Social History

'A thrilling celebration of lighthouses' i newspaperAn enthralling history of Britain's rock lighthouses, and the people who built and inhabited themLighthouses are enduring monuments to our relationship with the sea. They encapsulate a romantic vision...

Until 1951 Nepal was closed to the world, landlocked between the strongest Asian powers, India and China. With its exceptional landscape, it touts the highest mountains and the greatest biodiversity on earth. It is best known as the home of Mt. Everest...

***A Waterstones Best Books of 2022 pick***Book of the Year in the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and New Statesman'A powerful illumination of a lost world that is nevertheless part of living memory.' Simon Heffer, 'Books of the Year' , Daily Telegraph'A...

Here are the feasts that really are fit for a king - or queen. This delightful book explores the history of royal dining from the bustling kitchens of the Middle Ages to the informal dinner parties of today. Susanne Groom, a former curator at Historic...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING - HIGHLY COMMENDED'Remarkable' Robert Macfarlane'Beautiful' Amy Liptrot'Powerful, unflinching . . . Part hymn to nature, part Troubles memoir' GuardianKerri ni Dochartaigh was born in Derry at the...

'The question Eilenberger sets out to answer in this ambitious, enthralling book: what use is philosophy in the middle of a war?' The Sunday TimesThe year is 1933. Hannah Arendt escapes Berlin, seeking refuge among the stateless gathering in Paris...

*FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH* 'I really can't recommend this enough - especially if you are going on holiday' Tom Holland 'Delightful ... Lucy Lethbridge has written a glorious romp of a book' Kathryn Hughes, The Mail on Sunday 'It is the...

Farquhar, Crawford, Cavenagh, Thomson, Anderson, Napier, Fullerton, Henderson, MacRitchie, MacPherson, Outram, Purvis, Spottiswoode. These are some of the Scots who have played a part in making Singapore.Guthrie, Fraser & Neave, Rodyk & Davidson, Sime...

From the bestselling historian and acclaimed broadcaster 'A rich social history ... Paxman's book could hardly be more colourful, and I enjoyed each page enormously' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES ...

City of Dreams is the long overdue, inspiring, and defining account of New York's both famous and forgotten immigrants: the young man from the Caribbean who relocated to New York and became a founding father; Russian born Emma Goldman, who condoned the...

Christmas has been all things to all people: a religious festival, a family celebration, a time of eating and drinking. Yet the origins of the customs which characterize the festive season are wreathed in myth.When did turkeys become the plat du jour? Is...

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about...

"Fascinating."-Thomas W. Hodgkinson, The Guardian "Richly detailed and frequently illuminating."-Rhys Blakely, Times (UK) "Excellent."-Clare Bucknell, New Yorker A New Yorker Best of the Week PickA provocative and original history of the scientists and...

James VI and I, the first monarch to reign over Scotland, England and Ireland, has long endured a mixed reputation. To many, he is simply the homosexual King, the inveterate witch-roaster, the smelly sovereign who never washed, the colourless man behind...

When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, everybody in Britain knew that the civilian population would be affected far more than they had been in the First World War. As aircraft got more advanced, Britain's cities came within range and were...

Written by leading authorities, the volume can be considered a standard work on seventeenth-century English social history. A tribute to the work of Keith Wrightson, Remaking English Society re-examines the relationship between enduring structures and...

Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran, Nellie Bly was renowned as America's first 'girl stunt reporter'. She was a pioneer of investigative journalism, including an expose of patient treatment at a mental asylum and a travelogue from her record-breaking race...

Maps go far beyond just showing us where things are located. All Mapped Out is an exploration of how maps impact our lives on social and cultural levels. This book takes you on a journey through the fascinating history of maps, from ancient cave...

An intensely moving account of George III's doomed attempt to create a happy, harmonious family, written with astonishing emotional force by a stunning new history writer. George III came to the throne in 1760 as a man with a mission. He was...

'Glorious' GUARIDAN 'Vigorous, rigorous and eminently readable' SPECTATOR London is a city of dreamers. A city of possibility and experiment. A city of fervent...

An enthralling account of day-to-day life in a medieval French village. Using records gathered by the Catholic Church in its pursuit of heretics, the book recreates the lives of a rich cast of village characters.About the AuthorEmmanuel Le Roy Ladurie...

Revelling in the off-beat and eccentric, Londoner Suggs takes us on a nostalgic adventure to explore the disappearing history of his extraordinary home town: from the sharp tailors of Saville Row to the sex traders of Bohemian Soho, by way of quaint and...

What was the life of an eighteenth-century British genteel woman like? In this lively and controversial book, Amanda Vickery invokes women's own accounts of their intimate and their public lives to argue that in the eighteenth and early nineteenth...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781681376929Author Anton ShammasFormat PaperbackPage Count 280Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, IncWeight(grams)...

Award-winning writer Richard Williams tells the remarkable story of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the world's most iconic motorsports events, which celebrates its centenary in 2023. The event was created by a group of Frenchmen in 1923 and remains...

The Top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREOscar Nominated For Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay Set amid the civil rights movement, the...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZEIn this astonishing collection of essays, the award-winning poet and novelist Kei Miller explores the silence in which so many important things are kept. He examines the experience of discrimination through this...

Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire is Iain Sinclair's foray into one of London's most fascinating boroughs'As detailed and as complex as a historical map, taking the reader hither and thither with no care as to which might be the most direct...

Allotments are sanctuaries for growing, often on the fringes of suburbia, where life is getting ever more stressful and expensive. Here, a simple urge to grow-your-own or become self-sufficient, brings us closer to a community of people, wildlife and...

Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall...these fictional masterpieces are all recognised as landmarks of English Literature. Still inspirational and challenging to readers today, upon release in the mid-nineteenth century they caused a...

For Rian Malan, the blessing of living in South Africa is that every day presents him with material whose richness astounds those who live in saner places. Twenty years after the publication of his bestseller My Traitor's Heart, he is still strongly...

'I loved every page, and ended up admiring David Kynaston, our greatest social historian, even more than I already did' Nick Hornby Brimming with wisdom and humour, David Kynaston's diaries written over one football season offer up his most personal...

This enthralling book will take you, month-by-month, day-by-day, through all the festivities of English life. From national celebrations such as New Year's Eve to regional customs such as the Padstow Hobby Horse procession, cheese rolling in...

'An uplifting record of progress and strength... You'll lay the book down feeling not only informed, but galvanised to take action yourself.' Independent'An incredible book . . . with the potential to change women's lives.' Sandi ToksvigWhy is it taking...

'An uplifting record of progress and strength... You'll lay the book down feeling not only informed, but galvanised to take action yourself.' Independent'An incredible book . . . with the potential to change women's lives.' Sandi ToksvigWhy is it taking...

'Roy Porter, a historian of formidable range, turns to urban history in this marvellously lucid, informative and passionate book... Porter's facts are always at the service of the narrative, which has a finely maintained momentum, balancing statistics...

'Roy Porter, a historian of formidable range, turns to urban history in this marvellously lucid, informative and passionate book... Porter's facts are always at the service of the narrative, which has a finely maintained momentum, balancing statistics...

'A fascinating account...combining the rigour of the historian with the powerful emotions of someone who was a twenty-year-old student at the time' UncutIt was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll. But what impact did it have on today's political...

'A fascinating account...combining the rigour of the historian with the powerful emotions of someone who was a twenty-year-old student at the time' UncutIt was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll. But what impact did it have on today's political...

A crime scene. A murder. A mystery.The most important person on the scene? The forensic scientist. And yet the intricate details of their work remains a mystery to most of us. Silent Witnesses looks at the history of forensic science over the last two...