating interpreters of realities veiled by fear and prejudice. In The Islamic Enlightenment, he cuts through the complacent opposition of Islam-versus-modernity to reveal a fascinating world: one in which complex human beings constantly change, improvise and adjust under the pressures of history. It is the best sort of book for our disordered days: timely, urgent and illuminating. -- Pankaj MishraThis is a nuanced and empathetic view of the Islamic world at one of its most challenging and enthralling moments: its history-changing encounter with western modernity… At a time of profound suspicion and mistrust between the West and the Muslim world, this is an important, beautifully written book that offers a powerful corrective to the notion that Islam contains an inbuilt prejudice against modernity. It strikes a blow, as the most readable writers do, for common humanity. -- Justin Marozzi * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHORIn ''70s'' South Africa, Rian Malan descendant of the architects of apartheid, middle-class white boy, friend to blacks went to work as a crime reporter for a local Johannesburg rag. There he encountered first-hand the horrors wrought by apartheid: the poverty, injustice and violence. After an eight-year exile, he returned to write this book. With gripping stories and in mesmerising prose, this is Malan's attempt to understand his country, its racial hatred, and his own tortured conscience.Trade ReviewRian Malan has written a tragic masterpiece and a classic of our time * Time Out *My Traitor's Heart is a tremendous book about candour, honour and race, a witness-bearing act of the rarest courage. No one who reads it could ever forget it * Michael Herr *A tortured, mesmerising attempt to capture exactly the conflicts of [Malan’s] upbringing, conflicts that went to the soul of the emerging nation. * Guardian *The remorseless exercise of a reporter's anguished conscience gives us a South Africa we thought we knew all about: but we knew nothing -- John Le CarreA great swirling devil of a book and it is equal in every way to its vast subject - the black and white country of the heart -- Don DeLillo

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Book SynopsisThey gave us democracy, philosophy, poetry, rational science, the joke. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. They wrote the timeless myths of Odysseus and Oedipus, and the histories of Leonidas's three hundred Spartans and Alexander the Great. But who were the ancient Greeks? And what was it that enabled them to achieve so much? Here, Edith Hall gives us a revelatory way of viewing this geographically scattered people, visiting different communities at various key moments during twenty centuries of ancient history. Identifying ten unique traits central to the widespread ancient Greeks, Hall unveils a civilization of incomparable richness and a people of astounding complexity and explains how they made us who we are today. A thoroughly readable and illuminating account of this fascinating people This excellent book makes us admire and like the ancient Greeks equally'IndependentA worthy and lively introductiTrade ReviewHall examines in scholarly but very readable detail. -- Simon Shaw * Mail on Sunday *Hall’s superb history achieves her aim with a happy marrying of literature and archaeology. -- Lesley McDowell * Independent *If you’re interested in their history then it is worth reading, and I think even those with some knowledge of the Greeks would learn something from this book. -- Judith Griffith * Nudge *Terrifically good -- Natalie Haynes * Observer *[Hall] provides a thoroughly readable and illuminating account of this fascinating people… This excellent book makes us admire and like the ancient Greeks equally -- John Davie * Independent *A worthy and lively introduction to one of the two groups of ancient peoples who really formed the western world -- Christopher Hart * Sunday Times *This new tome serves as a fantastic general introduction * Big Issue *Edith Hall has a brilliant ability to intellectually analyse the Greeks… because of deep, searching curiosity, and her sense of how this culture reflects upon our moment now. Her writing is so clear and accessible… full of complex reflections and revelations -- Ian RicksonWide-ranging and endlessly fascinating… It is a fitting tribute to history that ought to be preserved… because it would, at the very least, enrich our conversation and range of comparison with events today -- Daisy Dunn * Standpoint *This crisp little book is also worth reading for Hall’s elegant prose -- Suzi Feay * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisTwenty years ago, Jacqueline Yallop was leading guided walks at Nenthead, one of a network of model' villages which sprang up across Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A life-long fascination was born.From Scotland's New Lanark Mills to the Arts and Crafts cottages of Port Sunlight, Yallop visits these utopian experiments to explore their rich histories. Looking at everything from sewage systems to sculpture, chocolate to coal, and free trade to electoral emancipation, this book is a personal exploration of why and how these village utopias came about, what they tell us about the past, and how they still resonate with us today.Trade ReviewCompelling * Independent *This is a fascinating book, a glimpse through the keyhole of homes that turn out to be stages set for a performance. -- Lucy Lethbridge * Financial Times *Intriguing... The descriptions of place, surface and mood are sharp and tangible * Guardian *A fascinating study of how human life is moulded and shaped by big money. It is…sobering. -- Charlie Gilmour * Independent On Sunday *Provides valuable food for thought. -- Gillian Tindall * Literary Review *

