History

From the winner of the Edgar Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize, a cultural history of “everyday madness”The Book of Phobias and Manias is a thrilling compendium of 99 obsessions that have shaped us all, the rare and the familiar, from ablutophobia (a...

Bringing together nine biographies from Plutarch's Parallel Lives series, this edition examines the lives of major figures in Roman history, from Lucullus (118-57 BC), an aristocratic politician and conqueror of Eastern kingdoms, to Otho (32-69...

The Parallel Lives of Plutarch are cornerstones of Western literature, and have exerted a profound influence on writers and statesmen since the Renaissance, most notably Shakespeare. This selection of ten biographies spans the period from the start of...

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the autobiographical account of T.E. Lawrence - also known as 'Lawrence of Arabia' - of his service in the Arab Revolt during the First World War, published in Penguin Modern Classics.Although 'continually and bitterly...

'His passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable' Although written over four hundred years after Alexander’s death, Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander is the most reliable account of the man and his achievements we have. Arrian’s own...

New York Times bestselling author of Mindhunter John Douglas reveals more unique cases from his time as head of the FBI's elite Investigative Support Unit.In the #1 New York Times bestseller Mindhunter, John Douglas, who headed the FBI's elite...

The works of Friedrich Nietzsche have fascinated readers around the world ever since the publication of his first book more than a hundred years ago. As Walter Kaufmann, one of the world’s leading authorities on Nietzsche, notes in his...

The groundbreaking international best-seller that turns everything you think about money, debt, and society on its head—from the “brilliant, deeply original political thinker” David Graeber (Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me) Before...

A newly updated edition of the landmark translation by one of our greatest religious scholarsSince its publication in 1962, esteemed biblical expert Géza Vermes's translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls has established itself as the authoritative standard...

Athena seized the writhing serpent and hurled it into the sky, and fixed it to the very pole of the heavens. The constellations we recognize today were first mapped by the ancient Greeks, who arranged the stars into patterns for that purpose. In the...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize“Erudite, entertaining macroeconomic history of the lead-up to the Great Depression as seen through the careers of the West’s principal bankers . . . Spellbinding, insightful and, perhaps most important, timely.” —Kirkus...

A feast for the senses, this sumptuously illustrated book will introduce you to some of the most infamous women throughout world history, united by their shared taste for poison. Welcome to the League of Lady Poisoners.This riveting and well-researched...

From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.From trendy restaurants to city grids, to...

An examination of the relation between war and politics, by one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers. From 1971 until 1984 at the Collège de France, Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures ranging freely and conversationally...

The story of Messalina – third wife of the emperor Claudius and one of the most notorious women to have inhabited the Roman worldThe image of the empress Messalina as a ruthless, sexually insatiable schemer, derived from the work of Roman...

The historical continuity of spinal catastrophism, traced across multiform encounters between philosophy, psychology, biology, and geology. Drawing on cryptic intimations in the work of J. G. Ballard, Georges Bataille, William Burroughs, André...

An "official" record that focuses solely on battlefields and political speeches and the passage of legislation presents an incomplete picture of our history; this is an accessible, entertaining story of social change from an overlooked quarter of our...

Why do we wear what we wear? To answer this question, we must go back and unlock the wardrobes of the early twentieth century, when fashion as we know it was born. 'He makes us see a subject we thought we knew so well from a completely different angle;...

Prisoners of Geography’s Tim Marshall unpacks our almost primal instinct for social and political division, and brilliantly deconstructs the walls - both real and electronic - of the future. New from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of...

In this long-awaited publication, we finally learn about the other half. Katy Hessel completely rewrites our understanding of art history, starting with Plautilla Nelli, the first known Florentine female Renaissance artist, through basically yesterday...