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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

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Emma Holten

*AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER* 
WINNER OF THE POLITIKEN LITERATURE PRIZE 2024 
 
'Brilliantly rewrites the history of economic thought to place 'her story' at its heart. A must-read' - Kate Raworth, author of DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS 
 
How can we create a better future – one that truly prioritises health and happiness? 
 
For too long, economic thinkers have left out acts of care - written off as 'women's work' for centuries - from their calculations. The result? Terrible real-world consequences today: crumbling public services, struggling schools and care systems on the brink of collapse. 
 
In Deficit, prominent Danish feminist Emma Holten reveals how and why this happened, and argues that the things that matter – doing homework with your child, checking in on loved ones, talking to a 
colleague who doesn’t seem well – might seem inconsequential, but are in fact the building blocks of the economy. Urgent and incisive, this is a call to rethink the economic value of care. 
 
'One of the most important feminist voices of the 21st century' - Sofie Hagen

Deficit

The Hidden Value of Care

Julian Sancton

'full of heroism, greed, piracy, sunken treasure and adventure on the high seas... it's even more remarkable because it's true' ERIC SCHLOSSER New York Times bestselling author of Command and Control and Fast Food Nation 
 
'a splendid historical tale that’s been researched meticulously and told exceptionally well' HAMPTON SIDES, New York Times bestselling author of 'The Wide Wide Sea' 
 
'a rousing slice of narrative history, and a rip-roaring tale from bow to stern' TELEGRAPH 
 
The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk with over $1 billion in gold and silver—and one man’s obsessive quest to find it—from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth 
 
Roger Dooley wasn’t looking for the San Jose. But an accidental discovery in the dusty stacks of a Spanish archive in the 1980s led him to the story of a lifetime—the journey of a ship that had gathered a mountain of riches from the New World for a long-awaited delivery to the King of Spain nearly three centuries earlier. But that ship, the galleon San Jose, never reached its destination. Instead, the Spanish treasure fleet was drawn into a pitched battle with British ships of war off the coast of Cartagena. When the smoke cleared, the San Jose had disappeared into the ocean. 
 
Though a diver at heart, Dooley was an unlikely candidate to find the San Jose. Half Cuban by birth, he lived a life that stretched from the ballfields of Brooklyn to the shores of Castro’s Havana at the dawn of revolution, where he would help birth a fledgling nation’s diving program and make films with Jacques Cousteau, before finding himself placed on an international watch list and barred from the United States. Dooley had little in the way of serious credentials, yet his tenacity and single-minded devotion to finding the San Jose led him to breakthroughs once thought impossible. As he jousted with famous treasure hunters and well-funded competitors, Dooley ultimately homed in on a patch of sea that might contain a three-hundred-year-old shipwreck—or nothing at all. 
 
Neptune's Fortune plunges into a rarified world through the eyes of an idiosyncratic protagonist, one whose work would spark the hopes of presidents and make real the dreams of a nation. This tale of temerity and treasure is a one-of-a-kind story of a lost fortune and the decades-long quest to shine a light on the bounty at the bottom of the sea. 
 
'brilliantly written... if I were to choose one book to exemplify the fascination and folly of treasure-hunting, this would be it' DAVID GIBBINS, author of A History of the World in Twleve Shipwrecks 
 
'a thoroughly engrossing read' SUSAN ORLEAN, bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book 
 
'Sancton is a masterful storyteller... Readers are in for a rare treat' SCOTT ANDERSON, New York Times bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia

Neptune’s Fortune

The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire

Janina Ramirez

From the bestselling author of FEMINA, a brilliant reappraisal of the medieval women whose lives have been exploited over centuries for political, nation-building ends. 
 
In LEGENDA, bestselling historian Professor Janina Ramirez peels back the layers of time to reveal how the lives of women have been co-opted by those intent on crafting national identities. Their names are well known, and summaries of their achievements have been recited in classrooms for decades, but medieval women like Joan of Arc, Lady Godiva and Isabella of Castile have been misrepresented, their stories twisted and weaponised. Meanwhile, ground-breaking 18th- and 19th-century women who blazed a trail through revolutionary Europe have been forgotten, their legacies too easily dismissed or ignored. 
 