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Book Synopsis''A brilliant, unlikely book'' SpectatorHow can we celebrate, challenge and change our remarkable world? In 2012, the world arrived in London for the Olympics...and Ann Morgan went out to meet it. She read her way around all the globe''s 196 independent countries (plus one extra), sampling one book from every nation. It wasn''t easy. Many languages have next to nothing translated into English; there are tiny, tucked-away places where very little is written down; some governments don''t like to let works of art escape their borders.Using Morgan''s own quest as a starting point, Reading the World explores the vital questions of our time and how reading across borders might just help us answer them. ''Revelatory... While Morgan''s research has a daunting range...there is a simple message: reading is a social activity, and we ought to share books across boundaries'' Financial TimesTrade ReviewA wonderful book * Red *An enjoyable book that brings a world of literature into our homes * Daily Telegraph *A great way into literature in translation * Red Online *A truly inspiring read * Lady *If you, like me, are a fan of fiction in translation then I would suggest this is a must-read, or at the very least a really-should-read * Me And My Big Mouth (Blog) *

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Book SynopsisA spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, Books of the Year 1531 after years of brutal war and political intrigue, the bastard son of a Medici Duke and a half-negro' maidservant rides into Florence. Within a year, he rules the city as its Prince. Backed by the Pope and his future father-in-law the Holy Roman Emperor, the nineteen-year-old Alessandro faces down bloody family rivalry and the scheming hostility of Italy's oligarchs to reassert the Medicis' faltering grip on the turbulent city-state. Six years later, as he awaits an adulterous liaison, he will be murdered by his cousin in another man's bed.Nothing in sixteenth-century history is more astonishing' Hilary MantelTrade ReviewA spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * Evening Standard, Books of the Year *Nothing in sixteenth century history is more astonishing to our era than the career of Alessandro de’ Medici. His story, told by an exact and fluent historian, challenges our preconceptions. Catherine Fletcher’s eye for the skewering detail makes the citizens of renaissance Florence live again: courtesans and cardinals, artists and assassins -- Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf HallAstonishing … gripping and original … a compelling portrait -- Matthew Lyons * Financial Times *Packed with intrigue … Fletcher describes with cool menace the plotting and politicking that dominated Alessandro’s rule … brought splendidly to life in this excellent book -- Dan Jones * Sunday Times *A scintillating book that glisters and gleams with stabbings, poisonings, adultery and intrigue – and a startling reminder of how visceral and dangerous Renaissance Florence was. The drama of events is perfectly complemented by careful scholarship and lucid writing. This is everything a historical biography should be -- Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval EnglandIn this brilliantly written and impeccably researched biography, Catherine Fletcher brings Renaissance Florence vividly to life. The story of Alessandro de' Medici's brief and bloody ascendancy reveals the darker side of this most dazzling and cultured of cities, beset by intrigue, violence and betrayal. A stunning book. -- Tracy Borman, author of Thomas Cromwell: The untold story of Henry VIII's most faithful servantBold, breathless and full of suspense -- Daisy Dunn * The Times *A seductive, shimmering and significant retelling of a man whose rise to power was ... as unlikely as it was extraordinary -- Thomas Penn * Guardian *Engrossing … bursts with stabbings, poisonings, duels, eye-gougings, arquebus shootouts and people being run through with swords. Fletcher’s approach is scholarly yet dramatic, immersed in Renaissance glamour … a tremendous step forward in our knowledge of this intriguing man -- Alex von Tunzelmann * Spectator *More than just a forensic reconstruction of the period … Like a detective, Fletcher interrogates her witnesses … But it is among the detailed records of Alessandro’s wardrobe-keepers that she finds her treasure … These lend her narrative a sensuous vividity -- Frances Wilson * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisNewly opened by Queen Elizabeth II herself, discover the history and secret stories of the people who''ve lived above London''s newest trainline.Crossrail, or the ''Elizabeth'' line, is just the latest way of traversing the very old east-west route through the former countryside, into the capital, and out again. Throughout The Tunnel Through Time, renowned historian Gillian Tindall uncovers the lives of those who walked this ancient path. These people spoke the names of ancient farms, manors and slums that now belong to our squares and tube stations. Visiting Stepney, Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, Tindall traces the course of many of these historical journeys across time as well as space. ''Enchanting'' Sunday Telegraph''Deftly weaves together archaeology, social history, politics, myth, religion and philosophy'' The Times''Fully of lively vignettes'' SpectatorTrade ReviewTindall has an eye for a good line. Her sources are eclectic and illuminating...The Tunnel Through Time is a book to savour. It is subtle, considered and powerfully evocative of London's "changeful" landscape. * Daily Telegraph *Tindall is a sure-footed, even revelatory guide to the treasures of London that Crossrail has unintentionally brought to our notice. -- Jerry White * Guardian *In this engaging book Gillian Tindall ... a veteran historian with an eye for the macabre, the quirky and the absurd ... deftly weaves together archaeology, social history, politics, myth, religion and philosophy -- Richard Morrison * The Times *Ms Tindall skilfully blends ancient histories, archaeological findings and contemporary context * The Economist *These underground stories remind us that buried spaces are places of protection as well as of the fearfully unknown, of hope and of political resistance, of science as well as of persistently chthonic mythology. There’s always a quirky and sometimes a grisly journey to be had beneath our streets * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisSelected as a Book of the Year by the New York Times, Times Literary Supplement and The TimesDespite his status as the most despised political figure in history, there have only been four serious biographies of Hitler since the 1930s. Even more surprisingly, his biographers have been more interested in his rise to power and his methods of leadership than in Hitler the person: some have even declared that the Führer had no private life. Yet to render Hitler as a political animal with no personality to speak of, as a man of limited intelligence and poor social skills, fails to explain the spell that he cast not only on those close to him but on the German people as a whole. In the first volume of this monumental biography, Volker Ullrich sets out to correct our perception of the Führer. While charting in detail Hitler's life from his childhood to the eve of the Second World War against the politics of the times, Ullrich unveils the man behind the pTrade ReviewEveryone concerned about democracy should read this book. -- Richard J. Evans * The Nation *A superb biography of the Führer’s pre-war years… It is a tribute to Ullrich’s absorbing biography that one contemplates its second volume with a shudder. -- Miranda Seymour * Daily Telegraph *[A] fascinating Shakespearean parable about how the confluence of circumstances, chance, a ruthless individual and the wilful blindness of others can transform a country. -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *A substantial addition to the Fuhrer canon. -- David Aaronovitch * The Times, Book of the Year *Where Ullrich adds greatly to our understanding is by making the mercurial, changeable and…profoundly unknowable Hitler believable… This is a major achievement… Impressive and revealing biography. -- Nicholas Stargardt * Literary Review *

