20th Century History

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...

Understand the Israeli Palestinian Conflict is the essential guide to one of the world s most distressing confrontations. Putting the present situation into its broader context and examining all perspectives,...

Society has never known what to do with its rebellious women. Those who defied expectations about feminine behaviour have long been considered dangerous and unnatural, and ever since the Victorian...

From Orlando Figes, international bestselling author of A People's Tragedy, Just Send Me Word is the moving true story of two young Russians whose love survived Stalin's Gulag. Lev and...

'A heart-piercingly brilliant book about a woman whose personal life put her in the cross-hairs of history' HADLEY FREEMAN'Totally riveting. I couldn't put it down' VICTORIA HISLOP'Ethel sings out for...

'The very best sort of panoramic portrait' David Kynaston'The Edwardians have long been the lost decade of British history, yet they are that history at its climax. Alwyn Turner sets...

Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of...

'HUGELY IMPRESSIVE' - THE INDEPENDENT'AN ASTONISHINGLY FINE HISTORY' - COUNTRY LIFE'FASCINATING' - DAILY MAILThe history of the world's most successful military alliance, from the wrecked Europe of 1945 to Vladimir...

Sunday Times Bestselling author of The Traitor of Colditz Robert Verkaik reveals the incredible never-before-told story of the role played by the Cambridge Spies in the British defeat at Arnhem"A...

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, wartime leader Winston...

Dressing up. Partying all night. This is the world of 1970s fashion, and this book is your backstage pass.Featuring over 25 exclusive interviews with the movers and shakers of the...

'Great is the Soviet Union, vast its territories, warm its entrails...' 1959. Whispers of dissidence are spreading in the U.S.S.R. Texts published in the West are circulating in samizdat, tormenting...

'Enthralling' GUARDIAN'Incredibly absorbing ... astonishingly candid' Bill BrysonWinner of the PEN Ackerley Prize and the South Bank Sky Arts Award for LiteratureShortlisted for the Costa Biography Award; Duff Cooper Prize;...

With an introduction from RuPaul's Drag Race winner Sasha VelourTheir greatest act of resistance was simply existing In 1950s New York, a group of drag pioneers found work in a...

From the personal and political upheavals of the Great War, through the Churchills' 'wilderness years' in the 1930s, to Clementine's desperate efforts to preserve her husband's health during the struggle...

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...

'Asne Seierstad is the supreme non-fiction writer of her generation' Luke Harding'As an exploration of the social fabric of Afghan life, this book takes some beating' Daily Telegraph'An astonishing feat...

The process to deliver a modern combat aircraft from concept to introduction to service is often measured in decades. Described as a weapon system, modern designs such as the Eurofighter...

Speaking recently about his early years as an artist Lucian Freud claimed, 'I would have thought I did 200 drawings to every painting in those early days. I very much...

A fascinating illustrated account of a crucial but less well-known aspect of the Third Reich. The story of the weapons that could have won the war: Nazi flying saucers, the...

Man Ray (1890-1976), a pioneer of the Dada movement and a central protagonist of surrealism, is best known for his innovative photographs, but his writings are also remarkable expressions of...

In this thoughtful and timely consideration of the nature of American power and empire, Anthony Bogues argues that America's self-presentation as the bastion of liberty is an attempt to force...

Celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead, who studied sex in Samoa and child-rearing in New Guinea in the 1920s and '30s, was determined to show that anthropology could tackle the psychology of...

One of the great tragedies of Africa is not only the fact that a million people-mostly civilians and a large proportion of them children-died in one of Africa's first post-independence...

A dramatic reevaluation of Thomas Jefferson's thinking on foreign policy and his record as a statesman This book, the first in decades to closely examine Thomas Jefferson's foreign policy, offers...

The 1st of July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, was the blackest day in the history of the British Army. 60,000 men became casualties on...

It is no exaggeration to claim that 46th North Midland Division s action on 29 September 1918 was the hammer blow that shattered the will of the German High Command....

The Rangers mission was clear. They were to lead the assault on Omaha Beach and breakout inland. Simultaneously other Ranger units would scale the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc to...

A thrilling new biography of Dwight Eisenhower set in the months leading up to D-Day, when he grew from a well-liked general into one of the singular figures of American...

This extraordinary book is both an engaging military history and an enthralling mystery. Australia's Lost Heroes tells the astonishing little-known story of the Australian soldiers who fought the Red Army...

The basis for the Disney-produced series on Hulu The Lions of Sicily"A blazing epic of countless twists and turns."-Le Figaro"A compelling combination of historical sweep and family drama" -Kirkus ReviewsFrom...