General & world history

Cleopatra: lover, seductress, and Egypt's greatest queen. A woman more myth than history, immortalized in poetry, drama, music, art, and film. She captivated Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, the two greatest Romans of the day, and died in a blaze of glory, with an asp clasped to her breast - or so ...

Once drunk only as part of an obscure Muslim custom, coffee is now an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world. It is one of the most valuable commodities in the history of the global economy and the world's most popular drug. The very word 'coffee' is one of the m...

When precisely did the ideas, symbols and metaphors of patriarchy take hold of Western civilization? When were women, so central to the creation of society, moved on to the sidelines? Where is the evidence to support the notion that male dominance over women is a natural state of things? Gerda Le...

This is an action-packed and powerful narrative of the Battle of Okinawa - the last great clash of the Second World War, and one that had profound consequences for the modern world. For eighty-three blood-soaked days, the fighting on the island of Okinawa plumbed depths of savagery as bad as anyt...

What comes first: the character of the times, or the characters who give it theirs? 'Crucible' charts the trajectories of the characters who fell from power in the bloody breakdown of Europe's old order between 1917 and 1924, and those who for whom the restless chaos marked the beginning of an un...

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike - either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilisation, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and ...

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike - either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and ...

Offers 36 cards introducing and examining people, places and events of the decades. This title includes 36 A5 cards that featuring specific moments, individuals and events of particular significance during these two pivotal decades in the economic and cultural development of the modern world.

Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Ceausescu, Mengistu of Ethiopia and Duvalier of Haiti. No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. A tyrant who can compel his own people to accla...

Geology controls the outcome of battle and no more so than during the trench warfare of the Great War and this book by expert Peter Doyle takes us through the details. An understanding of terrain has been the mark of a great commander from at least the time of Sun Tzu, and most campaigns can be i...