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Book Synopsis''This vivid and engaging book brings to life some of the most important moments in ancient history, moments that have shaped not only the politics and culture of bygone eras, but the institutions, thoughts and fantasies of our time.'' Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens)''A bold and imaginative page-turner that challenges ideas about the world of antiquity.'' Peter Frankopan (The Silk Roads)''As panoramic as it is learned, this is ancient history for our globalised world.'' Tom Holland (Dynasty, Rubicon)________________________________________Acclaimed historian and TV presenter Michael Scott guides us through an epic story spanning ten centuries to create a bold new reading of the classical era for our globalised world.Scott challenges our traditionally western-focused perception of the past, connecting Greco-Roman civilisation to the great rulers and empires that swept across Central Asia to India and China - resultTrade ReviewA bold and imaginative page-turner that challenges ideas about the world of antiquity. -- Peter Frankopan * (The Silk Roads) *As panoramic as it is learned, this is ancient history for our globalised world. -- Tom Holland * (Dynasty, Rubicon) *This vivid and engaging book brings to life some of the most important moments in ancient history, moments that have shaped not only the politics and culture of bygone eras, but the institutions, thoughts and fantasies of our time. -- Yuval Noah Harari * (Sapiens) *Scott has identified three game-changing moments in antiquity… We meet new, colourful, historical players… and re-calibrate our perception of old ones… Offering the Mediterranean and the Far East as a giant chessboard – with individual moves impacting the whole – astute analysis is matched with acute prose: this book reminds us that our own futures have long been written in the narratives of our global neighbours. -- Bettany HughesImpeccably researched and authoritative... Scott's scholarly but accessible style manages to make this sweeping saga enthralling throughout, as he traces the stories of everyone from Hannibal to Confucius -- Alexander Larman * Observer *A path-breaking contribution to the going interest in seeing the ancient world as a whole, embracing China and India as much as Greece and Rome. And what's more, it's a joy to read! -- Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules for NowThis kind of bold, transgressional ancient history is still vanishingly rare…Michael Scott’s Ancient Worlds is a welcome addition to the genre * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisSimon Heffer was born in 1960. He read English at Cambridge and took a PhD in modern history at that university. His previous books include: Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell, Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII, Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England, Vaughan Williams, Strictly English, A Short History of Power, Simply English and High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain. In a thirty-year career in Fleet Street, he has held senior editorial positions on The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, and is now a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.Trade ReviewA riveting account of the pre-First World War years . . . A gloriously rich history . . . Balanced and judicious . . . The Age of Decadence is an enormously impressive and enjoyable read. -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *Heffer has given us a magnificent account of a less than magnificent epoch . . . Vital and energetic. -- Jonathan Meades * Literary Review *Magisterial. -- Sam Leith * Spectator *The Age of Decadence is an impressively well-constructed book . . . Heffer weaves his wonderfully diverse strands of inquiry into a devastating critique of prewar Britain . . . Heffer’s criticism of unbridled traditionalism is devastating and convincing. It’s also disturbingly relevant to the world in which we live. * The Times *Mr Heffer combines a scholar’s command of the primary literature with a journalist’s eye for detail. He writes with admirable sensitivity about both music and literature: a better account of Elgar or Arnold Bennett would be hard to find. He does a brilliant job of exposing the rot beneath the glittering surface of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain . . . He writes with such exuberance – indeed with such Edwardian swagger – that he leaves the reader looking forward to his next volume. * The Economist *

