Social History

This is a triumph. A love letter to the ghosts of Edinburgh. I feel its hand upon my shoulder. - Sara Sheridan As a writer of fiction, I found myself itching to lift some of these characters from the page into the fertile fields of my own imagination...

T. E. Carhart, an American living in Paris, is intrigued by a piano repair shop hidden down a street near his apartment. When he finally gains admittance to the secretive world of the atelier, he finds himself in an enormous glass-roofed workshop filled...

'In Liverpool everybody wanted to be in a band. On every street corner and in every cellar there were young fellas practising with guitars. But it was rare to see any girls on the new Merseybeat scene. It was inevitable that we would find each other . . ...

A Sunday Times Book of the YearQueen Of Our Times is the definitive biography of Queen Elizabeth II by one of Britain's leading royal authorities, Robert Hardman. This commemorative edition includes an epilogue reflecting upon Her Majesty's Platinum...

'A classic in the making for our times' MONIQUE ROFFEY'Haunting, beautiful...Anima will live with me for a long time' CAL FLYN'A beautiful book of passion and adventure... She is simply sublime' HORATIO CLAREThe spellbinding new book by the prizewinning...

This authoritative and wide-ranging book, first published in 2003, examines the history of western linguistics over a 2000-year timespan, from its origins in ancient Greece up to the crucial moment of change in the Renaissance that laid the foundations...

**New edition updated with a foreword by Manny Pacquiao.** A celebration and memorial of the greatest era of heavyweight fighters from 1962 to 1997, as witnessed ringside by an International Boxing Hall of Fame sportswriter. Once upon a time, of all the...

'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...

A celebration of the printed book, told through the lives of 18 people who took it in radical new directions.'This really is the loveliest of books' I'I cannot recommend it highly enough' SPECTATORThis is an extraordinary story of skill, craft, mess,...

Steeped in honey, Juventius, your golden eyes, and as sweet too when I press my lips to them - three hundred thousand kisses is not close to enoughFor centuries, evidence of queer love in the ancient world was ignored or suppressed. Even today, only a...

With an introduction by Colm Toibin.Ten years ago, I began to explore the country on which I was supposed to be an authority . . .France is a country famous for its intellectuals, its philosophers and writers, its fashion, food and wine. And yet the...

'A compassionate, wide-ranging study.' Terry Eagleton, The Guardian Despite 21st-century fears of a modern 'epidemic' of loneliness, its history has been sorely neglected. A Biography of Loneliness is the first history of its kind to be published...

The Beatles landing in New York in February 1964 was the opening shot in a cultural revolution nobody predicted. Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island...

In April 1820, a series of dramatic events exploded around Glasgow, central Scotland and Ayrshire. Demanding political reform and better living and working conditions, 60,000 weavers and other workers went on strike. Revolution was in the air. It was...

A journey through Europe's old towns, exploring why we treasure them-but also what they hide about a continent's fraught history "[A] fascinating chronicle."-Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal Historic quarters in cities and towns across the middle...

'Dame Anna Wintour might be one of the best-known and most successful journalists on the planet. But it wasn't always like that. When she started out on Vogue she was often so miserable she had to phone her husband for help. This is just one of countless...

What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest "to solve intelligence" - a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind or in the deep physiology of the brain, such as in its complex neural networks. The Eye of the Master...

Heiresses is a glorious book, endlessly entertaining and about much more than its stated subject. Thompson is a fabulous writer' Caroline O'Donoghue 'Witty, insightful, deliciously gossip-laden and slightly scandalous... Heiresses makes for an...

'Pain and pleasure are simple ideas, incapable of definition.' In 1757 the 27-year-old Edmund Burke argued that our aesthetic responses are experienced as pure emotional arousal, unencumbered by intellectual considerations. In so doing he overturned...

From the author of Fake History, Otto English, comes a shocking yet hilarious look at ten of the greatest liars from our past, examining these previously unquestioned idols and exposing what they were trying to hide.'A brilliant book.' James O'BrienWas...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780993526541Author Paul ScraseFormat PaperbackPage Count 122Imprint ArkboundPublisher Arkbound

The untold story of rural Britain revealed through its artefacts 'A really lovely, fascinating book. I dived straight into this clever, joyous, celebration of nature, history, and - of course - the countryside.'...

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 joyous new book on post-war Britain.' Daily...

First published in 2000, Dipesh Chakrabarty's influential Provincializing Europe addresses the mythical figure of Europe that is often taken to be the original site of modernity in many histories of capitalist transition in non-Western countries. This...

Discover the fascinating stories behind some 300 species of fungi and understand the world of mushrooms like never before!Did you know that fungi put the fizz in champagne and the flavour in chocolate? Fungi is everywhere we look: in a forest, under the...

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...

This groundbreaking history of Victorian politics, feminism and parliamentary reform challenges traditional assumptions about the development of British democracy and the struggle for women's rights and demonstrates how political activity has been shaped...

A lost princess and a vanished world: a remarkable true story that moves from the Punjab of the Raj to 1930s Paris and the cataclysm of the Second World War'Remarkable and compelling. I loved this book' Edmund de Waal'A thoroughly engaging read' Kamila...

Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, star of Martin Scorsese's hit Netflix series, Pretend It's a City.'The gold standard for intelligence, efficiency and humour...

Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction 2011. Life is on the up. We are wealthier, healthier, happier, kinder, cleaner, more peaceful, more equal and longer-lived than any previous generation. Thanks to the...

In 1881, a writer in the Saturday Review called tattooing 'an art without a history'. 'No-one', it went on, 'has made it the business of his life to study the development of tattooing.' Until now. Painted People is a...

'Brilliant . . . really made me realise how no one has pulled back and given an overall story to the last 20 years . . . It's clever because it makes me think about now' ADAM CURTIS, FILMMAKERBritney, Paris, Lindsay, Aaliyah, Janet, Amy, Kim, Chyna, Jen...

'Absolutely fascinating . . . A must-read for anyone enthralled by the value and integrity of books' Janice Hallett, author of The Alperton AngelsA true detective story from the age of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers: the literary crime that fooled...

Our success as a species is built on sociability, so shyness in humans should be an anomaly. But it's actually remarkably common - we all know what it's like to cringe in embarrassment, stand tongue-tied at the fringe of an unfamiliar group, or flush...

From Emperors and empresses, poets and prostitutes, slaves and plebs, Ancient Rome was a wealth of different experiences and expectations. None more so than around the subject of sex and sexuality. The image of Ancient Rome that has come down to us is...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2023 A WATERSTONES BOOK OF YEAR FOR POLITICS 2023 'I learned something new on every page of this totally essential book'...

In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the...

Cornwall's landscape is intertwined with the county's folklore and legends. In Illustrated Tales of Cornwall, author John Husband explores a multitude of mysterious happenings, haunted places and strange tales from ancient times to the modern day. This...

A concise, illustrated guide to these Second World War defences scattered across the British landscape. With invasion a very real threat, in 1940 Great Britain began a huge military construction programme designed to stop an invading army in its...

The remarkable life of the vivacious, clever - and forgotten - Kennedy sister, who charmed the English aristocracy and was almost erased from her family history. The favourite child of Joe Kennedy and favourite sister...