Historical

Patrice Lumumba (1925-61) is perhaps the most famous leader of the African independence movement. After his execution in 1961, when he had been prime minister of the newly-liberated Congo for only seven months, he became an icon of anti-imperialist...

*JEWISH CHRONICAL CRITICS' CHOICE: NON-FICTION OF THE YEAR 2022*'A devastatingly affecting book. . . Bunce Court! I keep saying the name to myself because it encapsulates all that is gentle and comically charming about wartime England' The Times ...

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE With an introduction by her biographer, Mark Bostridge'Remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time' GUARDIAN 'Vera Brittain's heart-rending account of the way her generation's lives changed is still...

Born into wealth in New Orleans in 1795 and married into misery fifteen years later, the Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba led a life ripe for novelization. Intimate Enemies, however, is the spellbinding true account of this resilient woman's life...

With his signature insight and compelling style, Christopher Hibbert explains the extraordinary complexities and contradictions that characterized Benito Mussolini. Mussolini was born on a Sunday afternoon in 1883 in a village in central Italy. On a...

The Ypres Salient saw some of the bitterest fighting of the First World War. The once-fertile fields of Flanders were turned into a quagmire through which men fought for four years. In casualty clearing stations, on ambulance trains and barges, and at...

The Nawab Nazim was born into one of India's most powerful royal families. Three times the size of Great Britain, his kingdom ranged from the soaring Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. However, in 1880, he was forced to abdicate by the British authorities,...

At the age of sixteen, Catherine Tylney Long became the wealthiest heiress in England, and the public found their 'angel'. Witty, wealthy and beautiful, Catherine was the most eligible of young ladies and was courted by royalty but, ignoring the warnings...

In this second edition of Arthur Keaveney's classic biography, a fresh generation of students, scholars and readers are introduced to one of the most pivotal figures in the outgoing Roman Empire.A definitive book in its field, this second edition is a...

Notting Hill has inspired a large number of books and has often made national news - though not always for the right reasons. It has forever been an area of contrast between rich and poor, and has undergone almost constant change since it was developed...

In Kremlin Winter, Robert Service, acclaimed biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky and one of the finest historians of modern Russia, brings his deep understanding of that country to bear on the man who leads it. 'One of our most accomplished, erudite...

2019 Tucson Weekly "40 Essential Arizona Books" pick 2014 One Book Yuma selection 2010 Best of the Best from the University Presses (ALA) selection 2010 Caroline Bancroft History Prize Finalist 2009 Southwest Book of the Year"The Blue Tattoo is well...

On 15 April 1989, ninety-six spectators lost their lives at Sheffield's Hillsborough Stadium as they gathered for an FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. The events of that spring afternoon sparked a controversy that continues...

A dazzling biography of two interwoven, tragic lives: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald. 'Highly engaging ... Go now, read this book' THE TIMES 'For awhile after you quit Keats,' Fitzgerald once wrote,...

Douglas Hurd retired as Foreign Secretary in 1995 after a distinguished career in Government spanning 16 years. As Secretary of State for Ireland, Home Secretary and then six years in the Foreign Office in Margaret Thatcher and John Major's...

Colm Toibin's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory.A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner, yet retained an unprecedented independence of both...

In this entertaining and engaging memoir, former ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles lifts the lid on embassy life throughout the world. In 1977 fresh-faced Oxford graduate Sherard Cowper-Coles entered the hallowed portals of the Foreign Office...

Wilhelm von Habsburg wore the uniform of an Austrian officer, the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, the decorations of the Order of the Golden Fleece and, every so often, a dress. He spoke the Italian of his...

They built a nation. Now it's our turn.Many associate the Victorian era with austere social attitudes and filthy factories. But in this bold and provocative book, Jacob Rees-Mogg -- leading Tory MP and prominent Brexit advocate -- takes up the story of...

He was, of course, a man better known for burning books than collecting them and yet by the time he died, aged 56, Adolf Hitler owned an estimated 16,000 volumes - the works of historians, philosophers, poets, playwrights and novelists. For the first...

