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Do you know that the Olympians weren’t the original immortals? Or that the Goddess Hera restored her virginity each year? The ancient Greeks wove one of the richest and best-preserved collections of stories of all the early civilizations, from the dawn of creation to the bloody siege at Troy.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Postwar by Tony Judt, read by Ralph Cosham. Tracing the story of post-war Europe and its changing role in the world, Judt's magnificent history of the continent of our times investigates the political, social and cultural history of Europe from the...

This is the first major biography for a generation of a truly formidable king. Edward I is familiar to millions as 'Longshanks', conqueror of Scotland and nemesis of Sir William Wallace ('Braveheart'). Edward was born to rule England, but believed that it was his right to rule all of Britain. His reign was one of the most dramatic of the entire Middle Ages, leading to war and conquest on an unprecedented scale and leaving a legacy of division that has lasted from his day to our own.

In this guide-that’s-not-a-guide, metal detectorist cousins Ellie and Lucie explore their local landscape, getting to grips with the hobby, history and themselves along the way. ‘Enchanting and visceral’ DR MADELEINE PELLING ‘Brilliantly witty and magnificently down to earth’ DR...

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffeehouses and lived on country estates; they breathed ink dust from printing presses and escaped people traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

From the earliest recorded history of the Russian state, its people have sought to define their place in the world. And while many of us look to make sense of Russia through its political history, in many ways a real grasp of this awe-inspiring country comes from looking closely at its cultural achievements. The 24 lectures of Understanding Russia: A Cultural History survey hundreds of years of Russian culture, from the world of Ivan the Terrible to the dawn of the Soviet Union to the post-war tensions of Putin’s Russia.

At midnight on 15 August, 1947, India left the British Empire. This defining moment of world history had been brought about by a handful of people:Jawaharlal Nehru, the fiery Indian prime minister; Mohammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the new nation; and Louis and Edwina Mountbatten, despatched to get Britain out of India. Within hours of the midnight chimes, their dreams of freedom and democracy would turn to chaos, bloodshed and war.

On the streets of the tough Dublin inner-city neighbourhood where he grew up, Gerry Hutch was perceived as an ordinary decent criminal, a quintessential Robin Hood figure who fought the law—and won. To the rest of the world he was an elusive criminal godfather called the Monk: an enigmatic criminal mastermind and the hunted leader of one side in the deadliest gangland feud in Irish criminal history. 

Brought to you by Penguin. For centuries, Mount Etna has sent lava to engulf the towns and villages, terraced fields, orchards, vineyards, and citrus groves that nestle across its slopes. But still it remains home to a quarter of Sicily’s population. Why? Because Etna has always rewarded her...

Eric Hobsbawm traces with brilliant anlytical clarity the transformation brought about in every sphere of European life by the Dual revolution - the 1789 French revolution and the Industrial Revolution that originated in Britain. This enthralling and original account highlights the significant 60 years when industrial capitalism established itself in Western Europe and when Europe established the domination over the rest of the world it was to hold for half a century.

Harald Sigurdsson burst into history as a teenaged youth in a Viking battle from which he escaped with little more than his life and a thirst for vengeance. But from these humble origins, he became one of Norway’s most legendary kings. The Last Viking is a fast-moving narrative account of the life of King Harald Hardrada, as he journeyed across the medieval world, from the frozen wastelands of the North to the glittering towers of Byzantium and the passions of the Holy Land, until his warrior death on the battlefield in England.

A massive audience in sitting rooms, parks and pubs watched England in the 2018 World Cup. Yet as Duncan Hamilton demonstrates with style, insight and wit in Going to the Match, watching on TV is no substitute for being there. Hamilton embarks on a richly entertaining, exquisitely crafted journey through football. Glory game or grass roots, England v Slovenia or Guiseley v Hartlepool, he delves beneath the action to illuminate the stories which make the sport endlessly compelling.

Best-selling author Christopher Winn takes us on a captivating journey around London to discover the unknown tales of our capital's history. Travelling through the villages and districts that make up the world's most dynamic metropolis, I Never Knew That About London unearths the hidden gems of legends, firsts, inventions, adventures and birthplaces that shape the city's compelling and at times turbulent past.

Anne Frank, it has been said, gave a face and a name to the horror of the Holocaust. This is her story. It relates how Anne, her family, and their friends hid in secret rooms - "the Annex" - in an Amsterdam warehouse for 25 months. Anne, just 13 when the family moved in and only 15 when the Gestapo at last broke down the doors of her secret world, found hope where there was only fear and the first blush of love when outside and all around there washed a sea of hate.

Livingston argues that the English lens through which the war has been viewed has led historians to define it in terms of English interests (most famously, the claim of the English Plantagenet king Edward III to be the rightful king of France), and that the events collectively labelled the ‘Hundred Years War’ are best seen as a sequence of steps in France’s struggle to define itself as a nation. For much of the period, France’s primary rival was indeed England. But it was by no means the only combatant. Burgundy stood in its way, too, as did Brittany, Flanders, Navarre and other rival powers.

Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End Factories. The Sugar Girls went straight to No.10 in the Sunday Times Bestseller List, spending five weeks in the top ten. ‘On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle’s...

FNH Audio presents a slightly abridged performance of this third volume of Charles Oman's military history classic. In this third volume, a detailed examination is made of the period from September 1809 to December 1810. This volume covers the battles of Ocana, Cadiz and Bussaco. It also examines in detail Massena's march through Portugal to the lines of Terres Vedras, the lines themselves, and his final retreat away in a desperate search for food.

Brought to you by Penguin. A vivid and visceral portrayal of the most famous naval battle in history, focusing on the human cost of war, by a brilliant military historian At or about 1.15 in the afternoon of 21 October 1805, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson was struck by a 22-gramme, 15-millimetre...

In this book, bestselling historian Jonathan Dimbleby describes and analyses this momentous year, covering the military, political and diplomatic story in his evocative style. Drawing on previously untranslated German, Russian and Polish sources, we see how sophisticated new forms of deception and ruthless Partisan warfare shifted the Soviets’ fortunes, how their triumphs effectively gave Stalin authority to occupy Eastern Europe and how it was the events of 1944 that enabled Stalin to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement, laying the foundations for the Cold War . . .

Drawing on half a century of interviews and experience, Homelands tells the story of Europe in the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries - how, having emerged from its wartime hell in 1945, it slowly recovered and rebuilt, liberated and united to come close to the ideal of a Europe 'whole, free and at peace'. And then faltered.