Social History

JAM BUTTIES AND A PAN OF SCOUSE is a gritty yet heart-warming memoir set against the backdrop of Liverpool's tightknit working-class docklands community. The story covers Maggie Clarke's upbringing in the tenements close to the docks, the River Mersey...

'Guy Standing's books have, over the years, pieced together a necessary political and intellectual agenda ... His Politics of Time is a splendid and timely addition to this body of important work' Yanis VaroufakisTime has always been political...

As the call for a new understanding of our national history gets louder, this book turns the received imperial story of Britain on its head. Britain's Empire recounts the long overlooked narrative of the resisters, revolutionaries and revolters who stood...

An entertaining, impassioned polemic on the retreat of reason in the late 20th century. An intellectual call to arms, Francis Wheen's Sunday Times bestseller is one of 2004's most talked about books. In 1979 two events occurred that would...

Victorian pumping stations are colourful cathedrals of utility. Their imposing and striking exteriors enclose highly decorative cast-iron frames, built to encage powerful steam engines. They are glorious buildings which display the Victorians'...

Traditionally, in British society, the milkman has been a family friend, a sex symbol and a cheerful chappie. He has been the eyes and ears of the community, and his genetic legacy has supposedly passed into the lineage of housewives.This collection of...

A magnificent debut novel, which follows in the spirit of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in which an alienated student named Lopez joins the Vietnam war to escape from his past and himself. Forced out of self-pity by the brutality and injustice surrounding...

'Roderick Floud's ground-breaking study of the history, money, places and personalities involved in British gardens over the past 350 years gives fascinating insight into why gardening is part of this country's soul.' Michael Heseltine, Deputy Prime...

Selected as a Book of the Year 2019 by The Times and Telegraph'Astonishing. . . Like the great Russian novels, these testimonials ring with emotional truth' - Caroline Moorehead, GuardianExtraordinary stories about what it was like to be a Soviet child...

They ruled the streets of London in the 1960s. Half a century later, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, unrepentant purveyors of violence and murder, hold more fascination than ever before. Portrayed as charismatic gangsters on the big screen, the saga of the...

Priestley's England is the first full-length academic study of J B Priestley - novelist, playwright, screen-writer, journalist and broadcaster, political activist, public intellectual and popular entertainer, one of the makers of twentieth-century...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780853451341Author Leo HubermanFormat PaperbackPage Count 384Imprint Monthly Review Press,U.S.Publisher Monthly Review Press,U.S.Weight(grams) 454g

An examination of one of the most famous ships of all time, from a refreshingly different angle. Compiled from authentic period sources with nostalgic illustrations. Launched in May 1911, the triple-screw steamer Titanic was the pride of the White...

An immensely impressive, authoritative history of the Irish diaspora'A richly detailed, scholarly and challenging history' Sunday Times'For Irish history buffs, it's indispensable' Irish Independent'An absorbing, lucid and sometimes harrowing account'...

With a foreword by Alan Titchmarsh, this beautifully illustrated book tells the story of the Royal Horticultural Society, the perhaps the foremost gardening institution in the world. The RHS is the world's largest gardening charity but what it does and...

A captivating exploration of Britain's most iconic contemporary buildings, from the Barratt home to the Millennium Dome.'A love letter to contemporary buildings and a fantastic account of recent British history, rich in humour.' NINA STIBBE'Brilliant,...

The essential anti-racist book from one of the world's leading voices for change'With This Is Why I Resist, Dr Shola is shaking a nation out of its slumber.' Annie Lennox OBE'Smart and courageous, this book should be on everyone's must-read list.' Naomi...

The Blitz of 1940-41 is one of the most iconic periods in modern British history - and one of the most misunderstood. The 'Blitz spirit' is celebrated by some, whereas others dismiss it as a myth. Joshua Levine's thrilling biography rejects the tired...

A new re-issue of the cult swimming classic, a beautiful read filled with detailed description and powerful prose.WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY AMY LIPTROT'A luminously romantic history of swimming' GuardianHaunts of the Black Masseur is a dazzling...

Beginning with the Colonial period, progressing through the Revolution and the Antebellum period, the book chronologically documents the historical evolution of slavery in the USAAbout the AuthorPeter Kolchin is Professor of History at the University of...

