General & world history

In '100 Books that Changed the World', prize-winning author Scott Christianson brings together an exceptional collection of truly groundbreaking books - from scriptures that founded religions, to scientific treatises that challenged beliefs, to novels that kick-started literary genres. This elega...

Between 1199 and 1399, English politics was high drama. These two centuries witnessed savage political blood-letting - including civil war, deposition, the murder of kings and the ruthless execution of rebel lords - as well as international warfare, devastating national pandemic, economic crisis ...

From eerie ghost towns to epic undersea monuments, armchair travellers and adventure seekers will be captivated by this curious atlas of strange and surreal abandoned sites across the world. It follows on from the success of the award-winning title 'Atlas of Vanishing Places', and forms part of a...

This is the story of Britain's islands and how they are woven into its culture, history and collective psyche. From Neolithic Orkney and druidical Anglesey to the joys and strangeness of modern Thanet, we explore the furthest reaches of Britain's island topography, once known by the collective te...

On the morning of the 28th of January 1986, just 73 seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Like the assassination of JFK, the disaster is a defining moment in 20th century history - one that forever changed the way Am...

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 ...

We have always created and destroyed monsters. They give form to what we don't wish to know or understand; to our anxieties and irrational terrors. They have helped us manage the extraordinary complexity of our minds and deal with the challenges of being human. In 'Enchanted Creatures', Natalie L...

'The Endless Country' takes a journey through Turkey's past - the nation the author's father left decades ago and he returns to as a young man. It is not about Erdogan or Ataturk, the two towering Presidents who have book-ended that history, and at times have appeared impossible to escape. Instea...

Travel back to the 1980s - to Botham's Ashes and the Brixton riots; the Moscow Olympics and the miners' strike; the Crucible Theatre and the Falklands - to explore how we got to where we are now. Discover how sport became fully entwined in our national story; how sporting heroes were made, and de...