Essays

Just what was so great about Peter, Catherine, Frederick and Alexander? What did Cleopatra see to admire in the fat man with a beard, Mark Anthony? Why do people suffer from Montezuma's revenge? This light-hearted romp through history sets off with the...

Martin Amis first wrote about September 11 a week later in a piece for The Guardian beginning, 'It was the advent of the second plane, sharking in low over the Statue of Liberty: that was the defining moment.' He has kept returning to September 11, in...

Nothing set the world in motion like gold. Between the discovery of California placer gold in 1848 and the rush to Alaska fifty years later, the search for the precious yellow metal accelerated worldwide circulations of people, goods, capital, and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780807056431Author Karl PolanyiFormat PaperbackPage Count 360Imprint Beacon PressPublisher Beacon PressWeight(grams) 465gDimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 25mm

Traditionally known as the Father of History, the Greek writer Herodotus(c. 484-420 BC), was the first man to tell a story in prose on the scale of the ILIAD and the ODYSSEY. His subject is the war between the Persians and the Greeks but, in order to...

Quite simply, this book is a work of genius - Matthew Parris, The SpectatorAn essential study of post-war gay London life... one of the best anthologies I have ever read - John Self, The ObserverWith it's wide-ranging selection, generous biographical...

A sweeping chronicle from Aeneas to Alexander Severus.Dio Cassius (Cassius Dio), circa AD 150-235, was born at Nicaea in Bithynia in Asia Minor. On the death of his father (Roman governor of Cilicia) he went in 180 to Rome, entered the Senate, and...

"It's really quite good." - Elon Musk Twelve Against the Gods was an instant bestseller when it first published in 1929. In his trademark journalist style, author William Bolitho details the lives of twelve great adventurers-Alexander the Great,...

'An invigorating cross-pollination of memoir and natural history, both beautifully phrased and delicately structured-this book deserves your time and attention' Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment A poetic and intimate essay collection on the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781773237978Author Jack BlackFormat PaperbackPage Count 208Imprint Must Have BooksPublisher Must Have BooksWeight(grams) 313gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm *...

Classic political realism.Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that he...

'Gaius Pliny sends greetings to his friend Septicius Clarus...' In these letters to his friends and relations, Pliny provides a fascinating insight into Roman life in the period 97 to 112 AD. Part autobiography, part social history, they document the...

Winner of the 2022 London Hellenic PrizeOn the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution, an essential guide to the momentous war for independence of the Greeks from the Ottoman Empire.The Greek war for independence (1821-1830) often goes missing from...

Classic political realism.Thucydides of Athens was born about 471 BC. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague that ...

Scholar, churchman, diplomat and theologian, Gerald of Wales was one of the most fascinating figures of the Middle Ages and The Journey Through Wales describes his eventful tour of the country as a missionary in 1188. In a style reminiscent of a diary,...

A group of notable writers-including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow-celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the past What can a...

"[An] incredibly moving collection of oral histories . . . important enough to be added to the history curriculum" Telegraph"Essential reading" History Today"A moving evocation . . . An illuminating if harrowing insight into life in a totalitarian state...

'Two things alone I long for: first, that when I die I may leave the Roman people free...and second, that each person's fate may reflect the way he has behaved towards his country.' Cicero (106-43 BC) was the greatest orator of the ancient world and a...

Between 58 and 50BC Caesar conquered most of the area now covered by France, Belgium and Switzerland, and twice invaded Britain. This is the record of his campaigns.Caesar's narrative offers insights into his military strategy & paints a fascinating...

The latest no-f**ks-given guide from New York Times bestselling author of the international sensation The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k, Get Your Sh*t Together, and You Do YouDo you waste time overthinking things you can't do anything about?...

When President Habyarimana's jet was shot down in April 1994, Rwanda erupted into a hundred-day orgy of killing - which left up to a million dead. Fergal Keane travelled through the country as the genocide was continuing, and his powerful analysis...

The most important written work in English before the Norman Conquest, newly translated.Made up of annals written in the monasteries of Winchester, Canterbury, Peterborough, Abingdon, and Worcester, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle marks the beginning of the...

One of the Most Important Books on Civil Rights, Race, and Freedom Ever Written. "A groundbreaking challenge to white supremacy." -The New York Times A classic work of American literature, African-American history, and sociology by W. E. B. Du Bois, The...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsCommended for National Book Awards (Nonfiction) 2020.Book InformationISBN 9780814255995Author Jerald WalkerFormat PaperbackPage Count 152Imprint Ohio State University...

After the execution of Socrates in 399 BC, a number of his followers wrote dialogues featuring him as the protagonist and, in so doing, transformed the great philosopher into a legendary figure. Xenophon's portrait is the only one other than Plato's to...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780593446157Author Nate DiMeoFormat HardbackPage Count 336Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA Inc

For two hundred years after the French Revolution, the Republican tradition celebrated the execution of princes and aristocrats, defending the Terror that the Revolution inflicted upon on its enemies. But recent decades have brought a marked change in...

For four centuries, Logavina Street was a quiet residential road in a city known for its ethnic tolerance and cosmopolitan charm. Muslims, Christians, Serbs and Croats lived easily together, sharing an identity as Bosnians. Then the war tore their lives...

Travelling on horseback through southern England in the early 19th century, William Cobbett provides evocative and accurate descriptions of the countryside, colourful accounts of his encounters with labourers, and indignant outbursts at the encroaching...

Originally published in 1966. This book collects papers and essays written by historian Frederic C. Lane, who specialized in medieval Venetian history.About the AuthorFrederic C. Lane specialized in medieval history with an emphasis on the Venetian...

In 1940 the Second World War continued to rage, and atrocities wreaked around the globe made international waves. Wells, a socialist and prominent political thinker as well as a first-rate novelist, set down in The Rights of Man a stirring manifesto,...

Based on a series of lectures delivered in 1840, Thomas Carlyle's On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History considers the creation of heroes and the ways they exert heroic leadership. From the divine and prophetic (Odin and Muhammad) to the...

Saladin is perhaps the one and only Muslim ruler who emerges with any clarity in standard tales and histories of the Crusades; this is a translation of Baha' al-Din Ibn Shaddad's account of his life and career. Ibn Shaddad (1144-1234) was clearly a...

Notable writers-including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow-celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the pastWhat can a house tell us...

Nature's Explorers celebrates the individuals who made great personal endeavours in order to document the natural world. Their findings revolutionised our understanding of nature and gave birth to the modern fields of geography, evolutionary biology,...

Maurice O'Sullivan was born on the Great Blasket in 1904, and 'Twenty Years A-Growing' tells the story of his youth and of a way of life which belonged to the Middle Ages. He wrote for his own pleasure and for the entertainment of his friends, without...

Dramatic artist, natural scientist and philosopher, Plutarch is widely regarded as the most significant historian of his era, writing sharp and succinct accounts of the greatest politicians and statesman of the classical period. Taken from the Lives, a...

Written by Europe's first professional woman writer, The Treasure of the City of Ladies offers advice and guidance to women of all ages and from all levels of medieval society, from royal courtiers to prostitutes. It paints an intricate picture of daily...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781914198427Author V.S. PritchettFormat PaperbackPage Count 208Imprint Daunt BooksPublisher Daunt BooksDimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 15mm

'Textured literary portraits of the masculine mind and body'Raymond Antrobus, author of The PerseveranceIn October 1960, James Baldwin and John Cheever spoke on a panel together at San Francisco State College. The troubled state of American society was...