Questioning established narratives and searching for the real women behind the legends, Ramirez interrogates what defines a nation and who gets to build it, shining a light on how history is so often hijacked to serve the ideological and political interests of the present. 
 
PRAISE FOR JANINA RAMIREZ: 
 
'Ramirez blasts a powerful spotlight into the so-called Dark Ages and reveals a vibrant world, awash with colour and character' DAN SNOW, host of History Hit 
 
'Skillfully brings out from the shadows the lives of women who ruled, fought, traded, created, and inspired' CAT JARMAN, author of River Kings 
 
'Like the interlace stonework on an Anglo-Saxon cross, Janina Ramirez's themes are interwoven with a conssumate skill' TOM HOLLAND, author of Dominion and host of The Rest is History 
 
'Ramirez makes us look into the mists of history in new, exciting and provocative ways' PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads

Legenda

The Real Women Behind the Myths That Shaped Europe

Roman Krznaric

'Brimming with ideas and insights, this is a welcome, important and clear-eyed view of how understanding the past can help us better prepare for the future' - Peter Frankopan, bestselling author of The Earth Transformed and The Silk Roads 
 
'Enlightening and thrilling. History for Tomorrow tells us who we are and who we could be' - George Monbiot, bestselling author of Regenesis and How Did We Get Into This Mess? 
 
What can humankind’s rich history of radical revolts teach us about the power of disobedience to tackle the climate crisis? What inspiration could we take from eighteenth century Japan to create a regenerative economy today? How might understanding the origins of capitalism spark ideas for bringing AI under control? 
 
In History for Tomorrow, leading social philosopher Roman Krznaric unearths fascinating insights and inspiration from the last 1000 years of world history that could help us confront the most urgent challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century. From bridging the inequality gap and reducing the risks of genetic engineering, to reviving our faith in democracy and avoiding ecological collapse, History for Tomorrow shows that history is not simply a means of understanding the past but a way of reimagining our relationship with the future. Krznaric reveals how, time and again, societies have risen up, often against the odds, to tackle challenges and overcome crises. History offers a vision of radical hope that could turn out to be our most vital tool for surviving and thriving in the turbulent decades ahead

History for Tomorrow

How The Past Can Inspire Our Future

Inspiration from the Past for the Future of Humanity

Harald Jähner

*An Observer Book of the Year* 
'One of the most gripping accounts... of the Nazis' rise to power. It contains many lessons for the world now.' - John Kampfner, bestselling author of Why The Germans Do It Better 
'Outstanding... This is history at its very best.' - Julia Boyd, bestselling author of Travellers in the Third Reich 
 
Germany, 1918: a country in flux. The First World War is over, the nation defeated. Revolution is afoot, the monarchy has fallen and the victory of democracy beckons. Everything must change with the times. 
 
Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launches an unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The Weimar Republic is established. The years that follow see political extremism, economic upheaval, revolutionary violence and the transformation of Germany. Tradition is shaken to its core as a triumphant procession of liberated lifestyles emerges. Women conquer the racetracks and tennis courts, go out alone in the evenings, cut their hair short and cast the idea of marriage aside. Unisex style comes into fashion, androgynous and experimental. People revel in the discovery of leisure, filling up boxing halls, dance palaces and the hotspots of the New Age, embracing the department stores’ promise of happiness and accepting the streets as a place of fierce political battles. 
 
In this short burst of life between the wars, amidst a frenzy of change, comes a backlash from those who do not see themselves reflected in the new Republic. Little by little, deep divisions begin to emerge. Divisions that would bring devastating consequences, altering the course of the twentieth century and the lives of millions around the world. Vertigo is a vital, kaleidoscopic portrait of a pivotal moment in German history.

Vertigo

The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany

Michael Meyer

‘Makes the case for Annie Besant as a truly eminent Victorian, as brilliant and fearless as she was beautiful’ The Times 
_________ 
 
London, 1877. A petite young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. 
 
Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the crime of publishing a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably, Annie is defending herself against obscenity charges 45 years before women can practice law in England. At a time when women were expected to be obedient, Annie’s fearless voice was a sensation and spotlighted issues of sex, censorship and morality. 
 
