Showing titles in Modern

Brought to you by Penguin. 'There was hardly a household in the land', writes Lyn Macdonald, 'there was no trade, occupation, profession or community, which was not represented in the thousands of innocent enthusiasts who made up the ranks of Kitchener's Army before the Battle of the Somme...'...

Within days of the D-Day landings, the 'Das Reich' 2nd SS Panzer Division marched north through France to reinforce the front-line defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Veterans of the bloodiest fighting of the Russian Front, 15,000 men with their tanks and artillery, they were hounded for every mile of their march by saboteurs of the Resistance and agents of the Allied Special Forces. Along their route they took reprisals so savage they will live forever in the chronicles of the most appalling atrocities of war.

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...

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalising, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalised in history, with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong?

Bloomsbury presents The Hitler Years by Frank McDonough, read by Paul McGann. Bestselling historian Frank McDonough tackles the subject in the same way as his brilliantly reviewed and bestselling titles in this series. The penultimate title in the Hitler's Germany series, the book marks the end...

Marie Antoinette's dramatic life-story continues to arouse mixed emotions. To many people, she is still 'la reine mechante', whose extravagance and frivolity helped to bring down the French monarchy; her indifference to popular suffering epitomised by the (apocryphal) words: 'let them eat cake'. Others are equally passionate in her defence: to them, she is a victim of misogyny.

Des Powell left school with no qualifications and little in the way of formal education. At nineteen he signed up to join the Parachute Regiment. Famously, the Paras is home to the UK military's second-toughest training regime after the SAS. Des Powell knows all about both. In fact, Des knows SAS selection better than anyone because he's done it twice. In SAS: Trial by Fire he tells the story of those gruelling tests: how Para training turned him into a soldier but, more crucially, how the SAS process turned him into a member of the elite.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Erebus, written and read by Michael Palin. N_______________ THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER In the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, HMS Erebus undertook two of the most ambitious naval expeditions of all time. On the first, she ventured further...

A gripping eyewitness account of a major 20th-century military conflict by the UK's most popular writer on geopolitics. The shattering of Yugoslavia in the 1990s showed that, after nearly 50 years of peace, war could return to Europe. It came to its bloody conclusion in Kosovo in 1999. Tim...

When Sanna Marin became Prime Minister of Finland at just thirty-four years old, she captivated the world’s attention with her progressive ideas and her boldness amidst major crises. In her powerful personal memoir Hope in Action, she shares the extraordinary journey of her trailblazing career...

Michael Bergin's account of the years he and Carolyn Bessette shared—revisiting the years dramatized in FX's Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Would she be alive today? Would we be together? Would we have been happy? Before she was Mrs. John F. Kennedy Jr. — before the...

March 1945. Allied troops are poised to cross the Rhine and sweep on into Germany. Victory is finally within their grasp. But if they believe this victory can be easily won, they face swift disillusionment. The final 100 days of the Second World War will prove to be bitterly and bloodily fought, village by village, town by town. Acclaimed military historian Peter Caddick-Adams brings this closing stage of the Allies' fight against Nazi Germany brilliantly to life. He explores the immense challenges they faced in crossing the Rhine on a 300-mile front. 

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook of Ian Kershaw's The End, a searing account of the last days of the Nazi Regime and the downfall of a nation. Read by David Timson. The last months of the Second World War were a nightmarish time to be alive. Unimaginable levels of violence destroyed entire...

'A rich treasure-chest of a book' ANTHONY HOWARD, Sunday Telegraph 'A spectacular history of the sixties' NICK COHEN, Observer 'Sandbrook's book is a pleasure to read ... he is a master of the human touch' RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES, TLS 'Rivetingly readable' GODFREY SMITH, Sunday Times From the...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A Times and Waterstones Book of the Year ‘The messy, dirty, bloody reality of Operation Overlord comes alive in Sword, Hastings’s portrait of the individual soldiers who risked their lives on the beaches of Normandy. He brings these men to life with sensitivity...

The 20th century should make sense. It's the period of history that we know the most about, an epic geopolitical narrative that runs through World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the American century and the fall of the Berlin Wall. But somehow that story doesn't quite lead into the world we find ourselves in now, this bewildering 21st century, adrift in a network of constant surveillance, unsustainable competition, tsunamis of trivia and extraordinary opportunity.

This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years. The book covers the complex history of the diverse societies and economies of Iran against the background of dynastic changes, revolutions, civil wars, foreign occupation, and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Brought to you by Penguin THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER Discover the incredible true story of WW2's most extraordinary spy - from the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor. From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland, to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria, to...

A brand new, unabridged recording of Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Paris, 1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a...

Olga Lengyel tells, frankly and without compromise, one of the most horrifying stories of all time. This true, documented chronicle is the intimate, day-to-day record of a beautiful woman who survived the nightmare of Auschwitz and Birchenau. This book is a necessary reminder of one of the ugliest chapters in the history of human civilization.