Showing 121–132 of 165 resultsSorted by latest
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£10.99
We live in an age of subterfuge. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm. Even before the 2016 US election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was ‘carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign’ to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new. In ‘Active Measures’, Thomas takes the reader on an astonishing journey through a century of psychological war.
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£12.99
China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate current borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the 13th century, and despite the passing of one Imperial dynasty to the next, it has maintained them for the 8 centuries since. Even the European colonial powers at the height of their power could not move past coastal enclaves. Thus, China remained China through the Ming, the Qing, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism. But, despite the desires of some of the most powerful people in the Great State through the ages, China has never been alone in the world. Timothy Brook examines China’s relationship with the world from the Yuan through to the present by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people navigating the spaces where China met and meets the world.
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£20.00
The headlines may be all Covid now, as a few short months ago they were all Brexit, but the breakdown of the UK’s political sphere has been a long time coming, and it is a symptom of a much deeper malaise. We seem to have lost our faith in all our social institutions, from parliament and the press to banking and religion. ‘All in It Together’ tracks the spread of this wider disillusionment over the years 2000 to 2015 in a fast-paced cultural, political and social history that will be required reading for years to come. Drawing on both high politics and low culture, Alwyn Turner takes us from Downing Street to Benefits Street as he tells the defining story of contemporary Britain.
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£9.99
‘Rummage’ tells the overlooked story of our throwaway past. Emily Cockayne extracts glittering gems from the rubbish pile of centuries past and introduces us to the visionaries, crooks and everyday do-gooders who have shaped the material world we live in today, like the fancy ladies of the First World War who turned dog hair into yarn, or the Victorian gentlemen selling pianofortes made from papier-mâché, or the hapless public servants coaxing people into giving up their railings for the greater good.
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£10.99
In the bleak first half of the Second World War, Britain stood alone against the Axis forces. Isolated and outmanoeuvred, it seemed as though she might fall at any moment. Only an extraordinary effort of courage – by ordinary men and women – held the line. The Second World War is the defining experience of modern British history, a new Iliad for our own times. But, as Alan Allport reveals in this, the first part of a major new two-volume history, the real story was often very different from the myth that followed it. From the subtle moral calculus of appeasement to the febrile dusts of the Western Desert, Allport interrogates every aspect of the conflict – and exposes its echoes in our own age. Challenging orthodoxy and casting fresh light on famous events from Dunkirk to the Blitz, this is the real story of a clash between civilisations that remade the world in its image.
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£8.99
For most of us, a summer holiday is an opportunity to escape from it all: to lounge on warm sands or sip a cool drink in the shade of a city square. But, as the characters in this murderously good collection of classic crime stories discover to their cost – trouble has a nasty habit of finding you out. From a body found on a beach without a single footprint, to a lemonade stand whose wares appear to have been poisoned and a Wimbledon final ruined by the mysterious disappearance of the championship player, these tales of murder and malice will take you on the trip of a lifetime.
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£9.99
Starting with a simple question, ‘what do street addresses do?’, Deirdre Mask travels the world and back in time to work out how we describe where we live and what that says about us. From the chronological numbers of Tokyo to the naming of Bobby Sands Street in Iran, she explores how our address – or lack of one – expresses our politics, culture and technology. It affects our health and wealth, and it can even affect the working of our brains. From ancient Rome to Kolkata today, from cholera epidemics to tax hungry monarchs, Mask discovers the different ways street names are created, celebrated, and in some cases, banned.
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£7.99
What would happen if the Queen became a reader of taste and discernment rather than of Dick Francis? The answer is a perfect story. ‘The Uncommon Reader’ is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace.
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£12.99
Join Matthew Cobb on a journey through centuries of wild philosophical speculations, inspired mechanical insights and blood-curdling experiments, all aimed at fathoming the mysteries of the most complex object in the known universe: the three-pound organ between your ears. Along the way you’ll meet some of the greatest scientists in history and you’ll see how even our mistaken ideas about how the brain works have transformed the world. Investigate whether our frontal lobes might be antennae picking up signals from another plane. Find out why, no matter how we try to squash the pseudoscience of phrenology, it keeps popping up elsewhere. Discover the great unsolved questions about how the brain what it does. And make a tour of the horizon over which the next great breakthrough might be about to appear.
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£8.99
Midwinter. As snow falls softly outside and frost sparkles on tree branches, it’s time to curl up before a roaring fire, wrap your hands around a steaming mug of mulled wine, and forget your worries for now. But as the temperature drops outside, malice is sharpening its claws – and murder walks abroad. In these classic stories of mystery and mayhem, let ten of the great crime writers in history surprise and delight you with twists and turns as shocking as an icicle in the heart.
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£11.99
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 promised the Jews a homeland where the Palestinians already lived. Despite constant bloodshed and uprisings, that impossible arrangement continued until 1948 when it was ended by what Israelis call the War of Independence and the Palestinians the Nakba, or Tragedy. Worse was to follow with conclusion of the Six Day War in 1967 and Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, previously respectively under Jordanian and Egyptian rule. Since then, the Palestinian story has been one of occupation and resistance. In this book, Professor Khalidi provides a thorough overview of this enduring and controversial conflict.
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£8.99
‘Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?’ Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should by an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don’t understand what the shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices. ‘The Diary of a Bookseller’ (soon to be a major TV series) introduced us to the joys and frustrations of life lived in books. Sardonic and sympathetic in equal measures, ‘Confessions of a Bookseller’ will reunite readers with the characters they’ve come to know and love.
