Showing 1–16 of 43 resultsSorted by latest
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£22.00
The grandson of a King. The son of the Viceroy of India. Churchill’s nephew. Held captive at the notorious Colditz prisoner of war camp, they were the Prominente: scions of the British establishment, and pawns in the hands of Nazi leaders. As a German defeat loomed, the SS head of the POW camps Gottlob Berger made a pivotal decision: he would disobey direct orders and spare their lives. ‘Please remember what I have done for you when the war ends,’ he asked. This Nazi overseer, who would later be convicted of war crimes, held their future in his hands. Eighty years later, David Lascelles – the son of George, Earl of Harewood, who would never have been born if his father had been executed – traces the Prominentes’ extraordinary journey and wonders who Gottlob Berger was and what motivated his fateful decision: compassion? Remorse? Or self-interest?
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£11.99
A thrilling history of the bloody climax to two centuries of crusading in the Holy Land
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£11.99
The story of the medieval world’s most extraordinary organisations, the Assassins and the Templars. In this engaging account, Steve Tibble traces the history of these two groups from their origins to their ultimate destruction. He shows how, outnumbered and surrounded, they survived only by perfecting ‘the promise of death’, either in the form of a Templar charge or an Assassin’s dagger. Death, for themselves or their enemies, was at the core of these extraordinary organisations. Their fanaticism changed the medieval world – and, even up to the present day, in video games and countless conspiracy theories, they have become endlessly conjoined in myth and memory.
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£15.99
When the Sky Falls tells the story of the global cultural history of shooting stars from the prehistoric to the present day, exploring beliefs, superstitions, and the relationship between humanity and meteors throughout time.
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£45.00
The definitive visual record of the clandestine work carried out by the British Security Service, MI5, from its origins to the modern day. Regnum Defende: Defend the Realm. MI5, the intelligence agency responsible for protecting the UK against threats to national security, has acted under this motto since it was founded in 1909. This has involved the management of secrets over the decades: secrets for which vast swathes of information are now declassified. Detailing uprisings and executions, double agents and femmes fatales from across the globe, The MI5 Archive presents a window into the world of spycraft that has kept British democracy safe. Rummage through documents received anonymously to the shadowy PO Box 500, London, W2. Work out what has value and how to decode it, with experts at your shoulder: authors and archivists Mark Dunton and Stephen Twigge have had unparalleled access. Within you will find source material on the Sie
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£25.00
The story of how English country houses were repurposed during the Second World War, told through the lives of those who lived and worked in themIn the Second World War, country houses across England were requisitioned by the government for the war effort. These homes opened their doors to evacuated children, were transformed into hospitals, and played host to training camps for the armed forces. The care of the estates was often left to young women and the elderly, who had to completely change the running of their homes to accommodate essential wartime activities.In this fascinating history, Judith S. Lewis explores the lives of country houses during the Second World War. Some homes were requisitioned for intelligence operations, like Audley End, which was used as the headquarters of the Polish Section of SOE, whereas others, like West Wycombe, were used to house artefacts of national importance. Examining the long legacy of the war, L
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£25.00
An authoritative life of Harold II, the king who died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066Harold Godwinson is renowned as the king who lost England to the invading William the Conqueror in 1066. Infamous legends, invented by the Victorians, surround his life, corrupting our idea of him. But who was the real Harold II?In this major new biography, Tom Licence reveals the truth behind the nineteenth-century myths. Moving from Harold’s childhood and his adventures as an earl in Edward the Confessor’s court, to his nine-month reign and the bloody battles at its end, Licence rewrites the story of his life at every turn. We see Harold’s rupture with his family, his cultivation of alliances, and his political interventions at home and overseas. He seized the throne as a skilled political leader who was the prime candidate to unite a realm divided by rebellion. And, when war came to English shores, Harold managed the conflict as well as any command
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£14.99
A collection of the most personal aspects of Samuel Pepys’ diaries, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of their publication.
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£30.00
For thousands of years, humans have looked to the sky to make sense of the world. Long before astronomy became a formal discipline, observations of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars shaped calendars, navigation and systems of belief across many cultures. This book traces this global history, examining how societies developed the concepts and methods that allowed humanity to interpret the cosmos. It book uses infographics and maps to show how people throughout history have understood the universe and to consider what the future of space exploration might hold.
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£25.00
In 1217, the crusader states were in a highly fragile condition. The Fourth Crusade had failed, and Jerusalem had not been recovered. The crusaders now set their sights on Egypt. If the breadbasket of the Mediterranean could be conquered, long-term Christian control of the Holy Land could be ensured. Led by the rulers of Hungary and Austria, and backed by the Knights Templar and Hospitaller, the Fifth Crusade was launched. Thomas Smith tells the gripping story of the crusade for Egypt. Looking at a wide range of Christian and Muslim sources, Smith sheds new light on the brutal reality of medieval combat on land and water.
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£14.99
An ambitious, revisionist and wide-ranging account of the centuries-old relationship between Islam and Europe, from the Moorish invasion of Spain to the present, for readers of Peter Frankopan, Mary Beard and William Dalrymple.
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£12.99
The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist. The monstrous artist. The tech disruptor. You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate. Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Floridian rocket launches of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Helen Lewis unravels a word that we all use – without really questioning what it means. Along the way, she uncovers the secret of the Beatles’ success, asks how biographers should solve the Austen Problem, and reveals why Stephen Hawking thought IQ tests were for losers (before taking one herself). And she asks if the modern idea of genius – a class of special people – is distorting our view of the world.
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£11.99
A concise, readable and thoroughly revised overview of Cuba, written by Cubans for anyone interested in quickly understanding the island country’s turbulent history. It covers the pre-Hispanic period, through Cuba’s struggle to maintain the revolution in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the period after Fidel Castro’s decision to step down from office, to the 2014 opening to Cuba by the Obama Administration, the retirement of Raul Castro and his replacement as president in 2018 by Miguel Diaz Canal, and finally to the reversal of Washington’s engagement with Cuba under President Trump.
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£12.99
A new history of the Tudor world, told by uncovering ordinary people’s grizzly fatal accidents. There is untold history of Tudor England – the history of the several million subjects of their famous kings and queens. What did ordinary people do all day, in their homes, their work, their leisure and travel? This title explores the history of everyday life, and everyday death. Here we learn that fatal accidents were much more likely to take place during the agricultural peak season, with cart crashes, dangerous harvesting techniques, horse tramplings and windmill manglings all as major causes.
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£12.99
Berlin, 1943. A group of high-society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo – revealing their secret to the Nazis’ most ruthless detective. They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering headmistress. Meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer’s rule, what unites them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance. Or so they believe. How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap?
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£12.99
From the streets of Petrograd during the heady autumn of 1917 to Mao’s stunning victory in October 1949, and Fidel’s triumphant arrival in Havana, in January 1959, the history of the twentieth century was transformed in dramatic and profound ways by the Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions. Here, the stories of these epoch-defining events are told together.
