Social History

In this tour de force of original cultural history, Paul Koudounaris takes the reader on an unprecedented international tour of macabre and devotional architectural masterpieces in nearly 20 countries. This is the first book to bring together the world's...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781890951337Author Thomas W LaqueurFormat PaperbackPage Count 504Imprint Zone BooksPublisher Zone BooksWeight(grams) 771gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 46mm

The historic county of Norfolk has more than its fair share of strange tales. From ancient legends, through stories of the supernatural to more modern documented cases, there is much to tell. In Illustrated Tales of Norfolk, John Ling brings together all...

'A sympathetic and perceptive account of a fine writer at a critical moment in our cultural life' KEN LOACHOn 27 May 1958, A Taste of Honey opened in a small fringe theatre in London. Written by a nineteen-year-old bus driver's daughter from Salford, the...

Nobody knows the city of light like Paris resident and travel writer John Baxter - and nobody is able to write about its culture quite so intriguingly. Let him guide you around the Paris you've always wanted to know. How was Ernest Hemingway received by...

Philip Skippon was the third-most senior general in parliament's New Model Army during the British Civil Wars. A veteran of European Protestant armies during the period of the Thirty Years' War and long-serving commander of the London Trained Bands, no...

London was reborn in the fires of the Viking Age, transformed by immigrants and natives, kings and commoners, warriors and saints. In this short history, bestselling historian Thomas Williams explores the profound...

'A witty, lucid investigation into one of the great mysteries of our time' JONATHAN COE'Should be read and enjoyed by readers on the left, right and centre' David Edgerton, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ________________________________________________Why do...

Did you know that: It's against the law to check into a hotel in London under assumed names for the purpose of lovemaking? Under a statute of Edwards II all whales washed up on the shore belong to the monarch? Under a Tudor law Welshmen are not allowed...

This is a book for people who are interested in statues . . . and for people who aren't. It explores those immortalised in marble and bronze - and what the rest of us think about them.As Roger Lytollis travels Britain he encounters a man at Liverpool's...

'One of the most important books about gay culture in recent times' The QuietusLong-listed for the Polari First Book PrizeIn 1984 the pulsing electronics and soft vocals of Smalltown Boy would become an anthem uniting gay men. A month later, an...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781910383667Author Lyn JuliusFormat PaperbackPage Count 360Imprint Vallentine Mitchell & Co LtdPublisher Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd

Sorry no description is available for this book at this time.

Nicky Haslam has always been at the centre of things wherever he is - at parties, opening nights, royal weddings - and has stories to tell of crossing paths, and more, with the cultural icons of our time: Cecil Beaton, Francis Bacon, Diana Cooper, Lucian...

'That's what happens when you listen to the stories and they start to tell themselves all over again ... the more you hear, the more questions there are, answers unpeeling like the layers of an onion.'Memoir, detective work and political history come...

A new series from bestselling author Kate Thompson.'Kate Thompson's wartime novels always strike a chord and Secrets of the Homefront Girls is no exception. You can almost smell the Yardley violets drifting over the factory as the girls live lives...

From the bestselling author Simon Winchester, a human history of land around the world: who mapped it, owned it, stole it, cared for it, fought for it and gave it back. In 1889, thousands of hopeful people raced...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781250177087Author Anne De CourcyFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint St. Martin's GriffinPublisher St. Martin's GriffinWeight(grams) 137g

A fascinating and comprehensive history, Demanding the Impossible is a challenging and thought-provoking exploration of anarchist ideas and actions from ancient times to the present day. Navigating the broad 'river of anarchy', from Taoism to...

What is the appeal to Irwin Allen's shows? Well, to a sixties TV audience used to a diet of westerns and hard-boiled detectives, they were new and exciting compared to what had appeared before. As for the appeal, much of this is down to the groups of...

The Pet Shop Boys came of age at a time of deep socio-political tension. From the rise of sexual politics and awareness to Thatcherite neoliberalism and the Cold War, this book explores the cultural and political impact of the band and offers a...

Can you handle mornings without a brew? No? Multiply that. Imagine an entire population under a cloud of lethargy, unable to kick start their days. Now introduce coffee. Bingo. The brain moves into over-drive and it's time for empire building.So goes...

A general introduction to the classical world from its origins to the fall of the Roman Empire. The book focuses on questions of how we know about Classical civilization from archaeology and history; deals with the Mycenaean era and the world of Myth...

In this book, Alistair Moffat brings vividly to life the story of this great nation, from the dawn of prehistory through to the twenty-first century. Ambitious, richly detailed and highly readable, Scotland: A History From Earliest Times skilfully...

Research for and the writing of this book was funded by the award of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. The period c. AD300--1050, spanning the collapse of Roman rule to the coming of the Normans, was formative in the development of Wales...

Today, Dubai is a city of shimmering skyscrapers attracting thousands of tourists every year. Yet just sixty years ago Dubai's population scraped a living by picking dates, diving for pearls, or sailing in wooden dhows to trade with Iran and India. Dubai...

Born in 1928 in a tent on the shore of Loch Fyne, Argyll, Duncan Williamson (d. 2007) eventually came to be recognized as one of the foremost storytellers in Scotland and the world. Webspinner: Songs, Stories, and Reflections of Duncan Williamson,...

The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir is one of the most hated men in Indian history. Widely reviled as a religious fanatic who sought to violently oppress Hindus, he is even blamed by some for setting into motion conflicts that would result in the...

'A fascinating journey into our relationship with the physical book...I lost count of the times I exclaimed with delight when I read a nugget of information I hadn't encountered before' Val McDermid, The TimesMost of what we say about books is really...

Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper PrizeAs the Napoleonic wars raged, what was life really like for those left at home? Award-winning social historian Jenny Uglow reveals the colourful and turbulent everyday life of Georgian Britain through the diaries,...

Beginning in January 1692, Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts witnessed the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in early America. Villagers--mainly young women--suffered from unseen torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort...

In World War Two, 19 million people died in the conflicts across the globe. Yet in those same years, more than 20 million died from starvation and malnutrition. In The Taste of War Lizzie Collingham shows how food - and its lack - was central to the...

On 23 May 1988, Paul Baker sat down with his family to eat cake on his sixteenth birthday while The Six O'Clock News played in the background. But something was not quite right. There was muffled shouting - 'Stop Section 28!' - and a scuffle. The morning...

A beautifully illustrated history of the Queen of Flowers and her enduring power in our gardens, art, religion and imagination. 'Fascinating... I'll never look at a rose in quite the same way again.' Adrian Tinniswood The rose is bursting with...

The extraordinary true story of the unlikely friendship between three women - Mussolini's daughter, a German spy, and an American socialite - who conspired to assist the Allies. In 1943, Edda Mussolini, daughter of the fascist dictator, gave her father...

The Greeks were extraordinary not least because they evolved "a totally new conception of what human life was for". Elaborating on that claim, the author explores the life, culture and history of classical Greece.About the AuthorHumphrey Kitto...

In this long-awaited book (already a major bestseller in Italy) Ginsborg has created a fascinating, sophisticated and definitive account of how Italy has coped, or failed to cope, with the past two decades. Contemporary Italy strongly mirrors Britain -...

The Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, also called the Age of Reason, was so named for an intellectual movement that shook the foundations of Western civilization. In championing radical ideas such as individual liberty and an empirical appraisal...

A definitive history of mescaline that explores its mind-altering effects across cultures, from ancient America to Western modernity Mescaline became a popular sensation in the mid-twentieth century through Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, after...

Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known, whose empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East and Russia. So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such colossal power,...