History

When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626 he showed his shrewdness by also buying the oyster beds off tiny, nearby Oyster Island, renamed Ellis Island in 1770. From the Minuit purchase until pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New...

'Puts Cavendish back into the literary history books where she belongs' Kate Mosse 'Scholarly, articulate, and never less than fascinating' Alice Loxton A biography of the remarkable, and in her time scandalous, seventeenth-century writer Margaret...

The Tang dynasty is often called China's "golden age," a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in...

Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne's life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why does she inspire such extreme...

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering over 10,000 years, from the origins of...

A riveting, revealing and news-making account of the CIA's interrogation of Saddam, written by the CIA agent who conducted the questioning. In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured...

Patented in 1898 and produced from 1900, Georg Luger's iconic semi-automatic pistol became synonymous with Germany's armed forces throughout both world wars. Initially chambered for the 7.65x21mm round, from 1902 the Luger was designed for DWM's...

In the summer of 1914 Scotland prepared for war.Steel and Tartan charts the adventures of the 4th Battalion, Queens Own Cameron Highlanders - from their training in Bedford with the Highland Division through to five major engagements in France, including...

Henry Morgan, a twenty-year-old Welshman, arrived in the New World in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. Over the next three decades, his exploits in the Caribbean in the service of the English became legend. His daring attacks on the mighty Spanish...

A collection of Eleanor Crow's beautiful watercolours of classic shopfronts. Published in partnership with Spitalfields Life Books, this timely volume celebrates the small neighbourhood shops of London. As our high streets decline into generic monotony,...

Peek beneath the bedsheets of Stuart Britain in this frank, informative, and captivating look at the sexual lives of the peoples of the British Isles between 1603 and 1714. Popular Stuart historian Andrea Zuvich, The Seventeenth Century Lady , explores...

Many people know that in 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin's antibiotic potential while examining a stray mould that had bloomed in a dish of bacteria in his London laboratory. But few realise that Fleming worked only fitfully on penicillin...

Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first bride, has become an icon: the betrayed wife, the revered Queen, the devoted mother, a woman callously cast aside by a selfish husband besotted by his strumpet of a mistress. Her sister, Juana of Castile, wife of...

A unique and fascinating look at Victorian society through the remarkable lives of an enlightened and philanthropic aristocratic couple, the Marquess and Marchioness of Aberdeen, who tried to change the world for the better but paid a heavy price. This...

In The Secrets of Alchemy, Lawrence M. Principe, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, brings alchemy out of the shadows and restores it to its important place in human history and culture. By surveying what alchemy was and how it began,...

Filled with almost unbearable tension and excitement, DAS BOOT is one of the best stories ever written about war, a supreme novel of the Second World War and an acclaimed film and TV drama.It is autumn 1941 and a German U-boat commander and his crew set...

With an new foreword by James WarrenLong renowned as one of the clearest and best introductions to ancient Greek philosophy for non-specialists, W.K.C Guthrie's The Greek Philosophers offers us a brilliant insight into the hidden foundations of Greek...

Based on select writings from an exceptional Amsterdam archive containing more than two thousand Dutch diaries from World War II, The War Diaries illuminates a part of history we haven't seen in quite this way before. ...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781780913902Author Phil HewittFormat PaperbackPage Count 160Imprint DB PublishingPublisher DB Publishing

As the course of World War II turned against the Third Reich after Stalingrad some of the most inventive and radical proposals, and designs, were put forward by armaments manufacturers, scientists and technicians, aircrew and even private individuals to...

This book tells the full story of the US Naval air campaign during the Vietnam War between 1965 to 1975, where the US Seventh Fleet, stationed off the Vietnamese coast, was given the tongue-in-cheek nickname 'The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club'. On August 2,...

'What a compelling read! Nancy Goldstone has brought to life the four female Stuarts in all their tragic glory' Amanda ForemanValentine's Day, 1613. Elizabeth Stuart, the sixteen-year-old granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots, marries Frederick V, a...

An Army officer must lead men into frightening and dangerous situations and sometimes make them do things that they never thought they could do. This book recounts how British officers have led their men, and commanded their respect, from the days of...

When Heloise Goodley ditched her City job and decided to attend officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, she had no prior military experience. On her arrival she was a complete novice: she'd never fired a rifle, she couldn't march; she...

THE GREATEST OF BATTLESThe defining military engagement of the nineteenth century. The epic battle that forever ended one man's dreams of a European empire unified under his rule.THE GREATEST OF RIVALSThis epoch-defining conflict would ultimately be...

Trained in the use of the Eureka radar, holophan lights, and colored ground panels, the pathfinders dropped thirty minutes before the main airborne landing to provide ground guidance for successive airborne jumps. The concept of the pathfinders proved...

This fascinating selection of historic photographs documents the dramatic transformation that has taken place over the last 150 years in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The book gives an unforgettable impression of familiar streets and...

This book is part of the unique Book of Samurai series that comprises the works of 17th-century samurai tactician Natori Sanjuro Masazumi, retainer and advisor to the lords of Kishu domain. It offers an unparalleled insight into the weaponry and armour...

Doomed queen of Henry VIII, mother to Elizabeth I, the epic story of Anne Boleyn.Anne Boleyn was the most controversial and scandalous woman ever to sit on the throne of England. From her early days at the imposing Hever Castle in Kent, to the glittering...

A Waterstones Best Book of 2020 The theory of evolution by natural selection did not spring fully formed and unprecedented from the brain of Charles Darwin. Rather it has been examined and debated by philosophers the world over for thousands...

This book reveals the impact of wartime and austerity on British fashion and tells the story of how a spirit of patriotism and make-do-and-mend unleashed a wave of new creativity among women who were starved of high fashion by shortages and rationing...

Few, if any, English-language critics have written as perceptively as Isaiah Berlin about Russian thought and culture. Russian Thinkers is his unique meditation on the impact that Russia's outstanding writers and philosophers had on its culture. In...

In this exciting revisionist history, Stephen Tuck traces the black freedom struggle in all its diversity, from the first years of freedom during the Civil War to President Obama's inauguration. As it moves from popular culture to high politics, from the...

"The Swan King" is the biography of one of the most enigmatic figures of the 19th century, described by Verlaine as 'the only true king of his century'. A man of wildly eccentric temperament and touched by a rare, imaginative genius, Ludwig II of Bavaria...

Jones's Icones contains finely delineated paintings of more than 760 species of Lepidoptera, many of which it described for the first time, marking a critical moment in the study of natural history. With Iconotypes Jones's seminal work is published for...

In Harrier Boys, Volume One: Cold War Through the Falklands, 1969-1990, Bob Marston, who flew Harriers for many years, draws together accounts from others who worked with this unique jet through its history. The excitement, camaraderie and pride of...

The questions have haunted our nation for half a century: Was the President killed by a single gunman? Was Lee Harvey Oswald part of a conspiracy? Did the Warren Commission discover the whole truth of what happened on November 22, 1963?Philip Shenon, a...

A captivating exploration of Britain's most iconic contemporary buildings, from the Barratt home to the Millennium Dome.***TIMES BOOK OF THE WEEK*** 'A punchy polemic ... Highly readable.''A love letter to contemporary buildings and a fantastic account...

As a young civil servant, Caroline Slocock became the first ever female private secretary to any British Prime Minister, and was at Margaret Thatcher's side for the final eighteen months of her premiership. A left-wing feminist, Slocock was no natural...

Embark on an unforgettable time-travelling journey through Chinese history.This beautifully illustrated children's history book spans 2,500 years and more than a thousand miles along China's Grand Canal. With stunning, panoramic illustrations and lively,...