Showing 25–36 of 214 resultsSorted by latest
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£25.00
Before the Second World War, Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was one of the most famous performers in the world. She made her name dancing on the Parisian stage, but when war broke out she decided not to return to America. Instead, Baker turned spy for the French Secret Services. In this engaging, deeply researched study, Hanna Diamond tells the full story of Baker’s actions for the French and Allied powers in World War Two. Drawing on previously unseen material, Diamond reveals the vital role Baker played throughout the war, from counterintelligence work for the Allied landings in North Africa to serving in the French Air Force in 1944-45.
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£10.99
Emphasising surprising and personal stories of scientists both famous and unsung, ‘A Little History of Science’ traces the march of science through the centuries.
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£12.99
The Allied liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe is one of the most widely recognised events of modern history. The assault phase, Operation Neptune, began with the D-Day landings in Normandy – one of the most complex amphibious operations in history, involving 7000 ships and nearly 200,000 men. But despite this immense effort, the wider naval campaign has been broadly forgotten. Nick Hewitt draws on fascinating new material to describe the violent sea battle which mirrored the fighting on land, and the complex campaign at sea which enabled the Allied assault. Aboard ships ranging from frail plywood landing craft to sleek destroyers, sailors were active combatants in the operation of June 1944, and had worked tirelessly to secure the Seine Bay in the months preceding it. Hewitt recounts these sailors’ stories and shows how, without their efforts, D-Day would have failed.
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£28.00
One of the world’s leading scholars of Buddhism presents the story of its dramatic journey across the globe, from 2500 years ago to the present day. Beginning with the life and teachings of the Buddha, Lopez shows how a set of evolving ideas and practices traveled north and east to China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and Tibet, south and southeast to Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Indonesia, and finally westward to Europe and the Americas. He provides insights on questions that Buddhism has asked and answered in different times and different places-about apocalypse, art, identity, immortality, law, nation, persecution, philosophy, science, sex, war, and writing. Vast in its erudition and expansive in its vision, this is the most complete history of Buddhism in its full historical and geographical range.
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£25.00
In this comprehensive account, David Commins narrates the full history of Saudi Arabia from oasis emirate to present-day attempts to leap to a post-petroleum economy. Moving through the ages, Commins traces how the Saud dynasty’s reliance on sectarianism, foreign expertise, and petroleum to stabilize power has unintentionally spawned secular and religious movements seeking accountability and justice. He incorporates the experiences of activists, women, religious minorities, Bedouin, and expatriate workers as the country transformed from subsistence agrarian life to urban consumer society. This is a perceptive portrait of Saudi Arabia’s complex and evolving story – and a country that is all too easily misunderstood.
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£30.00
One of Britain’s most radical and influential artists working in the first decades of the twentieth century, Vanessa Bell was a pioneer for professional women. A leading figure within the Bloomsbury Group and known for her unconventional lifestyle, Vanessa Bell’s work as a painter, designer and decorator has often been overlooked and relegated within the bombastic, male-dominated field of British modernism. With new research including previously unpublished letters, Wendy Hitchmough explores the ways in which Vanessa Bell forged new pathways as a modernist woman.
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£12.99
What happened when Jane Austen’s heroines and heroes were finally wed? Marriage is at the centre of Jane Austen’s novels. The pursuit of husbands and wives, advantageous matches, and, of course, love itself, motivate her characters and continue to fascinate readers today. But what were love and marriage like in reality for ladies and gentlemen in Regency England? Rory Muir uncovers the excitements and disappointments of courtship and the pains and pleasures of marriage, drawing on fascinating first-hand accounts, as well as novels of the period.
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£11.99
A fascinating journey through Europe’s old towns, exploring why we treasure them – but also what they hide about a continent’s fraught history.
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£25.00
The Dead Sea is a place of many contradictions. Hot springs around the lake are famed for their healing properties, though its own waters are deadly to most lifeforms – even so, civilizations have built ancient cities and hilltop fortresses around its shores for centuries. The protagonists in its story are not only Jews and Arabs, but also Greeks, Nabataeans, Romans, Crusaders and Mamluks. Today it has become a tourist hotspot, but its drying basin is increasingly under threat. In this panoramic account, Nir Arielli explores the history of the Dead Sea.
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£25.00
From the late Roman Empire onwards, monasteries and convents were a common sight throughout Europe. But who were monasteries for? What kind of people founded and maintained them? And how did monasticism change over the thousand years or so of the Middle Ages? Andrew Jotischky traces the history of monastic life from its origins in the fourth century to the sixteenth. He shows how religious houses sheltered the poor and elderly, cared for the sick, and educated the young. They were centres of intellectual life that owned property and exercised power but also gave rise to new developments in theology, music, and art. This book brings together the Orthodox and western stories, as well as the experiences of women, to show the full picture of medieval monasticism for the first time. It is a fascinating, wide-ranging account that broadens our understanding of life in holy orders as never before.
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£30.00
An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs
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£11.99
An incisive account of the Arctic convoys, and the essential role Bletchley Park and Special Intelligence played in Allied success