A Dirty, Filthy Book tells the gripping story of a little-known pioneer who refused to accept the role that the establishment assigned her, and chose instead to resist.

A Dirty, Filthy Book

Annie Besant’s Fight for Reproductive Rights

Sex, Scandal, and One Woman’s Fight in the Victorian Trial of the Century

Ed Conway

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 
*An Economist, Financial Times, Times and New Statesman Book of the Year* 
Shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the Year Award and the British Academy Book Prize, Longlisted for the Wainwright Conservation Writing Prize 
 
'Compelling' TIM MARSHALL 
'Lively, rich and exciting' PETER FRANKOPAN 
'Vitally important' TIM HARFORD 
 
_____________ 
 
Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world, and they will transform our future. 
 
They took us from the Dark Ages to the present day. They power our computers and phones, build our homes and offices, and create life-saving medicines. But most of us take these six crucial materials completely for granted. 
 
In Material World, Ed Conway travels the globe to uncover a secret world we rarely see. As we wrestle with climate change, energy crises and the threat of new global conflict, Conway shows why these substances matter more than ever before, and how the hidden battle to control them will shape our geopolitical future.

Material World

A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future

Katerina Gordeeva

***LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING*** 
 
'Read this book. Don't put it off until you'll supposedly be strong enough and ready for the reading. If you put it off, you'll find yourself defenseless in the face of evil.' 
- Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Chernobyl Prayer 
 
In the darkest of times, in the midst of it all, a journalist has one single task: to document everything that is happening. It is time to slow down and listen to the voice of a human being. 
 
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Since that day, prize-winning independent journalist Katerina Gordeeva has travelled to refugee centres across Europe to record the human voice and cost of war. Take My Grief Away reveals twenty-four raw, heartbreaking first-person accounts from people united in grief and their first-hand experiences of the brutality and senselessness of war. These twenty-four voices will transform what you think you know about war, grief and human nature.

Take My Grief Away

Voices from the War in Ukraine

Nikole Hannah-Jones

The New York Times Magazine

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. 
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist 
 
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country's original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. 
 
The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. 
 
This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation's founding and construction-and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life. 
 
Featuring contributions from: Leslie Alexander Michelle Alexander Carol Anderson Joshua Bennett Reginald Dwayne Betts Jamelle Bouie Anthea Butler Matthew Desmond Rita Dove Camille Dungy Cornelius Eady Eve L. Ewing Nikky Finney Vievee Francis Yaa Gyasi Forrest Hamer Terrance Hayes Kimberly Annece Henderson Jeneen Interlandi Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Barry Jenkins Tyehimba Jess Martha S. Jones Robert Jones, Jr. A. Van Jordan Ibram X. Kendi Eddie Kendricks Yusef Komunyakaa Kevin Kruse Kiese Laymon Trymaine Lee Jasmine Mans Terry McMillan Tiya Miles Wesley Morris Khalil Gibran Muhammad Lynn Nottage ZZ Packer Gregory Pardlo Darryl Pinckney Claudia Rankine Jason Reynolds Dorothy Roberts Sonia Sanchez Tim Seibles Evie Shockley Clint Smith Danez Smith Patricia Smith Tracy K. Smith Bryan Stevenson Nafissa Thompson-Spires Natasha Trethewey Linda Villarosa Jesmyn Ward

The 1619 Project

A New American Origin Story

Naoíse Mac Sweeney

*A BBC RADIO 4 Book of the Week* 
'A fantastic achievement' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads 
'Bright, expansive, and iconoclastic, this deliciously witty book has the potential to upset the applecart of "Western Civilisation" itself... Magnificent' Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb 
_________________ 
 
A radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating lives. 
 
We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread stretching from classical antiquity to the countries of the modern Western world. But what if this is wrong? 
 
Told through the lives of fourteen fascinating historical figures - including a formidable Roman matriarch, an unconventional Islamic scholar, an enslaved African American poetess and a British prime minister with Homeric aspirations – archaeologist and historian Naoíse Mac Sweeney charts how the idea of the West was invented, how it has been used to justify imperialism and racism, and why it is no longer ideologically fit for purpose today. 
 
