Time period: 1945-

Nazi Germany has won the war. Churchill is living in exile. King Edward and Queen Wallis are puppet monarchs of the UK. It is 1964, a week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Anton Lesser stars as the Berlin detective called to investigate the suspicious death of a retired German senior civil servant.

Do you remember washing in a tin bath by the fire, using outside lavatories and not having a television? Did you grow up in the 1950s and were you a teenager in the swinging sixties? If the Festival of Britain, food rationing and the Queen's coronation are among your earliest memories then you be...

During the Margaret Thatcher years, Britain experienced mass unemployment, trade union strikes, bloody war in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, and an existential threat to its public service broadcaster, the BBC. Pounded by a coherent free market argument, the BBC had to justify its right to t...

During WWII, Maisie Bragg was evacuated to the small market town of Middlebeck. It is now 1945, and Maisie is 15. She has been writing to the squire's son, Bruce Tremaine, while he has been fighting in Europe. Maisie has fallen in love with him, and indeed, him with her. But when he returns on VE...

Roy Jenkins was probably the best Prime Minister Britain never had. But though he never reached 10 Downing Street, he left a more enduring mark on British society than most of those who did. His career spans the full half-century from Attlee to Tony Blair, during which he helped transform almost ...

Michael Dobbs' entertaining tale of skulduggery and intrigue within the Palace of Westminster has been a huge hit with the public. Its scheming hero, Chief Whip Francis Urquhart, is a character we all love to hate.

Born in condemned housing in West London in 1950, with no heating, no electricity and no running water, Alan Johnson did not have the easiest start in life. But by the age of 18, he was married, a father and working as a postman in Slough. This sequel to Alan's bestselling memoir 'This Boy', desc...

This title examines the recent history of Britain, during the time of the country's longest-reigning monarch. Exploring the Britain the Queen was born into and took over when her reign began, the Commonwealth, changing social times, family, fashion, technology and work, the book builds up a pictu...

John Hooper presents the ideal companion for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Digging deep into their history, culture and religion, he offers keys to assessing everything from their bewildering politics to their love of life and beauty.

One of our most acclaimed novelists adopts two disparate narrative voices and juxtaposes their stories to devastating effect in this damning critique of 1960s Britain.

One of our most acclaimed novelists adopts two disparate narrative voices and juxtaposes their stories to devastating effect in this damning critique of 1960s Britain.

In 1956, everything changed. Britain and France occupied Suez, and the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. Nikita Khrushchev's 'secret speech' exposed the crimes of Stalin. Suddenly the left found itself homeless, as the Communist Party became uninhabitable. The Royal Court Theatre unveiled John Osborn...

Allan Ahlberg was adopted as a baby. In 1938 he was picked up in London by his new mother and taken back to Oldbury in the Black Country. Now he is one of the most successful children's book writers in the world. In 'The Bucket' he describes an oddly enchanted childhood lived out in an industrial...

John Hooper presents the ideal companion for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Digging deep into their history, culture and religion, he offers keys to assessing everything from their bewildering politics to their love of life and beauty.

'Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes' reconstructs the real 1950s, through the eyes of the women who lived it. Step back in time to where our grandmothers scrubbed their doorsteps, cared for their families, lived, laughed, loved and struggled. This is their story.

'Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes' reconstructs the real 1950s, through the eyes of the women who lived it. Step back in time to where our grandmothers scrubbed their doorsteps, cared for their families, lived, laughed, loved and struggled. This is their story.

When Pat Stewart posed on the railings of Blackpool promenade on a blustery day, little did she know the resulting photograph would become an iconic image of the 20th century. For years, an imposter named Norma Edmonton claimed to be the famous girl with the enchanting smile. But after seeing Mrs...

A trek around Britain, following American J.R. Daeschner as he meets some of the great British eccentrics who involve themselves in a host of bizarre pastimes, including hurling themselves down a grass hill in pursuit of a cheese and dancing around with reindeer antlers on their heads.

Ken Clarke charts his remarkable progress from working-class scholarship boy in Nottinghamshire to high political office and the upper echelons of both his party and of government. But he is not a straightforward Conservative politician. His position on the left of the party often led Margaret Th...

An insider's account of the great political stories over the past four decades, illustrated with Peter Brookes' iconic cartoons.