Showing results for "History" in Politics & Social Sciences

THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Read by David Mitchell. A funny book about a serious subject, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how we got here - and who is to blame. Think you know your kings and queens? Think again. Taking us right back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn't exist)...

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's fascinating and humorous quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. He takes subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry, and particle physics, and aims to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. In the company of some extraordinary scientists, Bill Bryson reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

A fascinating and surprising history of the world told through the lines people have drawn on maps, described by Richard Osman as 'an absolutely incredible present for anyone who's interested in the world at all, which is sort of all of us' (The Rest Is Entertainment podcast) * * * Pre-order...

The wildly engaging new history of the British monarchy from bestselling historian Lucy Worsley. 'Fabulously enjoyable... a great big treat of a book.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Filled with nuggets of historical delights... highly readable and thoughtfully curated.' DAILY MAIL 'A glorious, glorious book...

Christmas is the single biggest annual event on the planet, a time for merry-making, over-indulgence, peace, goodwill, and the occasional family row. It’s as comfortable and familiar as a pair of old shoes and yet still glittery and exciting. But what do you really know about it? It’s stuffed full of traditions and rituals that most of us have been observing all our lives without having the slightest idea of where they come from.

Nothing offends liberals and leftists more than Western imperialism—it is racism, sexism, and chauvinism all in one. And of course the epitome of Western imperialism is the British Empire, the biggest empire the world has ever known, covering at its height a quarter of the globe's surface and...

When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zigzagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way home. Secret agents and resistance fighters risked their lives and those of their families to hide the men. Drawing on declassified files and eye-witness testimonies from across Europe and the United States, Helen Fry provides a significant reassessment of MI9’s wartime role. 

Bloomsbury presents The Rest is History by The Rest is History, read by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. 'An idiosyncratic ride through history' Independent 'Holland and Sandbrook have pretty much reinvented popular history for the modern age' The Times The nation’s favourite historians, Tom...

Focusing mostly on Italy and Germany but also considering Spain, Romania, Japan, and movements in other countries, Payne describes fascism as revolutionary ultranationalism based on national rebirth, extreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the promotion of violence and military virtues. He also suggests that the early Russian communists borrowed many techniques from fascism, and that though we are fairly well-inoculated against fascism itself, the values it represents could still emerge in new forms.

At Will Durant's death at 96, in 1981, his personal papers were dispersed among relatives, collectors, and archive houses. Twenty years later, scholar John Little discovered the previously unknown manuscript of Heroes of History in Durant's granddaughter's garage. Written shortly before he died, these 21 essays serve as an abbreviated version of Durant's best-selling, 11-volume series, The Story of Civilization.

The term Mexican Drug War misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the US role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from and sell weapons to Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the US prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer - with increasingly deadly consequences.

Old Sparky covers the history of capital punishment in America and the "current wars" between Edison and Westinghouse, which led to the development of the electric chair. It examines how the electric chair became the most popular method of execution in America before being superseded by lethal injection. Famous executions are explored alongside quirky last meals and poignant last words.

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 'An insightful and important book, that often reads like a good thriller, and that exposes the danger of mixing powerful technology with irresponsible politics' - Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens 'As moving as it is painstakingly researched. . . a...

What will planet Earth be like in 20 years? At mid-century? In the year 2100? Prescient and convincing, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future. Never has the world offered more promise for the future and been more fraught with dangers. In this powerful and sometimes terrifying work, Attali analyzes the past and pinpoints nine distinct periods of human history, each with its world center of power and prestige, and predicts what the tenth will bring by the end of this century.

Best-selling author Christopher Winn explores Britain's royal past, unearthing a rich legacy of castles and palaces, cathedrals and country retreats, battlefields and monuments where kings and queens lived and died. In this exploration of royal British history, discover whose heart is buried near the Tower of London, which palace was built on top of a mulberry garden, the world's oldest and largest occupied castle, and the first building in Britain to have latrines.

‘Astonishing … A work of moral courage’ BRIAN ENO ‘Affecting … beautifully written’ GUARDIAN ‘An important work’ AFUA HIRSCH ‘Remarkable’ YANIS VAROUFAKIS ‘A book of extraordinary moral clarity’ NATHAN THRALL A sweeping and revelatory history of the hidden tradition of...

For more than four thousand years, the Middle East has provided a setting for titanic struggles between great civilizations and religions. In the twentieth century it became the focus of rivalry between the European powers as the last major Islamic empire of the Ottoman Turks crumbled and...

**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY** What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens? One of the world's preeminent historians and thinkers, Yuval Noah Harari challenges everything we know about being human. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a...

With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present, and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests. 

Inexplicable lights in the night sky. Mysterious men in black. Flying saucers. For decades, these images and ideas have intrigued and frightened us in equal measure. While humanity has always been curious about the universe and the possibility of life amongst the stars, the mid-20th century saw a sudden explosion in claims of UFO sightings and “evidence” of alien visitors.