History

Sex, Spies and Scandal is the story of John Vassall, a civil servant who was unmasked as a Soviet spy in 1962. With access to newly released MI5 files and interviews with people who knew Vassall from the 1950s until his death in 1996, this book sheds new light on a neglected spy scandal.

Written by the notable historian, Dame Veronica Wedgwood and originally published in the Collin's Pictures of Britain series, this book is an accessible text listing and explaining the major battles that occured within the British Isles from the Norman Conquest up to the 1940s.

The Women Behind the Few explores the Second World War from the perspective of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force members working behind the scenes to collect and disseminate vital intelligence - intelligence that resulted in Allied victory.

Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott investigate the state of the British Armed Forces today. Why do we still need them, and do they have what they need to do what is required of them? As external threats grow in an increasingly fragmented world, the state of our Armed Forces is becoming a dominant theme in and outside of Westminster.

The definitive account of the rise and fall of the ultimate narco, 'El Chapo', from the New York Times reporter whose coverage of his trial went viral.

From the bestselling author Simon Winchester, a human history of land around the world: who mapped it, owned it, stole it, cared for it, fought for it and gave it back. In 1889, thousands of hopeful people raced southward from the Kansas state line and westward from the Arkansas boundary to stake claims ...

The primary aim of this book is to focus on contemporary issues and to promote interdisciplinary approaches within the subject. Written by international scholars and practitioners in fields such as folklore, ethnomusicology, art history, religious studies, tourism and education, the book brings together in one volume a wide range of perspectives.

The story of the Stuart dynasty is a breathless soap opera played out in just a hundred years in an array of buildings that span Europe from Scotland, via Denmark, Holland and Spain to England.

'A gripping and compelling account.... The peaceful ending of the Cold War between West and East remains one of the greatest achievements of modern statecraft' CHRISTOPHER ANDREW, Literary Review


This landmark global study makes us rethink what happened ...

Discusses the future of the Middle East in our new, post-imperialist era. For each and every country and for the region as a whole, this explains, there is a range of alternative futures: at one end, cooperation and progress; at the other, a vicious circle of poverty and ignorance.

The history of Britain, presented as you've never seen it before, through twenty-one women whose lives enthral and beguile, intrigue and inspire

The Sunday Times bestseller
Now a major BBC TV series presented by Andrew Marr

"'The Smythson cirle' is the absorbing story stretching from 1541 to 1614, charting the creation of the first Renaissance buildings in England. David N. Durant, author of the acclaimed 'Bess of Hardwick', describes how Longleat, Chatsworth, Wollaton Hall, Old and New Hardwick Halls and Bolsover Castle ...

Features Stalin's leadership from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 to his death in 1953. This book challenges a long list of standard perceptions of Stalin: his qualities as a leader; his relationships with his own generals and with other great world leaders; his foreign policy; and his role in instigating the Cold War.

The Debs of Bletchley Park will tell the stories of the women who worked at Bletchley, how they came to be there, the lives they gave up to do 'their bit' for the war effort, and the part they played in the vital work of 'Station X'.

A ground-breaking collection of essays that explore how the material and visual cultures of Ireland and its diaspora (including painting, engraving, photography, devotional objects, ritual, drama, film, television, and graphic novels) intersect with the multiple impacts and experiences of the Irish Famine, from the 1840s to the present day.

Why have Western societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? Looking to the feelings and faith of ordinary people, the award-winning author of Protestants Alec Ryrie offers a bold new history of atheism.

In this extraordinary book, historian Tony Insall reveals how some of the most striking achievements of the Norwegian resistance were the detailed reports produced by intelligence agents living in the dangerous conditions of the country's desolate wilderness.

400 pages ; 20 cm

Explores the dark and varied obsessions of Western civilization with decapitated human heads, from collectors of shrunken heads and trophies of war to phrenologists and cryonicists.