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Book Synopsis''This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid'' The Times - BOOK OF THE WEEK From Peter the Great to Putin, this is the unforgettable story of St Petersburg one of the most magical, menacing and influential cities in the world. St Petersburg has always felt like an impossible metropolis, risen from the freezing mists and flooded marshland of the River Neva on the western edge of Russia. It was a new capital in an old country. Established in 1703 by the sheer will of its charismatic founder, the homicidal megalomaniac Peter-the-Great, its dazzling yet unhinged reputation was quickly fashioned by the sadistic dominion of its early rulers.This city, in its successive incarnations St Petersburg; Petrograd; Leningrad and, once again, St Petersburg has always been a place of perpetual contradiction. It was a window on to Europe and the Enlightenment, but so much of the glory of Russia Trade Review'This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid.' -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times - BOOK OF THE WEEK *So fluent, so textured is Jonathan Miles’s ease with prose and argument that his vivid dissection of 300 years of St Petersburg’s history should be devoured in captive sittings... Investigating the artistic life of St Petersburg, he also explores the melodrama and blood on the streets and the effects of continuing political disarray and corruption on ordinary people. This is a storyteller entranced with his subject, who makes its brilliant portrayal look deliriously easy. -- Susan Sheahan * Guardian *[A] lively and entertaining biography... full of sparkling storytelling and well drawn characters... a delight. -- Victor Sebestyen * The Sunday Times *Jonathan Miles’s cinematic telling of the 300-year history of ... St Petersburg shows how the drama, the absurdity, the splendour and the squalor of the imperial capital all found their way into Russia’s finest s, operas and paintings... Miles peels back the layers of myth in which the city is swaddled, while never losing sight of its haunting grace. -- Daniel Beer * Observer *Recently there has been a plethora of new books on Russian history in all its guises, … so why more? Jonathan Miles’ narrative is a lot of more, … His history has a substantial foundation, but what makes it special is the sheer inescapable momentum of Miles’s prose, powered by the captivating intensity of his attachment to his subject. This is a story told by a writer enthralled – and disillusioned, as he sees no redemption in sight... A dazzling history of a dazzling city. -- Marina Vaizey * The Arts Desk *

