Social History

From an acclaimed British author, a sharply focused, riveting account - told from inside the White House - of the crucial days, hours, and moments when the Watergate conspiracy consumed, and ultimately toppled, a president. In January 1973, Richard...

Walls Come Tumbling Down charts the pivotal period between 1976 and 1992 that saw politics and pop music come together for the first time in Britain's musical history; musicians and their fans suddenly became instigators of social change, and 'the...

Newly opened by Queen Elizabeth II herself, discover the history and secret stories of the people who've lived above London's newest trainline.Crossrail, or the 'Elizabeth' line, is just the latest way of traversing the very old east-west route through...

'You hold in your hand a miracle. A book about a passion, and the hipsters, oddballs and old heads who share it, written by one of their number, albeit a ludicrously erudite one' - Danny Kelly A revival of interest in vinyl music has taken place in...

This first ever queer history of St Ives weaves together biography with art and social history to shine new light on a pivotal era in the development of British modernism. At its centre is the sculptor John Milne (1931-1978), who arrived in the town in...

From the fall of the Bastille in 1789 to the coming of Napoleon ten years later, the commemoration of the dead was a recurring theme during the French Revolution. Based on extensive research across a wide range of sources, this book is the first...

The reign of Henry VII is important but mysterious. He ended the Wars of the Roses and laid the foundations for the strong governments of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Yet his style of rule was unconventional and at times oppressive. At the heart of his...

A survey in 1776 recorded almost 2,000 parish workhouses operating in England, while the number in Wales was just nineteen. The New Poor Law of 1834 proved equally unattractive in much of Wales - some parts of the country resisted providing a workhouse...

This celebration of some of the greatest art, architecture and furniture to be found in English churches offers a fascinating account of centuries of accumulated wealth, and is set off by a selection of breathtaking photographs by Matthew Byrne. It...

Witchcraft: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to the scholarly study of witchcraft, exploring the phenomenon of witchcraft from its earliest definitions in the Middle Ages through to its resonances in the modern world. Through the use...

Sultans, Spices, and Tsunamis: The Incredible Story of the World's Largest ArchipelagoIndonesia is by far the largest nation in Southeast Asia and has the fourth largest population in the world after the United States. Indonesian history and culture are...

Provides a comprehensive introduction and essential guide to one of the most important institutions in medieval England and to its substantial archive. This is the first book to offer a detailed explanation of the form, structure and evolution of the...

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Shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize; former prime minister John Major takes a remarkable journey into his own unconventional family past to tell the story of the British music hall. John Major shares memories of his performer father Tom and...

'With originality and subtlety, Diarmuid Hester examines how the gay imagination deals with place and with displacement, allowing for mystery and a kind of magic' Colm Toibin'Hester is a fizzingly brilliant writer' Robert Macfarlane'Haunted and haunting...

The bestselling social history of Victorian domestic life, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of 19th-century men and women. The Victorian age is both recent and unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous and...

A wonderfully colourful and deeply poignant memoir of growing up in a 'single end' - one room in a Glasgow tenement - during and immediately after the Second World War. Although young Robert Douglas's life was blighted by the cruel if sporadic presence...

WINNER OF THE FRANCO-BRITISH SOCIETY BOOK PRIZE 2016June, 1940. German troops enter Paris and hoist the swastika over the Arc de Triomphe. The dark days of Occupation begin. How would you have survived? By collaborating with the Nazis, or risking the...

In the second volume of his classic exploration of the Spanish-Jewish community, Baer covers such major historical events as the Spanish Inquisition and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. This work examines the effect of church policy on the Jewish...

Black Beauty is a novel that changed our world. Intended to 'induce kindness' in a Victorian audience who relied on horses for transport, travel and power, it remains a dearly loved children's classic. Writing Black Beauty is the story of the remarkable...

Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography presents an interdisciplinary examination of trans and genderqueer subjects in medieval hagiography. Scholarship has productively combined analysis of medieval literary texts with modern queer theory...

Harland and Wolff, once acknowledged as the greatest and best-known shipbuilding company in the world, for many years enjoyed a mighty eminence before a gradual descent into near obscurity. This illustrated book, told from the unique perspective of...

This portrait of a period at once familiar and remote includes views of the historic city of Lancaster, illustrates the development of Morecambe from a small fishing community to a thriving seaside resort, recaptures the wealth of Morecambe Bay's...

In mid-1964, Keith Widdowson got wind that the Western Region was hell-bent on being the first to eliminate the steam locomotive on its tracks by December 1965. The 17-year-old hurriedly homed in on train services still in the hands of GWR steam power,...

Now that's what I call a history of the 1980s tells the story of eighties Britain through its popular culture. Charting era-defining moments from Lady Diana's legs and the miners' strike to Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage and Adam and the Ants, Lucy Robinson...

As long as we have been human, we have been mythmakers. In A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong holds up the mirror of mythology to show us the history of ourselves, and embarks on a journey that begins at a Neanderthal graveside and ends buried in...

Over the past 200 years, many thousands of undergraduates have been initiated into membership of Apollo - the Masonic lodge of the University of Oxford. These have included such diverse figures as Oscar Wilde, Osbert Lancaster, Samuel Reynolds Hole,...

'Absorbing and sometimes shocking' - Literary Review'A masterful historical study' - The Good Book GuideBehind the wholesome image of the world's most popular drink lies a strangely murky and often violent past. From its first discovery to the present...

A unique history of the ancient Near East that compellingly presents the life stories of kings, priestesses, merchants, bricklayers, and others In this sweeping history of the ancient Near East, Amanda Podany takes readers on a gripping journey from...

*A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 2021**Longlisted for the William MB Berger Prize for British Art History*'Preposterously entertaining' Observer'Brilliant' Daily Telegraph'Rollicking' Sunday TimesFrom the bestselling author of The Long Weekend: a...

Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End Factories. The Sugar Girls went straight to No.10 in the Sunday Times Bestseller List, spending five weeks in the top ten. 'On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the...

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER ~ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ~ WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 'An astonishing account of love, resilience and survival' Sunday Times 'A remarkable book' New York...

Beneath the Big Top is a social history of the circus, from its ancient roots to the rise of the 'modern' tented travelling shows. A performer and founder of a circus group, Steve Ward draws on eye-witness accounts and contemporary interviews to explore...

Thanks to digitisation, newspapers from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century have become an indispensable and accessible source for researchers. Through their pages, historians with a passion for a person or a place or a time or a topic can...

'A work of remarkable scope' - GuardianFT Best science books of 2018Primate Change has been adapted into a radio series for the BBC WORLD SERVICE.*This is the road from climate change to primate change.PRIMATE CHANGE is a wide-ranging, polemical look at...

With all the financial know-how and experience of the wizards on Wall Street and elsewhere, how is it that the market still goes boom and bust? How can people be so willing to get caught up in the mania of speculation when history tells us that a...

Revised and updated edition of Christian Wolmar's classic history of the London Underground, with a new chapter on Crossrail.'I can think of few better ways to while away those elastic periods awaiting the arrival of the next eastbound Circle Line train...

Virginia Nicholson's Among the Bohemians is a portrait of England's artistic community in the first half of the twentieth century, engaged in a grand experiment.Subversive, eccentric and flamboyant - the Bohemians ate garlic and didn't always wash; they...

'Ultimately, my experiences as a mental health nurse have taught me that we should judge less and open our hearts more.'Belinda Black was just seventeen years old when she began working as a nursing assistant at the large and foreboding 'madhouse', as it...

The Women's Land Army was actually founded in 1917, but it was during the Second World War that it attracted the kind of attention which assured its place in the annals of the British war effort. The Services' demands on manpower created a gap which the...