Showing 85–96 of 165 resultsSorted by latest
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£9.99
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
Imprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp during the First World War, two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, cunningly join forces. To stave off boredom, Jones makes a handmade Ouija board and holds fake sances for fellow prisoners. One day, an Ottoman official approaches him with a query: could Jones contact the spirits to find a vast treasure rumoured to be buried nearby? Jones, a lawyer, and Hill, a magician, use the Ouija board – and their keen understanding of the psychology of deception-to build a trap for their captors that will lead them to freedom. The Confidence Men is a nonfiction thriller featuring strategy, mortal danger and even high farce – and chronicles a profound but unlikely friendship.
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£25.00
‘Geography is Destiny’ tells the history of Britain and its changing relationships with Europe and the wider world, from its physical separation at the end of the Ice Age to the first flickers of a United Kingdom, struggles for the Atlantic, and rise of the Pacific Rim. Applying the latest archaeological evidence, Ian Morris explores how geography, migration, government and new technologies interacted to produce regional inequalities that still affect us today. He charts Britain’s geopolitical fortunes over thousands of years, revealing its transformation from a European satellite into a state at the centre of global power, commerce, and culture. But as power and wealth shift from West to East, does Britain’s future lie with Europe or the wider world?
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£8.99
It’s the height of summer. As the heat shimmers on the streets and ice cream melts onto sticky fingers, tempers begin to rise and old grudges surface. From Cornish beaches to the French Riviera, it’s not just a holiday that’s on people’s minds – it’s murder. In these ten classic stories from writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Cyril Hare and Margery Allingham, you’ll find mayhem and mysteries aplenty.
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£10.99
Adam Sedgwick was a priest and scholar. Roderick Murchison was a retired soldier. Charles Lapworth was a schoolteacher. It was their personal and intellectual rivalry, pursued on treks through Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Devon and parts of western Russia, that revealed the narrative structure of the Paleozoic Era, the 300-million-year period during which life on Earth became recognisably itself. Nick Davidson follows in their footsteps and draws on maps, diaries, letters, field notes and contemporary accounts to bring the ideas and characters alive. But this is more than a history of geology. As we travel through some of the most spectacular scenery in Britain, it’s a celebration of the sheer visceral pleasure generations of geologists have found, and continue to find, in noticing the earth beneath our feet.
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£8.99
4 March. HMQ pictured in the paper at an investiture wearing gloves, presumably as a precaution against Coronavirus. But not just gloves; these are almost gauntlets. I hope they’re not the thin end of a precautionary wedge lest Her Majesty end up swathed in protective get-up such as is worn at the average crime scene. 20 March. With Rupert now working from home my life is much easier, as I get regular cups of tea and a lovely hot lunch. A year in and out of lockdown as experienced by Alan Bennett. The diary takes us from the filming of Talking Heads to thoughts on Boris Johnson, from his father’s short-lived craze for family fishing trips, to stair lifts, junk shops of old, having a haircut, and encounters on the local park bench.
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£9.99
Can you interpret the shipping forecast? Do you know your flotsam from your jetsam? Or who owns the foreshore? Can you tie a half-hitch – or would you rather splice the mainbrace? Full of charming illustrations and surprising facts, ‘Sea Fever’ provides the answers to all these questions and more.
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£16.99
Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Daniel Hannan, Jacob Rees-Mogg: Whitehall is swarming with old Oxonians. They debated each other in tutorials, ran against each other in student elections, and attended the same balls and black tie dinners. They aren’t just colleagues – they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them. Eleven of the fifteen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford. In this book, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools – and the friendships and worldviews it created – shaped modern Britain.
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£12.99
On a warm Friday night in 1732, a rowdy group of friends set out from a pub. They are beginning a ‘peregrination’ that will take them through the scurrilous streets of Georgian London and down the Thames as far as the Isle of Sheppey. And among them is an up-and-coming engraver and painter, just beginning to make a name for himself: William Hogarth. Hogarth’s work has come to define early-Georgian Britain; and it speaks to us with equal relevance today. Jacqueline Riding brings the artist – and his world – to vivid and detailed life.
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£30.00
Weaving social, political and religious history together with church music and architecture, ‘A People’s Church’ is a clear-eyed look at Anglican history through the ages.
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£16.99
In Jerusalem, what you see and what is true are two different things. The Old City has never had ‘four quarters’ as its maps proclaim. And beyond the crush and frenzy of its major religious sites, many of its quarters are little known to visitors, its people ignored and their stories untold. ‘Nine Quarters of Jerusalem’ lets the communities of the Old City speak for themselves. Ranging from ancient past to political present, it evokes the city’s depth and cultural diversity. Matthew Teller’s highly original ‘biography’ features not just Jerusalem’s Palestinian and Jewish communities, but its African and Indian voices, its Greek and Armenian and Syriac communities, its downtrodden Dom-gypsy families and its Sufi mystics. It discusses the sources of Jerusalem’s holiness and the ideas – often startlingly secular – that have shaped lives within its walls.
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£16.99
Liberalism – the comparatively mild-mannered sibling to the more ardent camps of nationalism and socialism – has never been so divisive as today. From Putin’s populism, the Trump administration and autocratic rulers in democracies the world over, it has both thrived and failed under identity politics, authoritarianism, social media and a weakened free press the world over. Since its inception following the post-Reformation wars, liberalism has come under attack from conservatives and progressives alike, and today is dismissed by many as an ‘obsolete doctrine’. In this brilliant and concise exposition, Francis Fukuyama sets out the cases for and against its classical premises: observing the rule of law, independence of judges, means over ends, and most of all, tolerance. Pithy, to the point, and ever pertinent, this is political dissection at its very best.
