General & world history

1649. King Charles I had been executed. A quarter of a million had died in the Second English Civil War. Two hundred great houses stood in ruins, with hundreds of villages and towns left battered and broken. The monarchy, the House of Lords and the Church of England were all abruptly abolished. W...

On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a homemade cotton flag was raised, announcing the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first colonised country to declare its independence after t...

When Alexandra Harris returned to her childhood home of West Sussex, she realised that she barely knew the place at all. As she probed beneath the surface, excavating layers of archival records and everyday objects, bringing a lifetime's reading to bear on the place where she started, hundreds of...

From battlefields, cathedrals and museums to castles and stately homes, from the Lancastrians, Yorkists and Roundhead Royalists to an abundance of kings called George (and Henry!), the history of our island nation unravels its rich tapestry beneath our very feet - if only you know where to look. ...

Get the inside track on the incredible lives of history's must-know names: from Shakespeare to Oprah Winfrey, and Anne Frank to Julius Caesar. This book boasts more than 150 visual timelines, covering a diverse array of kings and queens, humanitarians, scientists, inventors, explorers, activists,...

From the bustling bazaars of Tabriz, to the mysterious island of Caldihe, where sheep were said to grow on trees, Anthony Bale brings history alive in 'A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages', inviting the reader to travel across a medieval world punctuated with miraculous wonders and long-lost landma...

'The Turning Tide' is a hymn to a sea passage of world-historical importance. Combining social and cultural history, nature-writing, travelogue and politics, Jon Gower charts a sea which has carried both Vikings and saints, invasion forces and furtive gun-runners, writers, musicians and fishermen...

Germany, 1918: a country in flux. The First World War is lost, traditional values are shaken to their core, revolution is afoot and the victory of democracy beckons. Everything must change with the times. The country is abuzz with talk of the 'new woman', the 'new man', 'new living' and 'new thin...

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, journalist Andrew North arrived in Afghanistan for the first time. Meanwhile, the lives of five young Afghans were about to change forever: Farzana had been banned from attending school as a child, but education would take her further than she could have imagined....