History & Military Bargain Book Box

History & Military Bargain Book Box

A unit of SAS men who went into the Western Desert dressed as Nazi stormtroopers. Ethel Rosenberg, executed on evidence her own brother later admitted he invented. A century-long fight over Native land that reached the Supreme Court.

This box runs from the Napoleonic campaigns to Covid-19, and the archives are real in every case. Alexander Mikaberidze translating Russian eyewitness accounts of 1807. Aaron Pegram on Australian prisoners of war on the Western Front, from the Australian War Memorial. Andy McNab on an SAS hostage rescue in Afghanistan. Anne Sebba, Damien Lewis, Anna Reid on Ukraine.

Then the histories that come at it sideways: London’s water supply as a story of private greed, opium across three centuries, the Black nurses who helped cure tuberculosis, Nasser remaking the Arab world, and George Weidenfeld inventing modern publishing.

Properly researched, properly written, and none of it dull.

1. Russian Eyewitnesses of the Campaign of 1807 — Alexander Mikaberidze | ISBN: 9781848327627 | RRP: $80.00
   First-hand Russian accounts of the Eylau and Friedland campaign, translated and edited by one of the leading historians of the Napoleonic wars. A genuine primary-source contribution — invaluable for serious students of the period.
2. I Will Come Back for You — Daniel Huhn | ISBN: 9781804185339 | RRP: $45.00
   A powerful true story of wartime love and resilience, reconstructed from letters and archives. Daniel Huhn writes with care about two lives separated by the machinery of the Second World War.
3. The Rescue: The True Story of the SAS Mission to Save Hostages from the Taliban — Andy McNab | ISBN: 9781802796858 | RRP: $55.00
   McNab brings his insider’s knowledge of special forces work to the true account of a high-risk hostage rescue in Afghanistan. Tense, technically authoritative, and paced like the best thriller fiction.
4. SAS Ghost Patrol: The Ultra-Secret Unit That Posed As Nazi Stormtroopers — Damien Lewis | ISBN: 9781786483140 | RRP: $19.99
   The extraordinary true story of the SIG — German-speaking Jewish volunteers who operated behind enemy lines in Nazi uniform, knowing exactly what capture would mean. Damien Lewis at his gripping best.
5. Ethel Rosenberg: The Short Life and Great Betrayal of an American Wife and Mother — Anne Sebba | ISBN: 9781780226620 | RRP: $24.99
   A careful, humane reassessment of a woman executed in 1953 on testimony her own brother later admitted was fabricated. Anne Sebba restores Ethel Rosenberg as a person rather than a symbol — and the result is devastating.
6. Lotharingia: A Personal History of France, Germany and the Countries In Between — Simon Winder | ISBN: 9781509803286 | RRP: $32.99
   Simon Winder wanders the long-contested middle strip of Europe — Lorraine, the Low Countries, the Rhineland — with enormous erudition and a complete refusal to be solemn. History as the most entertaining kind of travel writing.
7. The Maverick: George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing — Thomas Harding | ISBN: 9781474621090 | RRP: $59.99
   The life of the refugee who arrived in London with nothing and built one of the great publishing houses — Nabokov, de Beauvoir, and a great deal of social climbing. A superb account of an industry and an era.
8. The Mercenary River: Private Greed, Public Good: A History of London’s Water — Nick Higham | ISBN: 9781472283832 | RRP: $55.00
   Four hundred years of London’s water supply, told as a story of engineering, epidemic, corruption, and competing interests. Far more gripping than the subject suggests, and extremely relevant now.
9. Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium — Lucy Inglis | ISBN: 9781447285762 | RRP: $44.99
   A sweeping global history of opium — from ancient medicine to the Opium Wars to the modern overdose crisis. Lucy Inglis writes with real narrative range and a firm grip on an enormous subject.
10. Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine — Anna Reid | ISBN: 9781399608824 | RRP: $26.99
    The classic account of Ukrainian history, written by a journalist who lived there in the 1990s and has updated it since. Essential background, delivered through travel, encounter, and clear-eyed history.
11. We Are Your Soldiers: How Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World — Alex Rowell | ISBN: 9781398514225 | RRP: $34.99
    A reassessment of Nasser’s enormous influence across the Arab world — the coups he inspired, the movements he backed, and the long shadow of pan-Arabism. Rigorous and genuinely fresh.
12. Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front 1916-18 — Aaron Pegram | ISBN: 9781108486194 | RRP: $66.95
    A meticulous study from the Australian War Memorial of the nearly 4,000 Australians captured on the Western Front — their treatment, their survival, and the official silence that followed them home.
13. A History of the World in Six Plagues — Edna Bonhomme | ISBN: 9780349704371 | RRP: $34.99
    How contagion, class, and captivity shape each other, traced from cholera to Covid-19. Edna Bonhomme argues that epidemics are never only medical events — and makes the case with real force.
14. The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis — Maria Smilios | ISBN: 9780349009254 | RRP: $55.00
    As seen on BBC Two’s Between the Covers. The Black nurses who staffed a New York TB hospital when nobody else would, and whose work made the discovery of a cure possible. A remarkable recovery of a forgotten story.
15. By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land — Rebecca Nagle | ISBN: 9780008725013 | RRP: $35.99
    A Cherokee journalist weaves a nineteenth-century history of removal together with the modern murder case that led the Supreme Court to rule much of Oklahoma remains Native land. Urgent, rigorous, and superbly told.