History

In September 1847 coloured squares of paper were stuck to envelopes and used to send out admission cards to a fancy-dress ball on the tropical island of Mauritius. No-one at the party would have guessed that the envelopes bearing these stamps would one...

**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024**'A classic ... wonderfully enjoyable' WILLIAM DALRYMPLEThis is the authoritative history of South Asia in the 20th century.Shadows at Noon tells the subcontinent's story from the British Raj...

The harrowing, moving and poignant account of one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz: a girl who was only five years old when she was sent to an extermination camp, and was one of the few people who entered a gas chamber and lived to tell her story...

From the 2023 Reith lecturer Politics is failing us. This is why. 'Brilliant . . . a must-read' Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations FailWhen it comes to politics, there are five goals that voters generally agree upon. We all want a say in how we're...

The existence of two Chinese states-one controlling mainland China, the other controlling the island of Taiwan-is often understood as a seemingly inevitable outcome of the Chinese civil war. Defeated by Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to...

A healthy diet can help the young sports stars of tomorrow fulfil their potential. Around 85% of children regularly take part in sports activities outside lessons. Swimming is the most common activity for girls, with football for boys. 43% of...

How to fly, navigate, drop bombs and man the turrets of the legendary bomber using the manuals and instructions supplied by the RAF during the Second World War. An amazing array of leaflets, books and manuals were issued by the Air Ministry during the...

Many people know about Wessex, the 'Last Kingdom' of the Anglo-Saxons to fall to the Northmen, but another kingdom, Mercia, once enjoyed supremacy over not only Wessex, but all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. At its zenith Mercia controlled what is now...

Exam board: Pearson EdexcelLevel: GCSESubject: HistoryFirst teaching: September 2016First exams: Summer 2018Endorsed for EdexcelTarget success in Edexcel GCSE (9-1) History with this proven formula for effective, structured revision.Key content coverage...

BOOK OF THE YEAR, The Times, Guardian and ProspectWas Harold Wilson a bigger figure than Denis Healey? Was John Major more 'prime ministerial' than Michael Heseltine? Would David Miliband have become prime minister if it were not for his brother Ed?...

This book is a comprehensive collection of his best pieces: from early work on The Clash, The Sex Pistols and David Bowie, to pieces on Suede, Blur and Nirvana. More than just a ragbag of journalism, it gives a sweeping and trenchant account of changing...

The Sunday Times bestseller and Richard & Judy Book Club Pick, from the acclaimed author of Room. The Pull of the Stars is set during three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. 'Moving, gripping and dazzlingly written' -...

Badly wounded at the battle of Arnhem, and then spirited from his hospital bed by the Dutch Resistance, Brigadier John Hackett spent the winter of 1944 in Nazi-occupied Holland, hidden by a Dutch family, at great risk to their own lives, in a house a...

Winner of the Australia and New Zealand Law and History Society (ANZLHS) Prize for 2023 Maritime workers occupy a central place in global labour history. This new and compelling account from Australia, shows seafaring and waterside unions engaged in a...

From the presenter of BBC One's Scotland from the Sky You scramble up over the dunes of an isolated beach. You climb to the summit of a lonely hill. You pick your way through the eerie hush of a forest. And then you find them. The traces of the past...

The bestselling diaries of WWII in Tuscany, with a new introduction by writer and social historian Virginia Nicholson, and stunning rediscovered photographsAt the height of the Second World War, Italy was being torn apart by German armies, civil war, and...

The bestselling book that inspired the Bafta-winning BBC dramaCorruption. Blackmail. Conspiracy to murder. A Very English Scandal has all the hallmarks of a classic thriller with one difference. It's all true.In the late 1960s Jeremy Thorp, the...

An immersive reconstruction of the life of the most feared and powerful man of the sixteenth century.'Wolf Hall for the Ottoman Empire ... History at its most gripping' Telegraph'A formidable book ... incredible' Rory StewartVenice, 1522. Intelligence...

