Social History

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATIONA BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES, WATERSTONES AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB MUST READBeastly is the 40,000-year story of our changing kinship with the animal world - from the...

Vaughan renews perspectives on the changes brought about by Irish migrant communities in terms of identity, politics and religion. The book examines on the experience of generations of Irish migrants in the West of Scotland from the aftermath of the...

A landmark study of the history of male-male sex in early modern Europe, including the European colonies and the Ottoman world. Until quite recently, the history of male-male sexual relations was a taboo topic. But when historians eventually explored...

A Notting Hill Carnival city. A rock city. A rave city. A reggae city. A city of deep soul and funky jazz. A city where, from the Rolling Stones to Stormzy, cutting-edge music has constantly been created ... London rules the game.London's Record Shops...

A Waterstones Travel Book of the Year 2023 A funny, warm and timely meditation on identity and belonging, following the scenic route along the England-Wales border: Britain's deepest faultline. There is a...

Millions of Africans were enslaved and transported to the Americas in the eighteenth century. Europeans--many of whom viewed themselves as enlightened--endorsed, funded, legislated, and executed the slave trade. This atrocity had a profound impact on...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781612199337Author David GraeberFormat HardbackPage Count 560Imprint Melville House PublishingPublisher Melville House Publishing

When her mother Celia Paget died, Ariane Bankes inherited a battered trunk stuffed with letters and diaries belonging to Celia and her twin Mamaine. This correspondence charted the remarkable lives of the Paget sisters and their friends and lovers,...

This book brings together Dorothy Thompson's most important essays on English social history, written over the last 25 years, many previously unpublished. Thompson analyzes the Chartist movement, not simply as a political programme, however significant,...

Learn about how we organise our society in The Sociology Book.Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Sociology in this overview guide to the subject,...

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2022'Well-researched and readable' - Financial Times'An absorbing, pacy read' - New Statesman'The story of lycra-clad feminism' Stylist'Canny and informative' - The New YorkerThe untold history of women's exercise culture, from...

In the late 18th century, Members of the English gentry - a tiny group of roughly 1,000 households sandwiched between the ruling nobility and the peasants, and a rough analog for the contemporary "middle class" - the Pastons' experience, recorded ...

Mary McAuliffe's Dawn of the Belle Epoque took the reader from the multiple disasters of 1870-1871 through the extraordinary re-emergence of Paris as the cultural center of the Western world. Now, in Twilight of the Belle Epoque, McAuliffe portrays Paris...

The reissue of Joseph and Frances Gies's classic bestseller on life in medieval villages. This new reissue of Life in a Medieval Village, by respected historians Joseph and Frances Gies, paints a lively, convincing portrait of rural people at work and...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION'METICULOUSLY RESEARCHED ... A GLORIOUSLY ENGAGING ROMP' JANICE HALLETT, THE SUNDAY TIMES'IMMERSIVE AND COMPELLING' DAVID KYNASTON'A PAGE-TURNER' ROBERT LACEYA brilliant narrative investigation into the...

'A landmark piece of non-fiction' Janet Maslin, The New York TimesFrom the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is one of the great untold stories of American history: the migration of black citizens who fled the south and went north in search of a better...

It was not so long ago that the belief in witchcraft was shared by members of all levels of society. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, diseases were feared by all, the infant mortality rate was high, and around one in six harvests was likely to...

This is the story of the women, men, boys, and girls who hawked oysters, cherries, cabbages, and pies on London's streets, feeding the capital throughout its transformation from medieval city to global metropolis. Street Food reconstructs the working...

Twenty years on from her critically acclaimed book, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People, Susan McKay talks again to the people she 'uneasily' called 'her own', those from a Protestant background in Northern Ireland. Against the backdrop of...

A chilling, truly authoritative anthology of real-life accounts of witches, from medieval Europe through colonial AmericaFrom a manual for witch hunters written by King James himself in 1597, to court documents from the Salem witch trials of 1692, to...

Now fully updated to 2009, this acclaimed history of Latin America tells its turbulent story from Columbus to Chavez. Beginning with the Spanish and Portugese conquests of the New World, it takes in centuries of upheaval, revolution and modernization up...

