20th Century History

Afghanistan has been both a fortress of faith and a mountainous crossroads from time immemorial. Through its high valleys merchants traded Chinese porcelains, bundles of indigo cloth, sacks of lapis...

In 1973, the Afghans still had a King who ruled from a palace in Kabul with his own resident court of musicians when Veronica set up home in Herat. This...

Carla Grissman spent the better part of a year living with a local peasant family in a farming hamlet in remote Anatolia, some 250 km east of Ankara. The hospitality,...

A Place Apart is a remarkable geographical and psychological travelogue that rises above history, politics, theology and economics. Created by a southern Irishwoman, cycling into the mayhem of Northern Ireland...

This absorbing study describes and illustrates the Indian Army forces that fought in five wars during the second half of the 20th century. The Indian Army is the world's largest...

Written by a noted authority, this fully illustrated study describes and depicts the machine guns equipping Soviet and Russian troops after 1945. Following the USSR's victory in World War II,...

An illustrated account of the development and action-packed service history of the Jaguar attack jet, featuring first-hand accounts from the pilots that flew it into combat. Developed as a joint...

An illustrated exploration of the development, technology and operations of Wilde Sau fighters in the night skies over Germany during the Defence of the Reich. In July 1943, the Nachtjagdverband...

Explores the history of the US Navy's 11 new steel warships, built during the late 19th century to advance American naval supremacy. After the American Civil War, the powerful US...

The SBD Dauntless dive-bomber was a key cog in the US Navy's aerial arsenal throughout the Pacific War. Although a product of aviation design in the mid to late 1930s,...

Following the American Declaration of Independence, communities from Boston to Savannah were forced to make a choice: to strike out for an independent republic, or remain true to the British...

2026 PROSE Award Finalist in Art History & Criticism What was Cubism? How did this strange new way of making paintings and sculptures enable artists so decisively to change the...

From the bestselling author of The Right to Speak and The Need for Words comes this Bloomsbury Revelations edition of the essential guide to voice work: The Actor Speaks ....

After the German attack on Poland in 1939, vast swathes of Polish territory, including Warsaw and Krakow, were occupied by the Nazis in an administration which became known as the...

Set in the medieval city of Marrakesh and the majestic kasbahs of the High Atlas mountains, Lords of the Atlas tells the extraordinary story of the Madani and T'hami el...

The princes are nothing but tyrants who flay the people; they fritter away our blood and sweat on their pomp and whoring and knavery.' These were the words of Thomas...

"Since the disastrous Pompidou years, working-class Paris has been steadily nibbled away, either by destruction or more insidiously by a kind of internal colonization. Take for example a small outlying...

In a novel pairing of anti-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon with Marxist-Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, Zahi Zalloua explores the ways both thinkers expose the violence of political structures. This inventive exploration...

Through the 1940s and 1950s, PAGON (Progressive Architects Group Oslo Norway) was an alliance of young CIAM-affiliated Norwegian architects known for their innovative joint projects. As a group, PAGON went...

Reveals a riveting portrait of a nation mired in complexities. In recent years Saudi Arabia has promoted itself as an open country: oil-rich but investing in culture, tourism, social innovation,...

A critical examination of the ongoing struggle in Palestine. This essential read provides clarity on the intertwined relationships of global capitalism, energy politics, and racial oppression, and challenges readers to...

Completed in exile in Paris, as the second World War was dawning, Walter Benjamin looks back at the city of his birth at the beginning of the century. The book...

In 1953, Iran was at loggerheads with the US and UK, after Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalised Iran's oil reserves. By 1968, under the autocratic rule of the Shah, Iran was...

A Times Best Art Book of the Year, 2024 'A riot of a book' - Country Life 's Books of the Year, 2024 The modern art market was born on...

September 1905. At the heart of the Ottoman Empire, in the ancient city of Smyrna, Scheherazade is born to an opium-dazed mother. At the very same moment, an Indian spy...

Few terms are so widely used in the literature of international relations and political science, with so little agreement about their exact meaning, as hegemony. In the first full historical...

The global ocean has through the centuries served as a trade route, strategic space, fish bank and supply chain for the modern capitalist economy. While sea beds are drilled for...

A 2023 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title This is the most up-to-date and comprehensive volume on the international relations of Asia and the Indo-Pacific. The Asian region has become the...

'Compelling and so atmospheric ... the perfect new crime series to dive into' HEAT 'Rob Parker is a master of the stone-cold twist' JANICE HALLETT 'Brilliant pacing ... a great...

'Living with him was like living at the centre of the universe. It was electrifying and humbling, blissful and destructive, all at the same time.' Paris, 1936. When Dora Maar,...

*A FINANCIAL TIMES AND ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025* 'For anyone who wants to understand the history of America and the world, this is a useful and important book'...

WINNER OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE A profound and ground-breaking new history of one of the most important encounters in the history of colonialism: the British arrival in India...

An original history of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics and rekindled the Cold War. Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has reshaped...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2026, ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE YEAR A football fan's dream come true. Every complete UK PANINI sticker album 1978-1993 reproduced together for the first...

China's rise to superpower is seemingly a modern phenomenon, but it has a long history. This book follows China's geopolitical transformation on the world stage, from struggling to defend herself...

When we think about George Orwell, we imagine an angular, moustachioed sceptic crouched over a typewriter, who - between puffs on his cigarette - composes effortless streams of prose, unadorned...

The only thing to fear about the past is it may destroy the future... 'Fun, romantic and heartbreaking. Serious Outlander vibes with a fresh new twist.' Pim Wangtechawat, author of...

The Penguin Modern Classics edition of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor is translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, with an introduction by Neal Ascherton. After the deposition of Haile...

During the First World War, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, secretly promised the Sharif of Mecca an independent Arab state, including Palestine, after the war. In...

Feminist icon Gloria Steinem's inspiring and candid memoir of her early life and her path to becoming one of the world's most influential voices, with reflections on hope, happiness and...

A compelling novel about the requirement to be perfect, without losing sight of yourself - by the greatest feminist of the twentieth-century, Simone de Beauvoir. Laurence is a woman who...

A gripping and evocative debut about the secrets we keep to protect those we love 1955: In an apartment on the Lower East Side, school teachers Dovie and Gillian live...

The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk with over $1 billion in gold and silver-and one man's obsessive quest to find it-from the Sunday Times bestselling...

A chilling alternative history in which the Nazis have conquered Britain, now in the iconic Penguin Crime series It is 1941 and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied,...

A gripping tale of adultery and murder served hard-boiled When Maude Slocum - beautiful, frightened and angry - comes to Lew Archer's office with a poison pen letter intended for...

In her captivating memoir Through the Leopard's Gaze , Njambi McGrath details the harrowing circumstances of her life as a young girl in Kenya, who one fateful night was beaten...

In her apron and rubber gloves, a smile lipsticked permanently across her face, the woman of the Fifties has become a cultural symbol of all that we are most grateful...

Critically acclaimed, candid, unsparing, surprising and darkly funny, this memoir of a 1970s upbringing by the much-loved broadcaster Justin Webb is as much a portrait of that strange decade as...