For nearly fifty years, J. Edgar Hoover held great power in the United States. The creator of the FBI and its Director until his death, he played a role in nearly every major tragedy and scandal in America during the twentieth century. Hoover was lauded...

The incredible true story revealed by a family notebook, telling of four daughters across two centuries of turbulent history, of a passionate and ill-fated royal love affair, ending in a tragic and cruel death. 'The beautiful owner of this...

'An enormously useful achievement...every twist and turn of her political life is here' The Times, BOOKS OF THE YEARIn this abridged edition of John Campbell's two acclaimed volumes on Margaret Thatcher, we trace the life of Britain's only female Prime...

Michael Ward studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at University College Oxford, and Economic and Social History at Birkbeck University of London. Elected to the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1981, he led the GLC’s economic development work for...

Robert Capa, one of the finest photojournalists and combat photographers of the twentieth century, covered every major conflict from the Spanish Civil War to the early conflict in Vietnam. Always close to the action, he created some of the most enduring...

'Glorious... Scurr is one of the most gifted non-fiction writers alive' Simon Schama, Financial TimesA revelatory portrait of Napoleon written for our own time, exploring his love of nature and the gardens that gave his revolutionary life its light and...

The airborne battle for the bridges across the Rhine at Arnhem ranks amongst the Second World War's most famous actions - inspiring innumerable books and the star-studded 1977 movie. This book, however, is unique: deeply moved, the author provides a...

Painter, poet and actor Salvator Rosa was one of the most engaging and charismatic personalities of seventeenth-century Italy. Although a gifted landscape painter, he longed to be seen as the pre-eminent philosopher-painter of his age. This new account...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780307407160Author Jack WeatherfordFormat PaperbackPage Count 336Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 244gDimensions(mm)...

When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, many in the West were left stunned at his act of brutal imperialism. To those who had been paying attention, however, the warning signs of the bloodshed and slaughter to come had been there for...

King Richard III remains one of the most infamous and recognisable monarchs in English or British history, despite only sitting on the throne for two years and fifty-eight days. His hold on the popular imagination is largely due to the fictional...

Shortlisted for the HWA Sharpe Books Non-Fiction Crown AwardA work of investigative history that will completely change the way in which we see the Romanov story. Finally, here is the truth about the secret plans to rescue Russia's last imperial family...

A New York Times bestseller, Red is the first book to explore the history of red hair and red-headedness throughout the world.With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, Jacky Colliss Harvey explores red hair in the ancient...

'A compelling tragedy, but one which casts valuable new light on the outsized human dimensions of both men ... Agonising but excellent' The Telegraph'In this fascinating account of the turbulent Churchill father-and-son relationship, Josh Ireland shows...

'A compelling tragedy, but one which casts valuable new light on the outsized human dimensions of both men ... Agonising but excellent' The Telegraph'In this fascinating account of the turbulent Churchill father-and-son relationship, Josh Ireland shows...

One of them was a military genius; one murdered his mother and fiddled while Rome burned. Six of their number were assassinated, two committed suicide, and five of them were elevated to the status of gods. They have come to be known as the 'twelve...

To have sailed on the voyage of the century' aboard White Star Line's RMS Titanic - described at the time as a floating palace' - was like being one of the first passengers to fly on Concorde. On 10 April 1912, people from all walks of life began...

Sometimes overshadowed by his friend and contemporary, Samuel Pepys, Evelyn is the other great English diarist. He was a scholar, a scientific amateur, a garden designer and architect, and a founder member of the Royal Society who published a magisterial...

'I was married at twenty and a mother of three by twenty-three ...When I look back at the first three years of my marriage, I wonder how I lived through it.' When it was published in 1915 No One But a Mother Knows provoked a sensation - for the first...

This is the best-selling biography of the IRA resistance fighter and hunger-striker, Bobby Sands. In this updated, new edition, Denis O'Hearn draws from a wealth of interviews with friends, comrades, fellow prisoners and prison wardens, to provide a...