Essays

'Fascinating... I loved this book; I really did' David Crystal, Spectator A biography of a much misunderstood punctuation mark and a call to arms in favour of clear expression and against stifling...

The Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman's Park, London, is a Victorian monument containing fifty-four ceramic plaques commemorating sixty-two individuals, each of whom lost their own life while attempting to save another. Every plaque...

'The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one.' - Ernest HemingwayA unique and captivating collection of Hemingway's writings on war, including extracts from his unparalleled war novels, some classic short stories, an extract from his only...

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...

Roberto Calasso is one of the most original and acclaimed of writers on literature, art, culture and mythology. In Baudelaire's Folly, Calasso turns his attention to the poets and writers of Paris in the nineteenth century who created what was later...

'History as you've never seen it before.' Dan SnowDid you know that the history of the beard is connected to the Crimean War; that the history of paperclips is all about the Stasi; and that the history of bubbles is all about the French Revolution? And...

Through a close reading of the lives and works of some of the greatest intellectuals of recent times, Adam Shatz asks: do writers have an ethical imperative to question injustice? How can one remain a dispassionate thinker when involved in the cut and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781990263187Author Themrise KhanFormat PaperbackPage Count 268Imprint Daraja PressPublisher Daraja PressWeight(grams) 940g

The Missing of the Somme has become a classic meditation upon war and remembrance. It weaves a network of myth and memory, photos and films, poetry and sculptures, graveyards and ceremonies that illuminate our understanding of, and relationship to, the...

This startling biography explores the remarkable life of an iconic figure of the twentieth century, Vaclav Havel, author and dissident, who became the first president of the Czech Republic.Vaclav Havel: iconoclast and philosopher king, an internationally...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780486814452Author S. SteinbergFormat PaperbackPage Count 400Imprint Dover Publications Inc.Publisher Dover Publications Inc.Weight(grams)...

Read the definitive essay collection from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Adversary, dubbed 'France's greatest writer of non-fiction' (New York Times)'The most exciting living writer' Karl Ove KnausgaardOver the course of his career, Emmanuel...

"[An] incredibly moving collection of oral histories . . . important enough to be added to the history curriculum" Telegraph"A moving evocation of the 'everyday terror' systematically perpetrated over 41 years of Albanian communism . . . An illuminating...

A captivating cultural and scientific history of orchards, for readers of Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire and Mark Kurlansky's Salt. Throughout history, orchards have nourished both body and soul: they are sites for worship and rest, inspiration...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781250245670Author Jeff NussbaumFormat PaperbackPage Count 384Imprint Flatiron BooksPublisher Flatiron BooksWeight(grams) 386gDimensions(mm) 226mm * 142mm *...

The Lie of the Land is a highly engaging study of Ireland's fractured and shifting identities by one of its most talented writers. From its sometimes confused sense of place, caught somewhere between Europe and America, Ireland has redefined itself in...

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

This book brings back into print, for the first time since the 1830s, a text that was central to the transatlantic campaign to fully abolish slavery in Britain's colonies. James Williams, an eighteen-year-old Jamaican "apprentice" (former slave), came to...

The instant New York Times bestseller from the author of Furiously Happy and Let's Pretend This Never Happened. Now with a new bonus chapter.'Broken is the party of the year . . . I loved it' - Sarah Knight, bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781535286596Author Tekena N TamunoFormat PaperbackPage Count 116Imprint Createspace Independent Publishing PlatformPublisher Createspace Independent...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780375725821Author Alma GuillermoprietoFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 288gDimensions(mm)...

Author of the first gothic novel and son of the first prime minister of Great Britain, Horace Walpole had wide-ranging interests that included literature, politics, world affairs, collecting, antiquities, and architecture, and to his numerous...

The Art of War is almost certainly the most famous study of strategy ever written and has had an extraordinary influence on the history of warfare. The principles Sun-tzu expounded were utilized brilliantly by such great Asian war leaders as Mao...

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...

A fresh, provocative history that renews our understanding of France in the world through short, incisive essays ranging from prehistoric frescoes to Coco Chanel to the terrorist attacks of 2015. Bringing together an impressive group...

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,...

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...

In a lively challenge to mainstream history, Michael Parenti does battle with a number of mass-marketed historical myths. He shows how history's victors distort and suppress the documentary record in order to perpetuate their power and privilege. And he...

Capitalism was born in England, yet the dominant Western conceptions of modernity have come from elsewhere, notably from France, the historical model of "bourgeois" society. In this lively and wide-ranging book, Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780996264815Author Debra BrownFormat PaperbackPage Count 598Imprint Madison Street PublishingPublisher Madison Street PublishingWeight(grams)...

The book is a fully annotated translation of al-Shayzari's Nihayat al-Rutba fi Talab al-Hisba (The Utmost Degree in the Pursuit of Hisba), a manual written in the 12th century AD for the practical use of the Islamic inspector of markets. It is the...

The history of ancient Rome omitting all the boring bits. Following the success of BBC2 hit Rome on BBC2, no one has looked at the private lives of the Roman Emperors again in the same light. Anthony Blond's scandalous expose of the life of the Roman...

Social upheaval in early 20th-century Europe is the historical setting for this seminal study by the Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset. Continuously in print since 1932, Ortega's vision of Western culture as sinking to its lowest common...

The First Crusade received its name and shape late. To its contemporaries, the event was a journey and the men who took part in it pilgrims. Only later were those participants dubbed Crusaders-"those signed with the Cross." In fact, many developments...

Comparative biographies of distinguished Greeks and Romans.Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45-120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781611800388Author Georg Feuerstein, PhDFormat PaperbackPage Count 528Imprint Shambhala Publications IncPublisher Shambhala Publications IncWeight(grams)...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781538741221Author Douglas PrestonFormat HardbackPage Count 320Imprint Grand Central PublishingPublisher Grand Central PublishingWeight(grams)...

'I will do as the Senate decrees.' These words from one of Rome's opponents encapsulate the authority Rome achieved by its subjugation of the Mediterranean. The Third Macedonian War, recounted in this volume, ended the kingdom created by Philip II and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781399510066Author Stanley StowersFormat HardbackPage Count 320Imprint Edinburgh University PressPublisher Edinburgh University PressWeight(grams)...

In a series of penetrating and attractively readable essays, Stefan Collini explores aspects of the literary and intellectual culture of Britain from the early twentieth century to the present. Common Writing focuses chiefly on writers, critics,...