20th Century History

During the 1970s and early 80s, dozens - perhaps hundreds - of Japanese civilians were kidnapped by North Korean commandos and forced to live in 'Invitation-Only Zones', high-security detention-centres masked...

'Frances Brody has made it to the top rank of crime writers' DAILY MAILA charming historical mystery set in 1960s Yorkshire, starring prisoner governor and amateur sleuth Nell Lewis. This...

In March 1906, American soldiers on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines surrounded and killed 1000 local men, women, and children, known as Moros, on top of an...

The ultimate glamorous, escapist blockbuster - perfect for fans of Melanie Blake, Jackie Collins and Shirley Conran's Lace.'Just the kind of glamorous escapism we all desperately need right now. Compelling...

Scholastic Focus is the premier home of thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and thoughtfully designed works of narrative nonfiction aimed at middle-grade and young adult readers. These books help readers learn...

Hundreds of 19th- and 20th-century curiosities and contraptions are catalogued in this amusing assembly of more than 1,000 images. The days from the first Great Industrial Exhibition of 1851 to...

The illustrator Jonny Hannah was born and bred in Scotland, and now lives by the sea in Southampton, but he also resides in Darktown a mysterious coastal town, not found...

NYC graffiti art, heavy metal, comic books, and fantasy art intersect here in Louie "KR.ONE" Gasparro's visual autobiography. This legendary Queens artist-drummer weaves these powerful influences into a medium he...

In this collection of works by more than 25 contemporary ice artists, discover a fascinating art medium defined by its ephemeral nature. Merging creativity and engineering, today's ice artist can...

Jim Cromartie first came to Nantucket as a college student, but for the past 35 years he has called the island home. As a young artist, his major patron was...

Initially, they were the waste product of wooden bowls turned in an ancient technique by Robin Wood of the United Kingdom, an expert pole-lathe turner and author. Known for his...

The influence of 80s culture is undeniable, perhaps most popularly in music. So what are the musicians who built the sonic landscape of the 80s up to? Photographer Mike Hipple...

Six major design styles during 1880 - 1940 form the basis of the Modernist Movement which embraces a diverse range of the decorative and applied and graphic arts. Starting with...

New York graffiti writers who cut their teeth painting trains in the '70s and '80s transfer Old Skool street art to a more permanent, collectible medium in this book, using...

This fascinating lexicon examines the quixotic architectural expressions found on select mid-20th-century modern commercial buildings in South Florida. Showcasing the work of 13 noted architects from Miami Beach to Fort...

In this rich and dream-like collection of photo-paintings, artist and fabulist Fran Forman offers characters, scenes and visual narratives that lure the imagination. She explores the multiple meanings of the...

The 'Swinging 60s' up close - 60s' style captured in a unique combination of words and pictures from award-winning journalist Felicity Green of the Daily Mirror, the biggest-selling newspaper of...

Before television and MTV, the radio was central in the home, a way for the family to gather to hear the news or listen to music. Over 175 images provide...

More than 600 archival colour and black-and-white photos take readers inside the magnificent Hotel des Artistes on Manhattan's West Side. This is the well-researched, untold story of the artists, returning...

California's picturesque shores have always been a magnet for outcasts and criminals. Read about 64 of the most horrifying crimes ever committed in The Golden State, from the early 1950s...

'Effervescent' New Yorker Best Books Of 2022 So Far'Bursts with colour and incident' FT Best Books of Summer Read this prize-winning historian's "immersive" ( New York Times) account of the...

Oxford thought it was at war. And then it was. After the horrors of the First World War, Oxford looked like an Arcadia - a dream world - from which...

Peter Hessler's previous book River Town was a prize-winning, poignant and deeply compelling portrait of China. Now, in Oracle Bones, Hessler returns to the country, excavating its long history and...

The marriage was that between the two writers, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and the portrait is drawn partly by Vita herself in an autobiography which she left behind at...

