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£25.00
A fascinating history of the republican tradition that modern states inherited from ancient Rome. Julius Caesar, Lucretia, Cincinnatus, Augustus, the Gracchi brothers: Roman figures have had an extraordinary influence on modern republics from America to France. Here historian Jamie Gianoutsos traces the Roman republic and its afterlives through the revolutionary birth of modern republics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to reveal how ancient ideas of liberty, virtue, and corruption shaped the political imagination of a new age. Moving from stories of tyranny and collapse in ancient Rome to moments of crisis in early modern Europe and the Atlantic world, Gianoutsos uncovers recurring patterns in the rise – and fall – of republics.
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£14.99
For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed ‘Rest’ in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by the alleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But they overlooked the demand for self-determination – and not just relief from poverty. Economist and author of ‘The White Man’s Burden’, William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development. Spanning four centuries of global history, Easterly argues that commerce, rather than conquest, provide equal rights as well as prosperity. Tracing the economic ideas underpinning the long debate between conquest and commerce, Easterly shows how it is the surge in global trade that has given agency to billions of people.
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£12.99
A lively, page-turning history of Italy and its wines, from the Roman Empire to climate change.
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£40.00
This beautifully illustrated book explores the stories behind the literary manuscripts of the world’s best-known authors.
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£26.00
'Fascinating in its literary focus and magisterial in its sweep, The Garden is a must-have book' SUE STUART SMITH
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£25.00
For the last 20 years, Putin’s Russia has weaponised its vast resources of oil and gas, trying to use them to dominate Ukraine and, later, with growing audacity, challenge NATO itself. But this is far from the first time this tactic has been used. Over the last 150 years, access to oil and gas has repeatedly been used as a tool to gain an advantage. Looking at the global picture, including Vietnam, India, and Egypt, Guy Laron charts the connection between oil, gas, and political power from the First World War through the Cold War to the crises of today. He shows how political actors leveraged their power through key chokepoints: production sites, pipelines, and even refineries. Whilst at the same time, companies lobbied states to block rivals and eliminate competition. This has been a high-stakes game over the controlling heights of the world economy that continues until this very day.
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£22.00
War: what is it good for? Absolutely something, surely, or we wouldn’t keep doing it. Throughout the ages, each generation has faced the same questions: Am I willing to fight for my way of life? How can I come up with something the enemy hasn’t thought of? And the important one that people often forget to ask: is there a way of solving this amicably? In this work, Terry Deary shows us what can we learn from battles through the ages.
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£18.99
We often think of them as tiny, glittering creatures fluttering about in pastel tulle, but fairies haven’t always been so benign. Here, historian Sarah Clegg explores the true history of fairies, and the menace and ambiguity that always lurks within the shimmering fantasy. This history takes us from elf fires in Iceland to a burial mound in Ireland; and from a stream in Cottingley where two sisters created a fairy hoax to a modern-day fairy ball in Los Angeles. Along the way, Clegg reveals fairies’ connection to ancient gods and their role in the witch-trials, and examines their seductive presence in romantasy today. This is a story of how fairy myths grew and spread across Europe, of how they changed and developed, and why we have, for centuries, been so enthralled by the danger and enchantment of the fae.
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£25.00
Almost everywhere we turn these days, there’s talk of a West in decline. Our jobs, our values, our past are all under attack, in the face of which we have become immersed in self-loathing, gone weak at the knees: the West needs to be Made Great Again. We know where this toxic narrative comes from: the nationalist, nativist Right. And now it’s gone mainstream. The thing is, the West is in decline, self-evidently so. But the truth is that it’s not migrants or Muslims or a woke mob which has brought the West to the edge of catastrophe. It’s good, old-fashioned hubris. In this book, Owen Jones explores how, amid the triumphalist sugar rush that came with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West came to believe that its rule, its economic order, its moral values, would endure for ever – and how, over a quarter-century, this brittle self-mythologising narrative collapsed in on itself.
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£26.00
Secrets of an English Country House is an insider’s view of an English manor house, exploring its beauty, history and the realities of running and restoring an historic estate.
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£22.00
The multiple Sunday Times bestselling brand and creators of the #1 podcast sensation return with a hilarious deep dive into history's biggest heroes and most infamous villains
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£9.99
Did you know that the world’s first boxing match was arranged by the Duke of Albemarle between his butler and his butcher? Or that Niagara Falls once ran completely dry? That the World Cup was stolen and later found by a dog called Pickles?
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£6.50
Ahoy me hearties! Kids with an adventurous spirit and sea legs will love this swashbuckling sticker book. Join pesky pirates as they sail the seven seas, face off sharks and crocodiles, and search for treasure. There are over 100 fun stickers to fill the pages with – plus loads of fun activities, including mazes, colouring in and spot the difference. Blimey!
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£25.00
A remarkable account of the weird and wonderful history of smellAcross vast periods of time and around the globe, smell has been central to human life. From the incense burned in medieval religious rituals to the use of modern sniffer dogs, smells have been central to our sense of identity, our ability to build communities, and, perhaps less positively, to mark those deemed unwelcome within them. Our sense of smell brings us the pleasure of good food, wine, and perfume, but it also warns us of dangerous fire, gas, and rot.What did the past smell like? Why does our own world smell the way it does?Moving through key locations, from libraries to forests, churches to hospitals, Will Tullett explores the peculiar history of smell. We smell witchcraft and murder, fin de siècle Parisian theatres, and cinemas in 1960s New York. What emerges is not just a history of smells, but biographies of the many noses that have sniffed them.
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£30.00
An extraordinary chronicle of the Nazi destruction of Jewish Vienna, from the bestselling author of Former People.
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£25.00
We often read history as the biographies of ‘great men’ who shaped the world. But are leaders, whichever field they are in, really that influential? Should CEOs be given large bonuses when a company performs well? Why, when a political leader is assassinated, is their successor as likely to improve as damage a country? When do we know if firing a coach has changed the fortunes of the team? Historian and bestselling author Jared Diamond argues that leaders are neither heroic exceptions nor products of circumstance. Looking at four difference spheres: history, business, sport and religion, Diamond asks under which conditions is a leader most likely to make a difference and why. Drawing on the life and career of iconic leaders, Diamond shows us how leadership effectiveness is determined by a range of complex interrelated factors, from resources to geography, culture to technology.
Italy in a Wineglass 