The Last Crusaders is about the titanic contest between Hadsburg-led Christendom and the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the last great conflict between East and West - the battles that were fought and the men who led the armies...

Geoffrey Hosking is one of the foremost historians of Russia and its people. The result of a lifetime's knowledge, this monumental and authoritative work has been acclaimed as the definitive single-volume history of Russia, tracing its story from the...

Arriving at the great houses of 1920s London, fifteen-year-old Margaret's life in service was about to begin... As a kitchen maid - the lowest of the low - she entered an entirely new world; one of stoves to be blacked, vegetables to be scrubbed,...

'The experience of insecurity, it turned out, would shape one of the most remarkable monarchs in England's history' In the popular imagination, as in her portraits, Elizabeth I is the image of monarchical power. But this image is as much armour as a...

On the basis of 1,400 oral histories from the men who were there, bestselling author and World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose reveals for the first time anywhere that the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944 had to be abandoned...

'WILL MAKE READERS LONG FOR LAZY DAYS IN RURAL FRANCE' Irish IndependentA missing art student. An international investigation. A secret that will shatter Bruno's charming village of St Denis.A rich American art student is found dead at the bottom of a...

What is 'nothing'? What remains when you take all the matter away? Can empty space - a void - exist? This Very Short Introduction explores the science and the history of the elusive void: from Aristotle who insisted that the vacuum was impossible, via...

From the popular historian and author of Among the Bohemians and How Was It For You? comes a new offering, unbuttoning the multi-layered, hundred-year-history of women's lives through fashion and beauty from 1860 to 1960At the heart of this history is...

Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort had nine children who despite their very different characters, remained a close-knit family. Inevitably, as they married into European royal families their loyalties were divided and their lives dominated by...

Heiresses is a glorious book, endlessly entertaining and about much more than its stated subject. Thompson is a fabulous writer' Caroline O'Donoghue 'Witty, insightful, deliciously gossip-laden and slightly scandalous... Heiresses makes for an...

'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person ... can possibly have value.' So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. More than sixty years on, tens of thousands of people have read and enjoyed three volumes of her...

For almost 200 years, the British perception of the Battle of Waterloo was that it was a great British victory gained over the French tyrant Napoleon which was achieved in spite of, rather than because of, the allied contingents in the Duke of...

Released in 1969, the film _Battle of Britain_ went on to become one of the most iconic war movies ever produced. The film drew many respected British actors to accept roles as key figures of the battle, including Sir Laurence Olivier as Hugh Dowding and...

This new edition of extracts from the extremely candid diaries of Churchill's doctor Lord Moran, his devoted friend and confidant, contains material not previously revealed. It sheds a new light on how the great man faced up to and absorbed the strain of...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *SELECTED AS ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2023*Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. - and the...

Don't just see the sights-get to know the people. Never conquered by foreigners, this proud and ancient land has been shaped by Buddhism, the monarchy, and the military. Today it is a manufacturing powerhouse and a tourist paradise that welcomes more...

'An illuminating work of massive insight' Alan Moore'A sensational book. Heartily recommended' Rufus HoundIt is the century about which we know too much, yet understand too little. With disorientating ideas such as relativity, cubism, the id,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781785374524Author Maureen SullivanFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Merrion PressPublisher Merrion Press

Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The...

An exploration of how the image and idea of the dragon has evolved through history How did the dragon get its wings? Everyone in the modern West has a clear idea of what a dragon looks like and of the sorts of stories it inhabits, not least devotees of...

When Henry VIII died in 1547, he left three highly intelligent children to succeed him in turn, to be followed, if their lines failed, by the descendants of his sister, Mary Tudor.Picking up from the point that The Six Wives of Henry VIII left off,...

'THE POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR' Tim ShipmanA blistering narrative expose of infighting, skulduggery and chaos in Corbyn's Labour party, now revised and updated.* A Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and i Newspaper Book of the Year *Left Out...