Time period: 20th century

It is 1938 and for Manod, a young woman living on a remote island off the coast of Wales, the world looks ready to end just as she is trying to imagine a future for herself. The ominous appearance of a beached whale on the island's shore, and rumours of submarines circling beneath the waves, have...

Cairo, 1980s. Tarek's whole life is laid out for him. A doctor like his father, he has taken over the family medical practice, married his childhood sweetheart and is well respected in society. When he opens a clinic in a disadvantaged area of the city, he meets Ali, a young man who is free from ...

With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated and US power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a 'kinder, gentler America.' Instead, it was a period of punishing economic hardship, rising anger and domestic strife, setting the tone for the polarization and resurgent extremism we know...

The story of a great shipping line and its vessels through conflicts, in rare postcards and images.

In 1923, four short years since the end of the First World War, and after the passing of the Act which gave all men the vote, an inconclusive election result and the prospect of a constitutional crisis opened the door for a radically different sort of government: men from working-class background...

A young Palestinian named Usama returns from working in the Gulf to support the resistance movement. His mission is to blow up buses transporting Palestinian workers into Israel. Shocked to discover that many of his fellow citizens have adjusted to life under military rule, Usama sets out to acco...

The Great Storm of 1987 is etched firmly into the national memory. Everyone who was there that night remembers how hurricane force winds struck southern Britain without warning, claiming 18 lives, uprooting more than 15 million trees and reshaping the landscape for future generations. 30 years on...

Essex, February, 1991. The weather is biting cold. Everyone would rather be somewhere warmer, which is why it's a big surprise when a wanted drug smuggler, Bruce Hopkins, risks a return to his old haunts in Colchester after a decade long exile on the Costa del Sol. Lured back by a letter from the...

John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their daughter fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then she was placed on life support. Days later, the Dunnes were sitting down to dinner when John suffered a massive and fatal coronary. This book is Didion's 'attempt to make sense of the weeks and ...

What really makes the British royal family tick? It's a question that royal watchers have pondered for as long as there has been a royal family. And the answer? Well, surprisingly, it's not the royal family's devotion to duty, it's not their wealth or their status, it's not even their popularity ...

It's August 1914. You are 16-year-old Tommy Atkins, living in London. Set against a backdrop of the war just broken out in Europe, find out what your life was like after joining up and being sent to the trenches. From sharing your bed with rats and lice to a diet of bully beef, bread and biscuits...