*A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week* 'Carefully observed, rich in detail, imaginative, compassionate and angry. A raw, unexpected portrait of Britain's grandeur, wealth, energy, cruelty and hypocrisy in the age of liberalism' RORY STEWART 'A shocking story...

'Turner's seductive blend of political analysis, social reportage and cultural immersion puts him wonderfully at ease with his readers' David Kynaston 'Reading Alwyn Turner's account of life in the first two decades of the 21st century is a bit like...

'Superb on the human consequences of war, ravishing in its evocations of wartime life' The Times'Compassionate and thought-provoking history' Daily TelegraphLess than a month after it marched into France in summer 1870, the Prussian army had devastated...

'Insightful and breathtaking.' Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens'Bold and sweeping.' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads'Profoundly thought-provoking.' Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut EconomicsHow our evolved psychology has shaped the past,...

'Football is a pleasure that hurts'This unashamedly emotional history of football is a homage to the romance and drama, spectacle and passion of a 'great pagan mass'. Through stories of superstition, heartbreak, tragedy, luck, heroes and villains, those...

Why is the Victoria Line so hot? What is an Electrical Multiple Unit? Is it really possible to ride from King's Cross to King's Cross on the Circle line? The London Underground is the oldest, most sprawling and illogical metropolitan transport system...

An intensely moving account of George III's doomed attempt to create a happy, harmonious family, written with astonishing emotional force by a stunning new history writer. George III came to the throne in 1760 as a man with a mission. He was...

Dame Agatha Christie reigns supreme as the 'Queen of Crime.' Numerous books have been written about the legendary crime writer, focusing on nearly every aspect of her craft. But until now no one has carried out an in-depth investigation into how she...

'The Jago had got him, and it held him fast.' In the worst of London's East End slums, in an area called the Jago, young Dicky Perrott is used to a life of poverty, crime, and violence. Gang warfare is the order of the day, deaths are commonplace, and...

David Toop's extraordinary work of sonic history travels from the rainforests of Amazonas to the megalopolis of Tokyo via the work of artists as diverse as Brian Eno, Sun Ra, Erik Satie, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk and Brian Wilson. Beginning in 1889 at the...

From the bestselling author of The Long Weekend: a wild, sad and sometimes hilarious tour of the English country house after the Second World War, when Swinging London collided with aristocratic values.'Preposterously entertaining' Observer'Brilliant'...

"When I went to medical school, I never dreamt, that as a doctor, one day the biggest contribution I would make to people's health, would be to hand out plastic sheets and blankets under armed guard." Moved by the devastating media coverage of the...

First published in 1999, Uncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in ancient Abyssinia to the advent of Starbucks and the coffee crisis of the 21st century. Mark Pendergrast uses coffee production, trade, and consumption as...

A groundbreaking history of women in British intelligence, revealing their pivotal role across the first half of the twentieth century From the twentieth century onward, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the...

From a foremost expert on the science of emotions, a ground-breaking exploration into the history, psychology and meaning of aweSocial psychologist Dacher Keltner has spent his career speaking to different groups of people, from schoolchildren to...

A compelling, authoritative account of the brilliant, conflicted, visionary world of Tudor England When Henry VII landed in a secluded bay in a far corner of Wales, it seemed inconceivable that this outsider could ever be king of England. Yet he and...

'. . . as when iron is drawn to a magnet, camphor is sucked into hot air, crystal lights up in the Sun, sulfur and a volatile liquid are kindled by flame, an empty eggshell filled with dew is raised towards the Sun . . .'This rich, fascinating anthology...

WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION A spectacular, definitive portrait of ordinary life within one of the world's most repressive states - North Korea. 'A most perceptive and eye-opening account of everyday life in North Korea'...

"Espinoza's book stands out as a beacon for future queer writers, thinkers, and activists. Reading these accounts, I felt myself drawn into a past both wonderful and strange, a world I hope we will continue to celebrate and preserve." -Garrard Conley ...