History

A moving account of how war is remembered – and by whom 'Impressive. A hundred individual histories, skillfully assembled, built into a poignant meditation on why they still matter' David Olusoga 'Brilliant' Piers Morgan Shortlisted for...

How technology and the attention economy shape contemporary art and performanceThe reception of art and performance is changing. Smartphones and social media have troubled the old model of individual appreciation and close looking, giving rise to new...

What’s the most useful thing you could know about your own life?In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns to a question that affects us all: how do we understand, and navigate,...

'What a wonderful book!  The storytelling, the research, the deep love of her subject -- this must be the climax of Rappaport's long and illustrious career' Lucy Worsley  To Queen Victoria she was Aunt Julie; to Catherine the Great...

'A wonderful book' TOM HOLLAND'Marvellous... highly entertaining' EMMA SOUTHON'Orator gives us a Cicero for our times... Compelling and beautifully written' EVE MACDONALDA gripping new biography of one of the most influential and...

Read in an afternoon. Remember for a lifetime.In his acclaimed new bestseller, now in paperback, James Hawes tells the story of Europe's most admired and feared country, from Julius Caesar to Angela Merkel. With more than 100 maps and images, this is a...

The Renaissance is one of the most studied and celebrated eras of history. Spanning the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of modernity, it has come to symbolise the transformative rebirth of knowledge, art, culture and political thought in Europe...

NOMINATED FOR THE 2026 MILITARY HISTORY BOOK AWARDS No campaign during World War Two contained more spinetingling drama, outstanding courage and heartbreaking tragedy than the Arctic convoys. Yet they – and the multifaceted Battle of the Arctic...

'Delightful … Venner builds an excellent narrative of a city that was thriving and bustling with life at the very point it was snuffed out.' The Times We all know how the people of Pompeii died. But what about how they lived? __________ In 24...

'An ideal introduction to French history for almost any reader.'LITERARY REVIEW‘A perfect digest… Distilling 2,000 years’ worth of history in a 255-page book that ends with an image of Zinedine Zidane at the Olympics is no mean...

‘Expertly blending instruction with amusement, King presents serious lessons for our times and reminds us why the past should not be forgotten if a better future is what we desire’ INSIDE STORYRanging across more than a thousand years,...

Explore the Ancient Roman Empire as you’ve never seen it before with the acclaimed anthropologist and Sunday Times bestselling author of Domination, Alice Roberts.AS SEEN ON CHANNEL 4Join Professor Alice Roberts as she travels two...

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Natalie Livingstone's deeply researched, unfailingly fascinating book gives the many extraordinary women at or near the centre of the Nuremberg trials their proper, important, and often ignored place in...

Hailed as "a very gripping read" by The New York Times and selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist, this national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted...

_   A WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE MONTH   ‘Magical... A book that will refresh your soul.’ Carol Drinkwater, author of The Olive Farm   ___   THE TRUE STORY OF A COURAGEOUS LEAP INTO A NEW LIFE   In 2000, burnt out...

When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth.Berlin, 1943. A group of high-society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them...

Could a Roman bridge carry a modern freight train? How much would it cost to build the Colosseum today? What if the Romans had grown potatoes? In a series of fast-paced essays, Leaky Aqueducts, Battle Pigeons, and Mystery Cults answers...

Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born the fifth child of his father's third wife, in a family that included twenty-four children born to four different mothers. He spent his 1930s childhood as the apple of his mother's eye, before attending school to slake what was...

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city.   Horizontal...

The astonishing, never-before-told story of the greatest rescue mission of World War II—when the OSS set out to recover more than 500 airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia.“An amazing, riveting tale of unsung heroes who went...