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Book Synopsis''A masterpiece of social history'' Daily MailThere is nothing quite as beautiful as an English country house in summer. And there has never been a summer quite like that Indian summer between the two world wars, a period of gentle decline in which the sun set slowly on the British Empire and the shadows lengthened on the lawns of a thousand stately homes. Real life in the country house during the 1920s and 1930s was not always so sunny. By turns opulent and ordinary, noble and vicious, its shadows were darker. In The Long Weekend, Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the truth about a world half-forgotten, draped in myth and hidden behind stiff upper lips and film-star smiles. Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, on unpublished letters and diaries, on the eye-witness testimonies of belted earls and unhappy heiresses and bullying butlers, The Long Weekend gives a voice to the people who inhabited this world and shows how the image of the country house was carefully protected by its occupants above and below stairs, and how the reality was so much more interesting than the dream.Trade Review[A] fantastically readable and endlessly fascinating book… Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that Downton Abbey never was. It is as if Tinniswood is at the biggest, wildest, most luxuriantly decadent party ever thrown, and he knows everyone. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *Tinniswood and his publishers should be congratulated for issuing this elegant, encyclopedic and entertaining history… We are in the company of a confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly… This is a handsomely illustrated pick’n’mix of mansions, manors, castles and palaces…. Tinniswood expands our Sunday evening viewing with the kind of detail you can’t invent… Deserves to be on every costume drama producer’s bookshelf. -- Virginia Nicholson * The Times *He has produced a luscious, summery book, full of amiable anecdotes and photographs of striking interiors, celebrating headstrong optimists who defied the defeatism of the times. The Long Weekend resembles a well-kept hothouse festooned with fruit ripe for the plucking. -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Sunday Times *Wonderfully opulent, richly textured… The opening chapters of The Long Weekend paint an evocative picture… In telling us how the English country house changed, he is, of course, telling us how England changed too. -- Xan Brooks * Sunday Telegraph *[A] masterpiece of social history. -- Roger Lewis * Daily Mail *Many of Tinniswood’s anecdotes are extraordinary… Painstakingly researched detail that makes The Long Weekend so entertaining… A rich, multilayered and well-illustrated account of a style of live that disappeared with the Second World War. Lovers of…Brideshead Revisited will relish it. -- Charlotte Heathcote * Sunday Express *[A] deliciously jaunty and wonderfully knowledgeable book… Tinniswood displays a terrific insider’s grasp of gossip, while cramming his text with the stories of sport, sex, food, royalty, design, ruination and joy that defined these mansions… Meticulous, irresistible story. -- Juliet Nicolson * Spectator *This delicious book achieves completely what it sets out to do. -- Marcus Berkmann * Daily Mail *Tinniswood gives us many entertaining stories about the whimsical extravagances of the new country-housers… The Long Weekend is a celebration of fantasy and yearning cunningly wrapped up in pragmatism and practicality: about ancient castles with top-notch plumbing. -- Lucy Lethbridge * Financial Times *Almost indecently enjoyable… Splendidly contrary book… [Tinniswood has a] sharp pen and a squirrel’s eye for detail… Erudite, funny and oddly poignant. -- Miranda Seymour * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Kekoo Naoroji Award for Mountain Literature 2019An engrossing story of passion and exploration that traces the end of empire and the stirring of a new world order.John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the North Face of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender achieved literary fame, they vied for a place on an expedition that would finally conquer Everest. To this rivalry was added another: their shared love for a painter named Nancy Sharp. Her choice would determine each man's wartime loyalties.From Calcutta to pre-war London to Everest itself, The Last Englishmen tracks a generation obsessed with a romantic ideal. With a cast including writers, artists, political rogues and spies, this is narrative history at its most engaging and illuminating.''Wholly original... It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that theTrade ReviewWholly original...a dense, rich, exhilarating piece of work that moves deftly between worlds and peoples...she keeps the big events always in view, dramatizing and humanizing the workings of history, particularly the story of empire and its machinations, in a way a novelist would – by making it a story of individuals... It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that there is something Tolstoyan to her vast project...remarkable -- Neel Mukherjee * Wall Street Journal *In The Last Englishmen, Deborah Baker has written an exuberant, scene-changing, shapeshifting group biography, with John Auden and Michael Spender as its chief human protagonists. But she makes the Himalayas, and Mount Everest, palpable and vivid characters in her story too -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Spectator *Deborah Baker combines a novelistic alertness to the inner life with an anthropologist’s understanding of multiple cultures and a historian’s eye for major events. The result, yet again, is a continuously absorbing and stimulating book, which enlarges the cultural and political history of the mid-20th century even as it grippingly relates the adventures of a few men and women -- Pankaj MishraLove, war, politics, psychoanalysis, poetry, Calcutta and, especially, the Himalayas – Deborah Baker’s meticulously researched account of India and Britain in the forties reads like the very best of novels. -- Siddhartha DebAn enlightening and utterly compelling read… what really distinguishes the book is its brilliant characterisation and its structural agility. It reads like fiction. Anyone seeking only information will be disappointed. Non-fiction ought always to be this engaging -- John Keay * Literary Review *