The result is a bold and empowering new story of the people and ideas who made us who we are today.

The West

A New History of an Old Idea

Ulises A. Mejias

Nick Couldry

Your life online is their product. 
 
In the past, colonialism was a landgrab of natural resources, exploitative labour and private property from countries around the world. It promised to modernise and civilise, but actually sought to control. It stole from native populations and made them sign contracts they didn’t understand. It took resources just because they were there. 
 
Colonialism has not disappeared – it has taken on a new form. 
 
In the new world order, data is the new oil. Big Tech companies are grabbing our most basic natural resources – our data – exploiting our labour and connections, and repackaging our information to control our views, track our movements, record our conversations and discriminate against us. Every time we unthinkingly click ‘Accept’ on Terms and Conditions, we allow our most personal information to kept indefinitely, repackaged by big Tech companies to control and exploit us for their own profit. 
 
In this searing, cutting-edge guide, two leading global researchers – and founders of the concept of data colonialism – reveal how history can help us both to understand the emerging future and to fight back.

Data Grab

The new Colonialism of Big Tech and how to fight back

Jo Teeuwisse

**An International Bestseller** 
 
Fake news about the past is fake history. 
 
Did Hugo Boss design the Nazi uniforms? 
Did medieval people think the world was flat? 
Did Napoleon shoot the nose off the Sphinx? 
*Spoiler Alert* The answer to all those questions is no. 
 
From the famous quote 'Let them eat cake' - mistakenly attributed to Marie Antoinette - to the apocryphal horns that adorned Viking helmets, fake history continues to shape the story we tell about who we are and how we got here. With doctored photographs, AI-generated images and false claims about the past circulating in the news and on social media, separating fact from fiction seems harder than ever before. 
 
Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, better known as The Fake History Hunter, is on a one-woman mission to hunt down fake history and reclaim the truth for the rest of us. 
 
In this fascinating and illuminating book, Teeuwisse debunks 101 myths so you can correct your friends and family, and arm yourself with the tools to spot and debunk fake history wherever you encounter it.

Fake History

101 Things that Never Happened

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 
 
'Revelatory' GUARDIAN 
 
'A firecracker somehow captured between two covers' LUCY WORSLEY 
 
An instant bestseller and one of the most celebrated history books of the year, Femina reveals the power and influence of medieval women who have been written out of our history. From royalty and religion to fame and fury, see the medieval world - and the women erased from it - with fresh eyes. 
 
'Absolutely brilliant and highly recommended' CAITLIN MORAN 
 
'Femina is a ground-breaking history of the Middle Ages' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 
 
The instant Sunday Times bestseller, May 2023

Femina

A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It

Hannah Rose Woods

** A FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR ** 
 
'A must read' - Janina Ramirez, bestselling author of Femina 
 
'An eye-opening history of Britain's enduring fixation with its own past' - Jeremy Paxman 
 
'Rule, Nostalgia announces Woods as one of the most interesting new historians of her generation' - Dan Snow 
 
 
Longing to go back to the 'good old days' is nothing new. For hundreds of years, the British have mourned the loss of tradition and called for a revival of 'simpler', 'better' ways of life, from modern politicians indulging in fantasies of an imperial past, to Victorian artists yearning to retreat into a medieval dream of Merry England. But were the 'good old days' ever quite how we remember them? 
 
Rule, Nostalgia is a surprising, timely new history of Britain that separates the history from the fantasy and traces back to its origins the powerful influence that nostalgia's perpetual backwards glance has had on British history, politics and society.

Rule, Nostalgia

A Backwards History of Britain

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Femina 
'Ramirez blasts a powerful spotlight into the so-called Dark Ages' - Dan Snow 
 
Skulduggery, power struggles and politics, The Private Lives of the Saints offers an original and fascinating re-examination of life in Anglo-Saxon England. Taking them down from the clouds of their heavenly status, Sunday Times bestselling author and renowned Oxford historian Dr Janina Ramirez explores the real lives of the legendary, seminal saints. 
 
This landmark book provides a unique and captivating new lens through which to explore the rich history of the Dark Ages.

