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The Age of Extremes is eminent historian Eric Hobsbawm's personal vision of the 20th century. Remarkable in its scope, and breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, this immensely rewarding book reviews the uniquely destructive and creative nature of the troubled 20th century and makes challenging predicitions for the future. 

Bloomsbury presents The Cuckoo's Lea: The Forgotten History of Birds and Place by Michael J. Warren, read by John Sackville Birds have long inspired our emotional and imaginative connections to physical environments, but where did it all begin? Hidden in the names of English towns and villages...

THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLER A Times Best History Book of the Year; A Waterstones Best Book of the Year 'Reads like a thriller… I couldn't put Max Hastings's new book down' DAILY MAIL 'Hastings is a master of drama, a writer intimately familiar with the mind of the soldier' THE TIMES...

Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe's history. The witch came to prominence - and often a painful death - in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early modern state.

England's unique republican experiment ­- imposed on Scotland and Ireland, too - may have been shortlived, but it has had a lasting impact on British monarchy, politics, religion and culture, and on the story the British continue to tell about themselves. It is a period that, for a long time, history chose to forget, or recalled as a failure. Here, in thrilling detail, Alice Hunt brings the republic and its extraordinary cast of characters, from politicians to poets and prophets, back to life.

By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world's leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this book, Citino charts the path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a "war of movement," inexorably led to Nazi Germany's defeat.

What has 'Roman Britain' meant to the British people since the Romans left? And what does Roman Britain mean to us now? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Charlotte Higgins leads us through the history, and by using some of Britain's most intriguing ancient monuments, Under Another Sky invites us to see the British landscape, and history, in an entirely fresh way.

The first full reappraisal of one of Britain's great fighter aces, this book examines the truth behind Tuck's 1956 biography, Fly for Your Life. It looks at the evidence behind the myths, checks out some of the exaggerated stories and reveals the real Stanford Tuck. In January 1942 Bob Tuck was the top-scoring British fighter ace with an official score of twenty-nine enemy aircraft destroyed. During the Battle of Britain his legendary prowess grew and he was posted to command a leaderless and demoralized squadron, this time flying Hurricanes.

Brought to you by Penguin. Built of lightweight wood, powered by two growling Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, impossibly aerodynamic, headspinningly fast and armed to the teeth, the de Havilland Mosquito was the war-winning wonder that should never have existed: the aircraft the RAF didn't think it...

Bloomsbury presents Opening the Gates of Hell: Operation Barbarossa, June-July 1941 by Richard Hargreaves, read by Philip Pope. A unique account of the opening weeks of history’s largest, most brutal conflict, told through the eyes of those who were there and based on original source material...

From the author of ‘Wartime’ and ‘The Thirties’comes an outstanding history of the most prolonged and devastating attack ever endured by Britain's civilian population – the Blitz. September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's sustained attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight...

Central Europe is not just a space on a map but also a region of shared experience - of mutual borrowings, impositions and misapprehensions. From the Roman Empire onwards, it has been the target of invasion from the east. In the Middle Ages, Central Europeans cast their eastern foes as 'the dogmen'. They would later become the Turks, Swedes, Russians and Soviets, all of whom pulled the region apart and remade it according to their own vision.

To many Queen Victoria was a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, portrayed as an aging, stiff widow. But in truth Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was passionate, expressive, humorous, and unconventional. A. N. Wilson’s exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources, showing us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before.

Bloomsbury presents How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn, read by Alix Dunmore. A Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman, The Rest is Politics and Waterstones Highlight for 2024 'Quinn has done a lot more than reinvent the wheel. What we have here is a truly encyclopaedic and...

*PLUTARCH AWARD FOR THE BEST BIOGRAPHY OF 2024* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE* ‘SUBLIME’ A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 ‘STUNNINGLY GOOD’ THE TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOKS 2024 ‘COMPULSIVE’ A PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 ‘BRILLIANT’ A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024...

Brilliantly manipulative and entirely amoral, the hero-villain Richard is one of Shakespeare's greatest roles. The Yorkists have emerged victorious from the civil wars and Edward IV wears the English crown. But Edward's misshapen brother Richard harbors kingly ambitions and will stop at nothing to achieve the throne. In a fatal battle on Bosworth Field, Richard meets the ghosts of all whom he has murdered and the Earl of Richmond, the future King Henry VII.

In the heroic days of rail travel, you could dine on kippers and champagne aboard the Brighton Belle, smoke a postprandial cigar as the Golden Arrow approached Paris or be shaved by the Flying Scotsman's onboard barber. Everyone from schoolboys to socialites knew of these glamorous trains. Andrew Martin recreates famous train journeys by travelling aboard their nearest modern-day equivalents, describing the disappearance of the extravagance and luxury.

Bloomsbury presents The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, read by Mike Grady. The No. 1 Sunday Times and international bestseller – a major reassessment of world history in light of the economic and political renaissance in the re-emerging east For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in...

The principal criminal court of England, historically reserved for the more serious and high-profile trials, Court Number One opened its doors in 1907 after the building of the 'new' Old Bailey. In the decades that followed it witnessed the trials of the most famous and infamous defendants of the twentieth century. It was here that the likes of Madame Fahmy, Lord Haw Haw, John Christie, Ruth Ellis, George Blake (and his unlikely jailbreakers, Michael Randle and Pat Pottle), Jeremy Thorpe and Ian Huntley were defined in history.... 

Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism—gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium-long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium—what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.