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Book Synopsis''Endlessly fascinating. . . White is such a brilliant historian'' Mail on SundayLasting for six long years, the Blitz transformed life in the capital beyond recognition, marking a time of almost constant anxiety, disruption, deprivation and sacrifice for Londoners. With the capital the nation''s frontline during the Second World War, by its end, 30,000 inhabitants had lost their lives.While much has been written about ''the Myth of the Blitz'', its riveting social history has often been overlooked. Unearthing what it was actually like for those living through those tempestuous years, Jerry White paints a fascinating portrait of the daily lives of ordinary Londoners, telling the story through their own voices.''As a history of the capital in wartime, it is probably unsurpassable'' Sunday Telegraph''An impressive history of the capital at war. . . White, an accomplished chronicler of London''s history, tells it with brio and a cTrade ReviewJerry White is one of London's best historians...and in this enveloping book he tries to scrape away the myths that have obscured our view of the Second World War and reintroduce us to what life in the city between 1939 and 1945 was actually like -- Andrew Holgate * Sunday Times *The Battle of London 1939-45... benefits hugely from a vast and well-chosen range of quotes and anecdotes, conjuring the atmosphere of a city under siege with vivid force. What's most striking in this raw and comprehensive portrait of a city on fire is just how enchanting and appealing it is: you actually start wishing you had been alive to witness it -- Sebastian Milbank * Tablet *[An] impressive history of the capital at war... White, an accomplished chronicler of London's history, tells it with brio and a confident mastery of the sources. He has a good nose for a piquant anecdote and clear-eyed awareness of the failings as well as the fearlessness of Londoners -- Alan Allport * Literary Review *Jerry White has a unique relation to London and Londoners. More than a historian, he is the city's witness, champion and town-crier... White does not rehearse the cliché of the Blitz spirit. Instead, by giving narrative commentary to the bit players in the drama...he presents a more complex, bleak and confused tale -- Frances Wilson * Oldie *As a history of the capital in wartime, it is probably unsurpassable... From the Myra Hess lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery, to the extraordinary resilience and bravery of Londoners... all can be found in this book -- Anne de Courcy * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisFor Londoners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, debt was a part of everyday life. But when your creditors lost their patience, you might be thrown into one of the capital's most notorious jails: the Marshalsea Debtors' Prison.In Mansions of Misery, acclaimed chronicler of the capital Jerry White introduces us to the Marshalsea's unfortunate prisoners rich and poor; men and women; spongers, fraudsters and innocents. We get to know the trumpeter John Grano who wined and dined with the prison governor and continued to compose music whilst other prisoners were tortured and starved to death. We meet the bare-knuckle fighter known as the Bold Smuggler, who fell on hard times after being beaten by the Chelsea Snob. And then there's Joshua Reeve Lowe, who saved Queen Victoria from assassination in Hyde Park in 1820, but whose heroism couldn't save him from the Marshalsea. Told through these extraordinary lives, Mansions of Misery gives us a fascinatinTrade ReviewThis colourful, exuberant, brilliantly detailed account by Jerry White is the latest in a long list of irreplaceable books about London. -- Simon Callow * Guardian *[It] is searching and brimful of intriguing characters. -- John Carey * Sunday Times *[A] marvellous history of the Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison… In vivid prose White conjures a murky underworld of jailbird chancers and scufflers of one stripe or another. -- Ian Thomson * Evening Standard - London Books of the Year *[An] excellent, detailed book. -- Hermione Eyre * Spectator *A factual portrait of desperate and roughish Londoners that is as startling as anything in Dickens. Its wealth of anecdote and sympathetic style, spiced with witty observations makes this the very opposite of a miserable read. -- George Goodwin * BBC History Magazine, Book of the Year *

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Book SynopsisWe are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, woman's rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition.Sweeping through the last thousand years of human development, Human Race is a treasure chest of the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, for better or worse, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no one could ever have predicted.But which of the last ten centuries saw the greatest changes in human history?History's greatest tour guide, Ian Mortimer, knows what answer he would give. But what's yours?Trade ReviewMortimer is an entertaining guide on this superb time-travel journey of human innovations -- Julia Richardson * Daily Mail *An ambitious study of the last millennium * Evening Standard *An excellent romp through the past millennium of British (and particularly English) history… Highly entertaining, well written and packed with lively characters and surprising facts. -- Ian Morris * BBC History Magazine *I loved this book... It will enable you to understand your past, your place in it and that of your ancestors as never before. A modern classic -- FIVE STARS, James Delingpole * Mail on Sunday *Provocative and enjoyable... Almost every page of this engaging book sets your mind racing -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *

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Book Synopsis''A fascinating, informative, revelatory book'' William Boyd, GuardianParks are such a familiar part of everyday life, you might be forgiven for thinking they have always been there. In fact, public parks are an invention. From their medieval inception as private hunting grounds through to their modern incarnation as public spaces of rest and relaxation, parks have been fought over by land-grabbing monarchs, reforming Victorian industrialists, hippies, punks, and somewhere along the way, the common folk trying to savour their single day of rest.In A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough excavates the history of parks in all their colour and complexity. Loving, funny and impassioned, this is a timely celebration of a small wonder that in an age of swingeing cuts we should not take for granted.Trade ReviewThis is a fascinating, informative, revelatory book … The vast array of knowledge that Elborough disperses in this book will make you look at parks differently … Parks seem an immutable, strangely paradisiacal element of our fraught and complicated urban lives, but the fact that we actually have them, as Elborough demonstrates in this wonderful book is something to be marvelled at. -- William Boyd * Guardian *Travis Elborough is becoming a latter-day Alan Bennett. Let loose in an array of reference libraries, he summons many a curious fact…from the shelves, which makes for a rich narrative… Alluring detail fills every page. -- Christopher Hawtree * Spectator *Amiable new history of the public park… Turns up lots of interesting, joyful stuff… A Walk in the Park is an enjoyable stroll. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *His writing combines subtle drollery with a fantastical, Monty Python-ish strain… We can count this captivating book among the boons they [parks] have granted us. -- Andrew Martin * Financial Times *Charming blend of the patriotic, popular and whimsical… Beautifully written. -- James McConnachie * Sunday Times *Breezy but fact-filled prose… A worthy paean to the importance of parks to British life. His book is impassioned, informative. -- Daisy Dunn * The Times *Quirky and delightful. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *Travis is a joyful cultural celebrant offering tantalizing nuggets of social history. -- Justine Crow * Families South East *Quirky, lively history, full of unexpected detail. * Simple Things *Amiable new history of the public park… He turns up lots of interesting, joyful stuff along the way. He’s particularly good on our forebears’ taste for the ersatz… A Walk in the Park is an enjoyable stroll. -- Rachel Cooke * Guardian *Fast-paced and richly peopled… Ebullient and enamored of his heroes is Elborough. -- Gillian Darley * Literary Review *Highly enjoyable. * Sunday Times *Elborough's quietly effervescent style manages to transform the reader from being someone with a passing interest in whatever topic he happens to be writing about into a fully-fledged Routemaster/LP/London loon. * Travel Guide *Elborough writes in an aptly meandering style with an appetite for the eccentric marginalia of history -- Ben Felsenburg * Mail on Sunday *[It is] quirky and original. * Times Literary Supplement *[A Walk in the Park is] wittily written and wide-ranging. * French Property News, Book of the Year *

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Book SynopsisStephen Clarke lives in Paris, where he divides his time between writing and not writing.His Merde novels have been bestsellers all over the world, including France. His non-fiction books include Talk to the Snail, an insider's guide to understanding the French; How the French Won Waterloo (or Think They Did), an amused look at France's continuing obsession with Napoleon; Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France, a biography of Edward VII; and 1000 Years of Annoying the French, which was a number one bestseller in Britain.Research for The French Revolution and What Went Wrong took him deep into French archives in search of the actual words, thoughts and deeds of the revolutionaries and royalists of 1789. He has now re-emerged to ask modern Parisians why they have forgotten some of the true democratic heroes of the period, and opted to idolize certain maniacs. Follow Stephen on @SClarkeWriter and www.stepTrade ReviewIndeed, as Stephen Clarke demonstrates in this cheeky book, they have spent two whole centuries 'indulging in outrageous denial' * Daily Mail *Clarke’s tone is larky, but his outrageously readable work is based on extensive research, with a wealth of enticing detail. * Daily Mail *This is Waterloo as stand-up, funny and caustic by turns * BBC History Magazine *

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Book SynopsisFrederick Douglass was a key figure in helping to secure the abolition of slavery in America discover his Narrative this Black History Month. A masterpiece [Douglass] was not only self-educated, with a love of language which should still be an inspiration; he was also self-created' New York Times Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818. After his escape in 1838 he became an ardent abolitionist, and his autobiography was an instant bestseller upon publication in 1845. In it he describes with harrowing honesty his life as a slave the cruelty he suffered at the hands of plantation owners; his struggles to educate himself in a world where slaves are deliberately kept ignorant; and ultimately, his fight for his right to freedom. A passionately written, inteTrade ReviewSlavery, color, racism and the struggle for equal rights all come together in the Douglass story...a declaration of freedom by a runaway slave that became a powerful antislavery tract * New York Times *Frederick Douglass has been hailed as one of history's most inspirational leaders and is a personal hero of Barack Obama who called him "the father of the civil rights movement" * Mirror *His life retains an emblematic glow transcending its biographical ingredients * Independent *