The Private Lives of the Saints

Power, Passion and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England

THE TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION*** 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE*** 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE*** 
 
A Book of the Year 
The Times * Sunday Times * Telegraph * New Statesman * Financial Times * Irish Independent * Daily Mail 
 
'A masterpiece' SPECTATOR 
 
'Exemplary [and] important... This is the kind of book few writers possess the clarity of vision to write' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Magnificent... There are great lessons in the nature of humanity to be learnt here' TELEGRAPH 
 
 
Germany, 1945: a country in ruins. Cities have been reduced to rubble and more than half of the population are where they do not belong or do not want to be. How can a functioning society ever emerge from this chaos? 
 
In bombed-out Berlin, Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, journalist and member of the Nazi resistance, warms herself by a makeshift stove and records in her diary how a frenzy of expectation and industriousness grips the city. The Americans send Hans Habe, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and US army soldier, to the frontline of psychological warfare - tasked with establishing a newspaper empire capable of remoulding the minds of the Germans. The philosopher Hannah Arendt returns to the country she fled to find a population gripped by a manic loquaciousness, but faces a deafening wall of silence at the mention of the Holocaust. 
 
Aftermath is a nuanced panorama of a nation undergoing monumental change. 1945 to 1955 was a raw, wild decade poised between two eras that proved decisive for Germany's future - and one starkly different to how most of us imagine it today. Featuring black and white photographs and posters from post-war Germany - some beautiful, some revelatory, some shocking - Aftermath evokes an immersive portrait of a society corrupted, demoralised and freed - all at the same time.

Aftermath

Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich

**A Times Best Book of 2021** 
The harrowing, survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly wrong, with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter 
 
August 1897: The Belgica set sail, eager to become the first scientific expedition to reach the white wilderness of the South Pole. But the ship soon became stuck fast in the ice of the Bellinghausen sea, condemning the ship's crew to overwintering in Antarctica and months of endless polar night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness, their minds ravaged by the sound of dozens of rats teeming in the hold, they descended into madness. 
 
In this epic tale, Julian Sancton unfolds a story of adventure gone horribly awry. As the crew teetered on the brink, the Captain increasingly relied on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity - Dr. Frederick Cook, the wild American whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship's first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, who later raced Captain Scott to the South Pole. Together, Cook and Amundsen would plan a last-ditch, desperate escape from the ice-one that would either etch their names into history or doom them to a terrible fate in the frozen ocean. 
 
Drawing on first-hand crew diaries and journals, and exclusive access to the ship's logbook, the result is equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror. This is an unforgettable journey into the deep.

Madhouse at the End of the Earth

The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night

Johannes Krause

Thomas Trappe

Humanity has often found itself on the precipice. We've survived and thrived because we've never stopped moving... 
 
In this eye-opening book, Johannes Krause, Chair of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Humanity, offers a new way of understanding our past, present and future. 
 
Marshalling unique insights from archaeogenetics, an emerging new discipline that allows us to read our ancestors' DNA like journals chronicling personal stories of migration, Krause charts two millennia of adaption, movement and survival, culminating in the triumph of Homo Sapiens as we swept through Europe and beyond in successive waves of migration - developing everything from language, the patriarchy, disease, art and a love of pets as we did so. 
 
We also meet our ancestors, from those many of us have heard of - such as Homo Erectus and the Neanderthals - to the wildly unfamiliar but no less real: the recently discovered Denisovans, who ranged across Asia and, like humans, interbred with Neanderthals; the Aurignacians, skilled artists who, 40,000 years ago, brought about an extraordinary transformation in what our species could invent and create; the Varna, who buried their loved ones with gold long before the Pharaohs of Egypt did; and the Gravettians, big game hunters who were Europe's most successful early settlers until they perished in the face of the toughest opponent humanity had ever faced: the ice age. 
 
As well as being a radical new telling of our shared story, this book is a reminder that the global problems that keep us awake at night - climate catastrophe; the sudden emergence of deadly epidemics; refugee crises; ethnic conflict; over-population - are all things we've faced, and overcome, before.

