20th Century History

When an unassuming young Melbourne woman bumped into a handsome naval lieutenant in a Colombo hotel swimming pool in 1926 she would never have dreamed of one day being the...

The personal and the political collide in this masterful account of the death of a dictator. When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, he had been the unchallenged leader of the...

The instant Sunday Times bestseller, a mesmerising story of love, regret and a restless search for answers While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War...

Afternoon tea, the Women's Institute, Mrs Beeton, department stores, suburbia, seaside holidays and cycling clubs - all preserves of the great middle class. But where did the middle classes come...

John Van der Kiste's book takes in the principal monarchies of Scandinavia going back to the beginning of the 19th century. He uses unpublished sources and photographs to show how...

Queen Victoria's son, Prince Leopold, died from haemophilia, but no member of the royal family before his generation had suffered from the condition. Medically, there are only two possibilities: either...

This is a biography of the Mexican painter who was brought up during the Mexican Revolution, suffered a crippling accident at 18 that left her unable to bear children, married...

Behind the tourist veneer of Bali and greater Indonesia: a foreign correspondent's memoir In 2006, journalist Deborah Cassrels embarked on a personal odyssey to the Indonesian island of Bali. She...

The story of Australia's first elected Labor Prime Minister, from award-winning historian David Day Prime Minister Andrew Fisher was one of Australia's great nation-builders, yet his story is largely unknown....

The Republic of Ireland, described variously as "The Emerald Tiger", "The Celtic Tiger" and "The Tiger Economy of Europe", is apparently one of the great success stories of 20th-century Europe....

This descriptive gazetter looks, town by town, at all surviving theatres built between 1750 and 1950. It makes assesments of their quality, architecturally and theatrically and also assesses the potential...

Writing in the June 1965 issue of theEconomic Journal, Harry G. Johnson begins with a sentence seemingly calibrated to the scale of the book he set himself to review: "The...

Then, . ....But after that, I realised that I knew very little about these parents of mine. They had been born about the start of the Twentieth Century, and they...

A missing man, a stolen baby and a plot of land where nothing grows. Are they connected? One person knows. 1948 : Sugar Creek seemed such a welcoming town for...

Politics Without Democracy provides an entertaining and highly original view of how Britain made a peaceful transition to representative democracy - a change characterized in other countries by convulsive and...

One of the most monstrous enterprises in the annals of international history,' said Karl Marx. 'A madness without parallel since Don Quixote,' said a future French president. This is history's...

One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy. Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo...

Ray Parkin's classic POW trilogy, originally published in the 1960s, has been out of print for many years. Now eagerly sought after, it will be available for the first time...

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's finest work dates from about a dozen intensely creative years around 1900. His buildings in Glasgow, and especially his craggy masterpiece the Glasgow School of Art, are...

This revised text covers movements in art since 1945.

Anna Moszynska shows here how abstract art originated and evolved, placing it in its broad historical and cultural context. She traces the paths to abstraction forged by artists such as...

Little has been written about the nurses and less so the chaplains who served with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force during World War One. Several members of the New Zealand...

In 1992 the British Secret Intelligence Service exfiltrated from Russia a defector whose presence in the West remained a secret until the publication of The Sword and the Shield in...

In 1998, Schneider, in her sixties, is summoned from Italy to the nursing home in Vienna in which her 90 year old mother lives. The last time she has seen...

Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure....

Written with exclusive full access to Virgil Thomson's papers, here is the first full-scale account of Thomson's experiences as a composer, influential critic, and gay man. This biography shows how...

SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER With extraordinary access to the Trump White House, Michael Wolff tells the inside story of the most controversial presidency...

The riveting memoirs of the outstanding moral and political leader of our time, A Long Walk to Freedom brilliantly re-creates the drama of the experiences that helped shape Nelson Mandela's...

In this book Ryoshin Minami studies the last hundred years of Japan's remarkable economic growth from the Meiji period up to the present day. First, he reveals the factors which...

Lenin is a colossal figure whose influence on 20th-century history cannot be underestimated. This biography makes use of archive material to piece together his private as well as public life...

Charles Williams' major biography of Philippe Petain (1856-1951) tells of a peasant who became a Marshal of France and the Head of the Vichy State. A slow climb up the...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The "superb [and] intensely readable" ( The Washington Post ) untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II and the extraordinary...

In today's world of constant identification checks, it's difficult to recall that there was ever a time when "proof of identity" was not a part of everyday life. And as...

The international framework for a climate change agreement is up for review as the initial Kyoto period to 2012 comes to an end. Though there has been much enthusiasm from...

A new and unique framework for understanding the history of the foreign policy of the United States.The United States is now nearly 250 years old. It arose from humble beginnings,...

One of the most famous accounts of living under the Nazi regime of World War II comes from the diary of a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl, Anne Frank. Today, The Diary...

At times of global crisis, Jonathan Schell's books have presented influential alternatives to conventional, dead-end thinking. His classic best-seller, THE FATE OF THE EARTH, was hailed as "an event of...

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature A landmark in American fiction, Light in August explores Faulkner's central theme- the nature of evil. Joe Christmas - a man doomed, deracinated...

"A glorious showstopper of a novel! With its glittering characters, intricately woven plot and chapters full of gorgeous Dior dresses, The Paris Gown will be turning all heads this year."--Natasha...

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Life only really starts when we start serving others. For many people, military service isn't simply a job. It's a ticket out of a lonely...

The Eichmann in Jerusalem for the Khmer Rouge, The Master of Confessions is a harrowing yet humane account of the trial of Duch, a Khmer Rouge operative and the director...

The brand new epic family drama from the nation's favourite storyteller. Where can a daughter turn when her father's love is stolen away? When heart-broken Sarah Quinn is left to...

Winner of the Whitley Award for Best Natural History Book 2022 A compelling, funny, first-hand account of Australia's wonderfully unique mammals and how our perceptions impact their future. Think of...

'Impressive ... Fascinating' Sunday Times 'An authoritative history' Financial Times 'Gripping and richly researched' Rana Mitter A superb new history of the rise of China and the fall of Hong...

For readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Kate Furnivall comes a gritty tale of courage, betrayal and love in the most unlikely of places. Also published as The German...

'The political memoir of the decade' Sunday Times The referendum on Britain's membership of the EU is one of the most controversial political events of our times. For the first...

The best, the fastest, the hippest and the most unorthodox account ever published of the US presidential electoral process in all its madness and corruption. In 1972 Hunter S. Thompson,...

WE TELL OURSELVES STORIES IN ORDER TO LIVE Looking for plausible stories as the Sixties are about to implode, Joan Didion sets out, notebook in hand, on a now-legendary journey...