Social History

Revealing a world of secret messages contained within a single petal.Floriography – the language of flowers – is the ancient art of encoding hidden messages in the type, colour and arrangement of plants, allowing individuals to express emotions and...

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE'Alex Renton has done Britain a favour and written a brutally honest book about his family's involvement with slavery. Blood Legacy could change our frequently defensive national conversation about slavery/race'...

The Snows of Yesteryear (1989) is Gregor von Rezzori's haunting evocation of his childhood in Czernowitz, in present-day Ukraine. Growing up after the First World War, Rezzori portrays a twilit world suspended between the dying ways of an imperial past...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'Silicon Valley needed a history lesson and Ferguson has provided it' Eric SchmidtMost history is about the people at the top of the towers of power. But what if the real action is in the social networks down below, in the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780679781264Author Anatole BroyardFormat PaperbackPage Count 160Imprint Random House USA IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 176gDimensions(mm)...

The astonishing story of the Sassoons, one of the nineteenth century's preeminent commercial families and 'the Rothschilds of the East'The Sassoons were one of the great business dynasties of the nineteenth century, as eminent as traders as the...

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen;...

Cal Flyn was very proud when she discovered that her ancestor, Angus McMillan, had been a pioneer of colonial Australia. However, when she dug deeper, she began to question her pride. McMillan had not only cut tracks through the bush, but...

'Mak is the history teacher everyone should have had' Financial TimesFrom the author of the internationally acclaimed In Europe, a stunning history of our present, examining the first two decades of this most fragile and fraught new millennium.How did...

'Beautifully written, sumptuously illustrated, constantly fascinating' The TimesOn 26 November 1922 Howard Carter first peered into the newly opened tomb of an ancient Egyptian boy-king. When asked if he could see anything, he replied: 'Yes, yes,...

Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution,the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian...

Politicians claim social mobility is real - a just reward for ambition and hard work. This book proves otherwise.From servants' children who became clerks in Victorian Britain, to managers made redundant by the 2008 financial crash, travelling up or down...

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...

The biggest challenges in public health today are often related to attitudes, diet and exercise. In many ways, this marks a return to the state of medicine in the eighteenth century, when ideals of healthy living were a much more central part of the...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 'A gripping, unputdownable masterpiece' Hallie Rubenhold, author of the Baillie Gifford prize-winning The Five 'Ingenious history writing' Mail on Sunday 'Extraordinary' Guardian 'A...

The last twenty years have witnessed a proliferation of radical social and political movements around the world, in wave after wave of struggles against intersecting forms of exploitation, domination, and subalternization. From the International Women's...

'A daily love letter from a brave young woman to her adored father . . . immensely evocative of wartime Britain, extremely well edited, and occasionally powerfully moving' ANDREW ROBERTS, TLS'It wasn't easy being a Churchill child - and only Mary managed...

Since its original publication in 1978, Delirious New York has attained mythic status. Back in print in a newly designed edition, this influential cultural, architectural, and social history of New York is even more popular, selling out its first...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780143127161Author Nicholas WadeFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint Penguin USAPublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 264g

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the groundbreaking backstairs look at the White House, The Residence, comes an intimate, news-making look at the true modern power brokers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: the First Ladies, from Jackie Kennedy...

Dressing up. Partying all night. This is the world of 1970s fashion, and this book is your backstage pass.Featuring over 25 exclusive interviews with the movers and shakers of the 70s scene, including Grace Coddington, Zandra Rhodes, Willy van Rooy,...

This authoritative and accessible guide to the British monarchy spans the Romano-British rulers of 55 BC to the present day House of Windsor. Generously illustrated with maps, photos, paintings, and genealogies, it contains a wealth of information on the...

WINNER OF THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 'Brilliantly summons up one girl's life, dreams and suffering. It's ingenious history writing' Mail on Sunday 'A gripping, unputdownable masterpiece' - Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five ...

From the Houses of Parliament to the Midland Hotel at St Pancras and Strawberry Hill House, Gothic Revival buildings are some of the most distinctive structures found in Britain. Far from a copy of medieval buildings, it was a style full of colour and...

The tomato gets no respect. Never has. Lost in the dustbin of history for centuries, accused of being vile and poisonous, subjected to being picked hard-green and gassed, even used as a projectile, the poor tomato has become the avatar for our...

'Scary but enlightening' - Christopher StoneMargaret Thatcher remains one of the United Kingdom's most polarising prime ministers. This provocative investigation sheds light on the secret, internal 'cold war' that she waged against 'the enemy within';...

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...

Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she also has a secret history. Drawing from an astonishing trove of documents, including never-before-seen private papers, Harvard historian and New Yorker...

During much of his early career, from 1944 through to the early 1960s, Richard Hardy took hundreds of pictures of life on the railways and the men he knew and worked with on a daily basis, using his trusty Brownie 620 box camera. These unique behind the...

Silence is not simply the absence of noise. It is within us, in the inner citadel that great writers, thinkers, scholars and people of faith have cultivated over the centuries. It characterizes our most intimate and sacred spaces, from private bedrooms...

On 1 September 1939 Operation Pied Piper bgan to place the children of Britain's industrial cities beyond the reach of the Luftwaffe. 1.5 million children, pregnant women and schoolteachers were evacuated in 3 days. A further 2 million children were...

The Brewer's Tale is for anyone who, drinking a beer, has wondered how the past tasted. Part travelogue, part history, part culinary adventure, beer critic William Bostwick uncovers the stories behind the brewers who have practised their craft since the...

An exquisite appreciation of the distinctive rewards of historical research and a classic guide to the personal yet disciplined craft of discovery, now in its first English translation. Arlette Farge's Le Gout de l'archive is widely regarded as a...

As the Israel-Palestine conflict rages on, it is more important now than ever to understand the history of the Palestinian people. Rosemary Sayigh's The Palestinians is a classic of radical history. Through extensive interviews with Palestinians in...

'To see The Clash on the White Riot tour was like discovering how to be a rock star: you just did it yourself. You didn't wait for someone to come and discover you. That was the most important thing that came out of punk... We came home and we cut our...

A rich and fresh survey of women's lives between George III and the First World WarUsing diaries, letters, memoirs as well as social and statistical research, this book looks at life-expectancy, sex, marriage and childbirth, and work inside and outside...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780525511281Author Gary NoesnerFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint Random House Trade PaperbacksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams)...

This book combines linguistic and historical approaches with the latest techniques of DNA analysis and shows the insights these offer for every kind of genealogical research. It focuses on British names, tracing their origins to different parts of the...

Swearing is a fascinating thing. Almost everyone does it, or worries about not doing it, from the two year old who has just discovered the power of the potty mouth to the grandma who wonders why every other word she hears is obscene. But more than its...

'Timely... wonderfully entertaining' - The Wall Street JournalIn It's All A Game renowned games expert Tristan Donovan opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across...