A Short History of Humanity

How Migration Made Us Who We Are

Mark Honigsbaum

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year 
 
The most timely and informative history book you will read this year, tracing a century of pandemics, with a new chapter on COVID-19. 
 
Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet, despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu and the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles, to the 1930 'parrot fever' pandemic and the more recent SARS, Ebola, Zika and – now – COVID-19 epidemics, the last 100 years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms. 
 
In The Pandemic Century, Mark Honigsbaum chronicles 100 years of history in 10 outbreaks. Bringing us right up-to-date with a new chapter on COVID-19, this fast-paced, critically-acclaimed book combines science history, medical sociology and thrilling front-line reportage to deliver the story of our times. 
 
As we meet dedicated disease detectives, obstructive public health officials, and gifted scientists often blinded by their own expertise, we come face-to-face with the brilliance and medical hubris shaping both the frontier of science – and the future of humanity’s survival.

The Pandemic Century

A History of Global Contagion from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19

A History of Global Contagion

Jack Fairweather

One of the Sunday Times paperbacks of the Year 2020 
One of the Financial Times best books of 2020 
 
 'Totally gripping'-- Simon Sebag Montefiore 
 
'Pilecki is perhaps one of the greatest unsung heroes of the second world war ... this insightful book is likely to be the definitive version of this extraordinary life' -- Economist 
 
 
Would you sacrifice yourself to save thousands of others? 
 
 
In the Summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative called Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interned at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. 
 
His mission was to report on Nazi crimes and raise a secret army to stage an uprising. The name of the detention centre -- Auschwitz. 
 
It was only after arriving at the camp that he started to discover the Nazi's terrifying plans. Over the next two and half years, Witold forged an underground army that smuggled evidence of Nazi atrocities out of Auschwitz. His reports from the camp were to shape the Allies response to the Holocaust - yet his story was all but forgotten for decades. 
 
This is the first major account to draw on unpublished family papers, newly released archival documents and exclusive interviews with surviving resistance fighters to show how he brought the fight to the Nazis at the heart of their evil designs. 
 
The result is an enthralling story of resistance and heroism against the most horrific circumstances, and one man's attempt to change the course of history.

The Volunteer

The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz – Costa Book of the Year 2019

The story of trade is the story of humanity. From the copper in Mesopotamian ploughs to the silicon atoms within the chip inside your smartphone, intricate global trading networks have evolved over millennia to fulfil the distinctly human desire to buy and sell. 
 
Today, the volume of trade bestriding the planet is unprecedented. Yet, as fractures in the global order emerge – from an era of globalisation and untrammelled flows of goods and money to a new world of restrictions, intervention and, possibly, war – understanding this fundamental shift to the dominant economic consensus is more important than ever. 
 
In TRADE WORLD, bestselling, award-winning author Ed Conway tells this extraordinary story through these three commonplace products – bread, cloth and cars. With a compelling blend of economic history and first-hand access to key figures and institutions, he takes us from policy treaties to ground level to show us the people who make, ship and sometimes smuggle the products we buy on a daily basis. 
 
Discover the hidden, shifting trade world behind everything you see around you.

Trade World

A Transporting Story of Our Past and Future

Marc Fennell

The British Empire stole a lot of stuff. Much of it still sits in museums, galleries and private collections today, accompanied by calm labels and polite plaques. The reality, however, is far messier. 
 
The British Museum alone holds eight million objects, many taken in ways that were anything but legitimate. When award-winning journalist and author Marc Fennell encounters one such item—a mechanical tiger that mauls a British soldier when you turn the handle—he asks the obvious question: What is this? And how on earth did it end up here? 
 
With wit, empathy and forensic curiosity, Stuff the British Stole embarks on a globetrotting investigation into the true stories behind some of the world’s most famous—and infamous—museum pieces. From the pyramids of Egypt and Tuscan marble quarries to Kenyan torture chambers, these objects reveal histories of power, violence, resistance and survival that continue to shape our world. 
 
Part travelogue, part true crime, part reckoning with empire, this book strips away the plaques to uncover the stories museums rarely tell—and challenges us to see the past, and ourselves, like never before.

Stuff the British Stole

An Alternative History in 10 Artefacts

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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