History

A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year A thrilling study of the greatest of all epic poems, by one of the world's leading classicistsHomer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy. Its subject is the anger of the hero Achilles...

The explosion over Hiroshima of the first nuclear bomb reduced, in an instant, an entire city to rubble and killed over 100,000 men, women and children. It also announced a new era in human history: the Atomic Age. Written only a year after the event,...

'A full-throated song of praise. I loved it' Sherman AlexieIreland, 1959. Young Christopher Hurley is a tinker, a Pavee gypsy, who roams with his father and extended family from town to town, carrying all their worldly possessions in their wagons. ...

Keith Lowe's Savage Continent is an awe-inspiring portrait of how Europe emerged from the ashes of WWII.The end of the Second World War saw a terrible explosion of violence across Europe. Prisoners murdered jailers. Soldiers visited atrocities on...

Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. From the ancient Romans to the present day, their real nature has been obscured by a tangled web of...

Fleming is the only scholar given access to the interrogations of the German civilian crematoria engineers lying inaccessible, until a few months ago, in Moscow. This historically important information finally places the last stone in the mosaic of...

Reporting on China has long been one of the most challenging and crucial of journalistic assignments. Foreign correspondents have confronted war, revolution, isolation, internal upheaval, and onerous government restrictions as well as barriers of...

The ideal travel companion, full of insider advice on what to see and do, plus detailed itineraries and comprehensive maps for exploring Hungary.Experience luxurious spas, wander the historic Castle District in Budapest or explore the immense Hortobagy...

'Absolutely gripping from the word go' Alexis Conran, Times Radio'A convincing insight into the terror and adrenaline rush of war' Mail on SundayDamien Lewis's new bestseller tells the action-packed, riveting story of the band of mavericks and...

One late summer's day in 1642 two rival armies faced each other across the rolling Warwickshire countryside at Edgehill. There, Royalists faithful to King Charles I engaged in a battle with the supporters of the Parliament. Ahead lay even more desperate...

Vivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a first-person account of one of the most startling military episodes in history: the overthrow of Montezuma's doomed Aztec Empire by the ruthless Hernan Cortes and his band of adventurers. Bernal Diaz del Castillo,...

Read the devastating story of the Spanish flu - the twentieth century's greatest killer - and discover what it can teach us about the current Covid-19 pandemic.'Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story... Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a...

The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation...

AD 265, Gaul - The Roman Empire is on the brink.Emperor Gallienus has amassed a huge army across the Alps to seize back the mountains from the usurper Postumus.War has come.Ballista and his cavalry are on the frontline, battling in the most brutal of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781912018116Author Katie WignallPage Count 2Imprint Blue Crow MediaPublisher Blue Crow MediaWeight(grams) 40g

This instant Sunday Times bestseller tells the story of two fighter pilots whose remarkable encounter during the Second World War became the stuff of legend.Five days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime...

Over sixty years after Virginia Woolf drowned in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing set out one midsummer morning to walk its banks, from source to sea. Along the way, she explores the roles that rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through...

Fully updated with new preface and five new speeches for paperback edition.A Guardian Book of the Year.Looking at lists of the greatest speeches of all time, you might think that powerful oratory is the preserve of men. But the truth is very different -...

This is the story of the Anglo-American amphibious assault and subsequent battle on the Italian west coast at Anzio which was launched in January 1944 in a bold attempt to outflank the formidable German defences known as the 'Gustav Line'. ANZIO - THE...

Almost twenty years after the Soviet Unions' end, what are we to make of its existence? Was it a heroic experiment, an unmitigated disaster, or a viable if flawed response to the modern world? Taking a fresh approach to the study of the Soviet Union,...

Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, and a Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine Book of the Year. On the night of 23 February 1820, twenty-five impoverished craftsmen assembled in an obscure stable in Cato Street, London, with a plan to massacre...

'Witches occupy a clear place in contemporary imagination. We can see them, shadowy, in the corners of the past: mad, glamorous, difficult, strange. They haunt the footnotes of history - from medieval witches burning at the stake to the lurid glamour of...

'Historical fiction at its most sumptuous' Rory Clements'S. J. Parris fans will be pleased' Publishers WeeklyFrom the bestselling, CWA Historical Dagger Award-nominated author of The Angel's Mark comes a gripping and atmospheric new mystery . . ...

The #1 NYT BESTSELLER A personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today's world, written by one of America's most admired public servants, the first woman to serve as U.S...

Istanbul, through the mind of its most celebrated writer. ** PRE-ORDER NIGHTS OF PLAGUE, THE NEW NOVEL FROM ORHAN PAMUK **Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature'A declaration of love.' Sunday Times'A fascinating read for anyone who has even the...

The Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) recorded his moral philosophy and reflections on life as a highly original kind of correspondence. Letters on Ethics includes vivid descriptions of town and country life in Nero's Italy,...

A seasonal meander through the wilds of Scotland. 'If Clanlands was a gentle road trip through Scotland, this almanac is a top down, pedal to the metal up and down odyssey through the many byways of a Scottish year. An invitation to anyone who picks up...

As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject; for nearly three thousand years she has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to...

The Two Faces of American Freedom boldly reinterprets the American political tradition from the colonial period to modern times, placing issues of race relations, immigration, and presidentialism in the context of shifting notions of empire and...

Was medieval England full of knights on horseback rescuing fainting damsels in distress? Were the Middle Ages mired in superstition and ignorance? Why does nobody ever mention King Louis the First and Last? And, of course, those key questions: which...

Easily the most celebrated historical work in English, Gibbon's account of the Roman empire was in its time a landmark in classical and historical scholarship and remains a remarkable fresh and powerful contribution to the interpretation of Roman history...

This Very Short Introduction offers a powerfully-written explanation of the war's complex origins and course, and explores its impact on a personal and international scale. It also provides an ethical reflection on the war in the context of Europe's...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Weir is excellent on the little details that bring a world to life' GuardianAnne Boleyn: A King's Obsession by bestselling historian Alison Weir, author of Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, is the second captivating novel...

'If a house could gossip, this is the book that Hampton Court would whisper. An enjoyable and readable stroll through 500 years of Hampton Court history: royal residents, common visitors, thieves, invaders and ghosts' PHILIPPA GREGORY ...

The reign of Elizabeth I was one of the most important periods of expansion and growth in British history, the so-called 'Golden Age'. This celebrated and influential study of Elizabeth reconsiders how she achieved this and the ways in which she...

During the first millennium AD the most northerly part of Britain evolved into the country known today as Scotland. The transition was a long process of social and political change driven by the ambitions of powerful warlords. At first these men were...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'A great, thrusting codpiece of a book. It is big, bombastic and richly brocaded... A jewel in its own right' The Times 'Evokes the painter and his world as vividly as a Holbein masterpiece. Beautifully written and...

This best-selling guide will help you get to grips with the larger themes and issues behind historical study, while also showing you how to formulate your own ideas in a clear, analytical style. Fully updated throughout, further advice on using web-based...

Since the days of conquistador Hernan Cortes, rumours have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden deep in the Honduran interior. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and warn the legendary...

The first full biography of the fearless and brilliant Maria Yudina, a legendary pianist who was central to Russian intellectual life "Playing with Fire is a ground-breaking work-a phenomenal biography of a towering human spirit of everlasting...