European History

Tells the history of sherry, stretching from Chaucer's wine of Lepe, throug Shakespeare's sherris-sack, to the sherry of today. From the planting of the vines in the South of Andalusia,...

Dark Renaissance is the thrilling story of the writer who transformed culture in Elizabethan England, bringing it out of the darkness and into the light. Poor boy. Dark star. Spy....

'Kuper is a shrewd observer in this entertaining mix of memoir and anthropology' The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Chums comes an explorer's tale of a naif getting...

For centuries Britain's commercial fishermen have ventured out into the ravages of the surrounding seas to bring fish back both to supply a home market and for export around the...

Benjamin walked down from the Capitoline Hill towards the Circus Flaminius in order to reach the other Jews on the banks of the Tiber river at the Tiberina Island. They,...

This series looks at artists and their work against the background of the social, political and historical world in which they worked, examining issues of race, class, gender and psychology....

Confraternities and their contribution to the fabric of society have become invisible history for us today. Although their activities began in the Renaissance and continued until the end of the...

Country house visiting is one of Britain's favorite leisure activities. For more than five centuries, historic buildings have opened their doors, inviting the tourist to step inside. Elizabethans strolled around...

The extraordinary story of St. Paul's Churchyard-the area of London that was a center of social and intellectual life for more than a millennium St. Paul's Cathedral stands at the...

This collection of original essays focuses upon Roman Italy where, with over 400 cities, urbanization was at the very centre of Italian civilization. Informed by an awareness of the social...

The first paperback edition of Simon Schama's acclaimed and bestselling Power of Art. * 'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of...

Prize-winning author Adam Nicolson tells the story he was born to write - the real story of England. It is the gentry that has made England what it was and,...

Brimming with life and drama, this is a magnificent journey into two thousand years of history, from the acclaimed and beloved historian of Europe 'All roads lead to Rome.' It's...

A unique, startling book that gives a rich and detailed sense of life in an African port some 360 years ago In 1665 Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in...

Describes London's social life, its growth and the experiences of living in the city. With the redevelopment of Docklands and much of the East End, London is now beginning to...

An Open Elite? sets out to test the traditional view that for centuries English landed society has been open to new families made rich by business or public office. From...

This book studies the evolution of the family from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century and how the process radically influenced child-rearing, education, contraception, sexual behaviour and marriage.

A compelling history of the German ethnologists who were inspired by Prussian polymath and explorer Alexander von HumboldtThe Berlin Ethnological Museum is one of the world's largest and most important...

A comprehensive intellectual history of the idea of the West How did "the West" come to be used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did "Westerners"...

A fascinating historical investigation that brilliantly illuminates a macabre episode in 1830s London and brings the capital's underclass roaring back to life. Towards the end of 1831, the authorities unearthed...

In the dramatic years between 1870 and the end of World War II, a number of prominent French Jews-pillars of an embattled community-invested their fortunes in France's cultural artifacts, sacrificed...

Sparta - its legendary warriors and steadfast resilience are famous throughout the world as a model for toughness, justice and masculinity. The Spartans' reputation as fighters is matched only by...

A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted the most international power and influence: as a matchmaking grandmother. As her reign approached its sixth decade, Queen Victoria's...

Fighting to reclaim the French crown for the Bourbons, the duchesse de Berry faces betrayal at the hands of one of her closest advisors in this dramatic history of power...

This critical historical exploration shows a portrait of the British Empire at both the peak of its global reach--and the moment it began to topple. September 29, 1923. Once the...

The Sunday Times bestsellerTHE STORY OF BRITAIN during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Find out how Britain changed in this entrancing, lively portrait of Britain's Elizabethan Age by...

Were things really better in the good old days? The nineteenth century was a time when there were not only massive gulfs being created between the upper, middling and working...

The diaries of the last British Governor, five weeks on the Sunday Times best-seller list In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to...

'Important, comprehensive, and superbly researched. All the more urgent at the present time' BART VAN ES 'A terrific, clear-eyed and balanced history that cuts through today's toxic debates' DAILY TELEGRAPH...

Inspiration for the major film starring Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal and Huma Qureshi and directed by Gurinder Chadha. Seventy years ago, at midnight on 14 August 1947, the...

A history of unmarried motherhood through three generations of an Irish family, and the secrets we conceal How far would you go for the missing? When Clair Wills was in...

Opens a fascinating new window onto medieval and early modern life - a world where it's possible to meet the devil on the road, control the future through stars, and...

Baillie Gifford-shortlisted author Harald J hner (Aftermath- Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich) presents a staggering new assessment of the short life of the Weimar Republic between the...

'The next Bill Bryson.' New York Times Winner of the Best Narrative Travel Book Award from the British Guild of Travel Writers The Danes are the happiest people in the...

In 1914 the world changed forever. When World War One broke out and a generation of men went off to fight, bestselling author Kate Adie shows how women emerged from...

In Out of Love for My Kin, Amy Livingstone examines the personal dimensions of the lives of aristocrats in the Loire region of France during the eleventh and twelfth centuries....

The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in...

'Important, comprehensive, and superbly researched. All the more urgent at the present time' BART VAN ES 'A terrific, clear-eyed and balanced history that cuts through today's toxic debates' DAILY TELEGRAPH...

A Spectator Best Book of the Year; An Aspects of History Best Book of the Year; An Engelsberg Ideas Best Book of the Year Five hundred years ago, Thomas Wolsey...

Skulduggery, power struggles and politics. A fascinating re-examination of Anglo-Saxon England told through the secret lives of the saints. From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Femina 'Ramirez blasts a...

Did you know William IV was wont to speak his mind and could sometimes lack tact, which is said to have inspired the nickname Silly Billy ? Edward III banned...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books 'I walked in a daze of illusions toward my future.' Deeply felt and told with an intrepid spirit, Tales from the...

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Stunning, photographic King Charles III memorabilia gift for royal fans As the nation celebrates the coronation of a new monarch, The Sun looks back on 100...