Showing titles in Historical

The story of one of the most brilliant, flamboyant and historically important men who ever lived. From the very beginning, Caesar's story makes dazzling reading. In his late teens he narrowly avoided execution for opposing the military dictator Sulla. He was decorated for valour in battle...

Winner of the British Book Awards History Book of the Year Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize This thrilling biography of Stalin and his entourage during the terrifying decades of his supreme power transforms our understanding of Stalin as Soviet dictator, Marxist leader and Russian tsar...

From the award-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author of Churchill and Napoleon the Great, the dramatic story of the team of rivals who propelled the rise and fall of history's greatest warrior. In 1804, immediately after he appointed himself Emperor, Napoleon created the Marshalate, the...

Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in England after the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family, and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody. 

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the Navy Office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England, covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, and wine and his peccadilloes.

As relevant today as it was when it was first published, Man’s Search for Meaning is a book for finding strength and purpose in times of great despair. “This is a book I reread a lot … it gives me hope … it gives me a sense of strength.”—Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper 360/CNN...

Brought to you by Penguin. In six weeks in 1940, France was over-run by German troops and surrendered. One junior French general, refusing to accept defeat, made his way to England. On 18 June he spoke to his compatriots over the BBC, urging them to rally to him in London. At that moment...

Alone among world leaders, Vladimir Putin has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm and has threatened to do so. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine, meddles in Western elections and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. The regime he heads is autocratic and corrupt. Yet many Russians continue to support him. Despite Western sanctions, the majority have been living better than at any time in the past. By fair means or foul, under Putin's leadership, Russia has once again become a force to be reckoned with.

In 1940, Private Raymond Bailey, a 21 year old Vauxhall motors apprentice, serving with the 1st Kensington Regiment, was captured in Northern France, becoming a Nazi prisoner of war. But he wouldn't remain one for long... The Longest Walk Home is the incredible account of his daring 2,000 mile...

Historian and World War II expert Donald Miller brings us the story of the bomber boys who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. Unlike ground soldiers, they slept on clean beds, drank beer in local pubs and danced to the swing music of the travelling Air Force bands. But they were also an elite group of fighters who put their lives on the line in the most dangerous role of all. Miller takes listeners from the adrenaline filled battles in the sky, to the airbases across England, the German prison camps and onto the ground to understand the devastation faced by civilians. 

Bloomsbury presents Agent Zigzag written and read by Ben Macintyre. SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 'Engrossing as any thriller' Daily Telegraph 'Superb. Meticulously researched, splendidly told, immensely entertaining' John le Carré 'This is the most amazing book, full of fascinating...

'A METICULOUS HISTORY THAT READS LIKE A THRILLER' BEN MACINTYRE, TEN BEST BOOKS TO READ ABOUT WORLD WAR II An astounding story of heroism, spycraft, resistance and personal triumph over shocking adversity. 'A rousing tale of derring-do' THE TIMES * 'Riveting' MICK HERRON * 'Superb' IRISH TIMES...

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in seventeenth-century England, covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, and wine and his peccadilloes.

Brought to you by Penguin. *Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter* THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK IS 'A MONUMENT TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT' One of the most famous accounts of living under the Nazi regime comes from the diary of a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl, Anne Frank. Edited by her father Otto H. Frank and...

Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just 20 years, from October 1795, when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'état, he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the revolution had descended.

In autumn 1943 a band of SAS mavericks and freethinkers were alerted to the presence of a 'place of hell' - a concentration camp; arguably the first to come to the notice of the Allies. As German forces were poised to evacuate the prisoners, shipping all deep into Nazi Germany, any rescue...

The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world's surface. How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world's greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius...

Brought to you by Penguin. The enthralling new biography of Ernest Shackleton by the world's greatest living explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes. To write about Hell, it helps if you have been there. In 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton's attempt to traverse the Antarctic was cut short when his ship...

Brought to you by Penguin. Why did so many Germans take part in the crimes of Nazi Germany? How did they come to support Hitler and follow him almost to the very end? For too long, the Nazis have been presented as little more than psychopaths or criminals. In his major new work, renowned...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Winner of AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR at 2020 Audie Awards "Incredibly evocative and compelling." The Washington Post "Although many years have passed since 9/11, this book, told with such immediacy, brings so vividly back to mind the shock of that day, and why it...