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Book SynopsisHe was a debt-ridden dandy, a mid-ranking novelist armed with enormous political ambition. She was a moneyed widow twelve years older than her new husband, always overdressed for society dinners and never one to hold her tongue. From the outset, Mary Anne and Benjamin Disraeli made an unlikely match, yet they rose to the very pinnacle of Victorian society. Drawing on the couple''s love letters and Mary Anne''s own formidable archives, Daisy Hay reveals the heady mix of romance and power that fuelled their influence - and chronicles how the Disraelis crafted their unconventional marriage into an enduring love story.Trade ReviewA tour de force, written with intelligence and compassion * The Times *Thorough and engaging... A warm and rounded portrait * Daily Telegraph *A fabulous book, as if Jane Austen were writing for a modern newspaper... Full of wonderfully observed detail... A great story of life and loves in a time when making the right marriage really mattered * Independent *All marriages have their mysteries, political marriages more than most. The marriage of Mr and Mrs Disraeli was stranger than fiction, but every bit as compelling -- Robert McCrum * The Observer *A beguiling account of a very unusual marriage -- Daisy Goodwin * Sunday Times *As with all the best biographers, Hay makes her readers drag their feet towards the end, reluctant to part company with people she has made us know and feel for. Her book has turned the Disraelis’ uneven romance into a real love story. How pleased they would have been * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisRadical statesman and Member of Parliament for over fifty years, Tony Benn is the pre-eminent diarist of his generation. His political activity continued after 'retirement' through mass meetings, broadcasts and in more recent years through social media. A widower since 2000, Tony Benn died at his home in London on 14th March 2014.Trade ReviewThe Benn Diaries, intensely personal, candid and engaging as they are, rank as an important work of historiography -- Alan Clark * Daily Telegraph *Quite apart from the brio of illuminating a life almost entirely free of boredom (another rarity), the collected Benn has some critical patches of postwar history recorded hot -- Peter Hennessy * The Times *Immensely readable and revealing -- Ben Pimlott * Sunday Times *An archive of incalculable value -- Ruth Dudley Edwards * Independent *The best political diarist of our time * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisFor the first time, here is the extraordinary true story of one of the most powerful men, and ruthless dictators, who ever lived. Mao Zedong had control over more people for a longer period than any other leader in history. In this intimate biography we learn not only about the imperial grandeur of his life in a country racked by poverty and the vicious infighting at his court, but also about his extraordinary personal habits that equal those of deceased Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, another infamous and idiosyncratic dictator, equally deified and worshipped by his followers: Mao''s teeth turned black because he would only brush them with tea; he hardly ever bathed but then received Krushchev in his swimming pool where he obliged the Soviet President to join him. Li''s revealing account also chronicles Mao''s voracious sexual appetite that led to the seduction of thousands of peasant women because he believed in the mythical healing power of sex. Zhisui Li spent more time with Mao than perhaps any other person. He witnessed first-hand the catastrophic events that Mao''s dotage and paranoia sparked in a country that revered him as a demi-god. The Private Life of Chairman Mao is a landmark biography, as fascinating as it is important to the understanding of modern China, and a must buy for fans of Wild Swans.Trade ReviewLi is Mao's Boswell * Irish Times *A unique political and historical autobiography of inestimable worth, an astounding chronicle of human weakness, political intrigue and corruption and the near destruction of a great nation by a great ego -- Martin BoothOne of the most vivid descriptions of a dictator ever written * The Times *A classic . . . I see Dr. Li as the Tacitus of modern China -- Hugh Trevor-Roper

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Book SynopsisAustralia celebrated one hundred years as a nation in 2001. This book - part history, part travelogue, part memoir - tells the inspiring story of how a one-time British colony of convicts turned itself into a prosperous and confident country. Through the eyes of ordinary people, Phillip Knightley describes Australia''s journey, from federation and the trauma of the First World War, the desperate poverty of the Depression, with its attendant spectres of secret armies and near-civil war, the threat of invasion in the Second World War and the immigration that followed it, and the slow but steady decline in the relationship with Britain, the ''Mother Country'', as Australia forged its own unique identity.Trade ReviewCatches the feel of Australia brilliantly. His 350 pages tell you more of Australia's public history and secret life than any academic study ever could. Wonderful * The Times *Knightley deals skilfully and generously with all the great issues his country has faced * Independent *Gripping and comprehensive * Irish Times *A fine book...fascinating * Economist *

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Book Synopsis___________''This excellent book demands the attention of anyone concerned about civil liberties in the United Kingdom'' Guardian1969 was a year of rising tension, violence and change for the people of Northern Ireland. Rioting in Derry''s Bogside led to the deployment of British troops and a shortlived, uneasy truce. The British army soon found itself engaged in an undercover war against the Provisional IRA, which was to last for more than twenty years. In this enthralling and controversial book, Martin Dillon, author of the bestselling The Shankill Butchers, examines the roles played by the Provisional IRA, the State forces, the Irish Government and the British Army during this troubled period. He unravels the mystery of war in which informers, agents and double agents operate, revealing disturbing facts about the way in which the terrorists and the Intelligence Agencies target, undermine and penetrate each other''s ranks. The Trade ReviewThis excellent book demands the attention of anyone concerned about civil liberties in the United Kingdom * Guardian *Grippingly written with the pace of a thriller * Financial Times *Makes Cold War duplicity a la Deighton and Le Carre seem positively endearing * Guardian *

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