History

Discover the Surprising History of Ordinary Things "Emily magically weaves a vibrant history of simple everyday objects we often take for granted. The Story Behind will surprise and delight..." ─Deana Marie, Creator & Host of...

A rich visual history celebrating a century of the magazine’s publication, Architectural Digest at 100 presents the best from the pages of the international design authority.Introduction by Amy Astley, Architectural...

The Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in fierce...

Dating from around the 8th century BC, The Iliad is a prime example of an epic narrative poem and is one of Western literature's oldest works. It tells the story of the weeks during the Trojan war when King Agamemnon and the hero warrior Achilles were at...

Robert Graves's classic retelling of the Greek Myths is definitive, comprehensive and unparalleled - and available now in the Penguin Classics Deluxe series, featuring a new introduction from Rick Riordan (bestselling author of the Percy...

The Mogao grottoes in China, situated near the town of Dunhuang on the fabled Silk Road, constitute one of the world’s most significant sites of Buddhist art. The hundreds of caves carved into rock cliffs at the edge of the Gobi desert preserve one...

In this long-awaited second edition, Susan Whitfield broadens her exploration of the Silk Road and expands her rich and varied portrait of life along the great pre-modern trade routes of Eurasia. This new edition is comprehensively updated to support...

The first new translation in over 400 years of one of the great works of the Renaissance: an African diplomat's guide to Africa.In 1518, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan, a Moroccan diplomat, was seized by pirates while travelling in the Mediterranean...

In his Lives of the Artists of the Italian Renaissance, Vasari demonstrated a literary talent that outshone even his outstanding abilities as a painter and architect. Through character sketches and anecdotes he depicts Piero di Cosimo shut away in his...

The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest-lasting empires in history—and one of the most culinarily inclined. In this powerful and complex concoction of politics, culture, and cuisine, the production and consumption of food reflected...

Ostensibly written by an English knight, the Travels purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land, Egypt, India and China. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan's army, and to have travelled in 'the lands beyond' - countries populated...

The three centuries which followed the conquests of Alexander are perhaps the most thrilling of all periods of ancient history. This was an age of cultural globalization: in the third century BC, a single language carried you from the Rhone to the Indus...

'Drama, betrayal, religion and sex, it's all here ... Fascinating' GUARDIAN'Beautifully paced, impeccably written ... Don't miss it' INDEPENDENT'Fraser is at her best here, lucid, authoritative and compassionate' SUNDAY TIMES'Superbly...

A Business Week, New York Times Business, and USA Today Bestseller"Ambitious and readable . . . an engaging introduction to the oddsmakers, whom Bernstein regards as true humanists helping to release mankind from the choke holds...

In his breakout bestseller, The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger created "a wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea and the often futile attempts of humans to withstand it" (Los Angeles Times Book Review)...

Sun Tzu was one of the greatest army generals who ever lived. He wrote The Art of War in the fifth century BC and yet his words are still resoundingly relevant to our modern lives.His writings on aspects of warfare from the laying of plans to the tactics...

Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kubilai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of...

Ostensibly a biography of the gaucho barbarian Juan Facundo Quiroga, Facundo is also a complex, passionate work of history, sociology, and political commentary, and Latin America's most important essay of the nineteenth century. It is a study of the...

Set your sails east with this stunningly original new history of the world. Peter Frankopan explores the connections made by people, trade, disease, war, religion, adventure, science and technology in this extraordinary book about how the east married...

Plato hailed her as "the Tenth Muse," and 2,500 years later her voice remains dazzling as well as direct and honest. Sappho, a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos, wrote verse that sings to both sexes of desire, rapture, and sorrow. Praised for...