My mother was a prostitute. My grandmother and great-grandmother were prostitutes.Maybe I should have given the family business a chance...BBC RADIO 4 PICK OF THE WEEK, Katie Puckrik'Eliska's story is...

'[It] manages to be funny, moving, activist, and challenging.' Harriet Minter, TalkRadio'I loved this book - I thought it was really interesting' Jane Garvey, BBC Radio 4 Woman's HourHealth Visiting...

Bobby Charlton is Manchester United through and through. One of the original 'Busby Babes'; he has devoted his career to the club, playing in 754 games over 17 years and...

Ireland is a strikingly different country now to the one it was in the mid-1990s. Dramatic economic, social and cultural changes, including the Celtic Tiger boom and increasingly secular debate...

Thomas Buergenthal is unique. Liberated from the death camps of Auschwitz at the age of eleven, in adulthood he became a judge at the International Court in The Hague. In...

A gripping testament of resilience, family, and faith, this is the incredible and true story of an American traveler who was captured and wrongfully imprisoned in Syria while on a...

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023 'The most exquisite kind of literature... I've put it on a special shelf in my library that I reserve for books that demand...

Air America - a secret airline run by the CIA - flew missions no one else would touch, from General Claire Cennault's legendary Flying Tigers in WW II to two...

Set during Carnival in Haiti 1938, a young and beautiful woman named Hadriana drinks a mysterious potion on her wedding day and collapses at the altar. She is buried and...

The first book of the smash-hit Wayward Pines trilogy, from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter, Recursion, and Upgrade Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward...

'An absorbingly creepy travelogue through the corridors, tunnels and basements of our most famous cultural repository. With Noah Angell as our guide, the British Museum becomes a haunted prison filled...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA Daily Mail Music Book of the Year, 2024An Observer Book of the Week'I can think of no one better placed to tell the story behind...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA masterly history of the Dambusters raid from bestselling and critically acclaimed Max Hastings.Operation Chastise, the overnight destruction of the Moehne and Eder dams in north-west Germany...

'Groundbreaking' Sunday Times'Beautifully written and elegiac . . . a masterpiece' Damien Lewis, Sunday Times bestselling authorSince the inception of the Secret Service Bureau back in 1909, women have worked...

One of the most remarkable stories in the history of Special Forces' operations - Daily ExpressIn the bleak moments after defeat on mainland Europe in winter 1939, Winston Churchill knew...

One of the founding fathers of heavy metal, Lemmy Kilmister's musical legacy can never be forgotten despite his death in December 2015. As their frontman, songwriter and bassist, Ian Fraser...

A writer in self-imposed exile in London receives a call from the Prime Minister of his former country, inviting him to return to write the Prime Minister's biography. As he...

Probably the greatest British novelist of his generation, Graham Greene's own story was as strange and compelling as those he told of Pinkie the Mobster, Harry Lime, or the Whisky...

After World War II the Royal Air Force went through a considerable downsizing, but retained an essential maritime reconnaissance role for the protection of British interests overseas. These areas were...

Probably the greatest British novelist of his generation, Graham Greene's own story was as strange and compelling as those he told of Pinkie the Mobster, Harry Lime, or the Whisky...

Some of the great untold stories of the Second World War concern the freedom trails, the highly dangerous escape routes out of Nazi Occupied Europe. Over 5,000 British, Commonwealth and...

Young Elizabeth captures in vivid detail perhaps the single-most important formative experience in Queen Elizabeth's life, the 1947 royal tour of southern Africa with her parents King George VI, Queen...

A powerful call to confront the reasons why politics is jeopardising women's health across the world, by a prize-winning academic'Harman delivers her devastating diagnosis with a powerful prescription for change'...

A BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR'Thoroughly researched, stylish and entertaining' Financial Times'A vivid and sparkling account, full of colour and dark drama' Observer'Brilliantly depicts a disastrous failure' Antony...