Shortlisted, New Brunswick Book Award for Non-FictionDuring the Second World War, hundreds of New Brunswick woodsmen joined the Canadian Forestry Corps to log the Scottish Highlands as part of the Canadian war effort. Patrick "Pat" Hennessy of Bathurst...

The Neolithic in Britain was a period of fundamental change: human communities were transformed, collectively owning domesticated plants and animals, and inhabiting a richer world of material things: timber houses and halls, pottery vessels, polished...

For thousands of years, humans have built walls and assaulted them, admired walls and reviled them. Great Walls have appeared on nearly every continent, the handiwork of people from Persia, Rome, China, Central America, and beyond. They have accompanied...

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable...

The ten years from 2010 have been devastating. A decade of austerity and paralysis nurtured contempt for leaders, institutions and fellow citizens and fertilised the ground for a rebellious Brexit. It has been a decade characterised by national tragedies...

It is a popular misconception that Hamburg is a coastal city. In fact, despite possessing Europe s second-busiest port, this 'amphibious city' lies some 65 miles from the North Sea. Its long-standing image as a 'city without culture' is also something of...

From the earliest FA Cup finals in the 1870s between teams of former public schoolboys to the glittering world of 21st-century Champions League matches contested by squads of millionaires, The Times has been at pitchside to write the history of football...

Everyday life in the teeming metropolis during William Shakespeare's time in the city. Shakespeare's London was a bustling, teeming metropolis that was growing so rapidly that the government took repeated, and ineffectual, steps to curb its expansion...

A hilarious assortment of the weirdest and wackiest tales ever to come out of the classroom - and they're all true. Featuring the flamboyant swimming teacher who spent his spare time fighting bears, the story of how a fight with his teacher...

An eye-opening publication that contrasts perceptions of luxury - together with its positive and negative connotations - in imperial Persia, democratic Athens and the Hellenistic world between 600 and 200 BCE. 'Luxuriously illustrated' - Asian Review of...

It may not be the longest, deepest or widest river in the world but few bodies of water reveal as much about a nation's past and present, or are suggestive of its future, as England's River Thames. Tales of legendary lock-keepers and long-vanished weirs...

Today the word 'fascist' is usually an insult aimed at those on the right, from neocons to big business. But what does it really mean? What if the true heirs to fascism were actually those who thought of themselves as being terribly nice and progressive...

Winner of the Pushkin House Russian Book PrizeWinner of the University of Southern California Book PrizeHonorable Mention, Reginald Zelnik Book Prize"Fascinating and perceptive."-Antony Beevor, New York Review of Books"Stand aside, Homer. I doubt whether...

'I wish you a Merry Xmas but no compliments of the season' - Jane AustenChristmas comes up time and time again in Jane Austen's books, from childish chaos in Persuasion to fraught festivities in Northanger Abbey. Join Christmas historian Maria Hubert on...

'I wish you a Merry Xmas but no compliments of the season' - Jane AustenChristmas comes up time and time again in Jane Austen's books, from childish chaos in Persuasion to fraught festivities in Northanger Abbey. Join Christmas historian Maria Hubert on...

New York City, 1912: in downtown Greenwich Village, a group of women gathered, all with a plan to change the world. This was the first meeting of 'Heterodoxy', a secret social club. Its members were passionate advocates of women's suffrage, labour...

Peace at last, after Lloyd George declared it had been 'the war to end all wars', would surely bring relief and a renewed sense of optimism? But this assumption turned out to be deeply misplaced as people began to realise that the men they loved were...

Most of the women who ever lived left no trace of their existence on the record of history. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women of the middling and lower levels of society left no letters or diaries in which they expressed what they felt or thought...

Many of the world's most famous hats have their origins in Britain; in the Middle Ages there were civil and religious laws requiring hats to be worn and in Victorian Britain a person would no more leave home without a hat than a pair of trousers. It is...

In this remarkable and groundbreaking book, Kenan Malik explores the history of moral thought as it has developed over three millennia, from Homer's Greece to Mao's China, from ancient India to modern America. It tells the stories of the great...