Secondhand History & Military Bargain Book Box SP4076

Secondhand History & Military Bargain Book Box SP4076

Twenty books spanning ancient history, WWII, military history, classical civilisation and modern political biography. From the Greeks and Romans to the Dambusters, from Napoleon's Waterloo to the streets of eighteenth-century Britain — rich, varied history reading that rewards both browsing and cover-to-cover reading.

1. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare — Damien Lewis — Churchill's secret army of saboteurs, now a major film. A gripping account of the SOE's most audacious missions.
2. The Emperor — Ryszard Kapuściński — A masterpiece of literary journalism: the final days of Haile Selassie's Ethiopian court, reconstructed through the testimonies of those who served him.
3. A Short History of England — Simon Jenkins — One of Britain's foremost journalists surveys English history from the Celts to the present in an accessible, opinionated and highly readable account.
4. Destiny in the Desert — Jonathan Dimbleby — The road to El Alamein and the battle that turned the tide of the Second World War in North Africa. Authoritative and gripping.
5. Wealth of Nations — Adam Smith — The founding text of modern economics, still astonishingly readable and relevant nearly 250 years after publication.
6. Military Anecdotes — Max Hastings — The distinguished military historian gathers the best stories from centuries of warfare — funny, strange, illuminating and sometimes deeply moving.
7. Early Greek Philosophy — Oxford Book — A scholarly anthology of the pre-Socratic philosophers at the very origins of Western thought: Thales, Heraclitus, Anaximander and others.
8. SAS Great Escapes Three — Damien Lewis — True escape stories from SAS operatives in the Second World War. Tense, astonishing and brilliantly told.
9. Short History of the Anglo-Saxons — Giles Morgan — A thorough account of the Anglo-Saxon world, from the end of Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest.
10. Cities That Shaped the Ancient World — John Julius Norwich — Fourteen great cities of antiquity — Babylon, Carthage, Athens, Rome — examined by the eminent historian.
11. The Greeks — H.D.F. Kitto — The classic introduction to ancient Greek civilisation: who the Greeks were, how they lived and why they still matter. Authoritative and beautifully written.
12. Waterloo — Bernard Cornwell — The most famous battle in history reconstructed across four extraordinary days. Vivid, forensic and utterly compelling.
13. Writing on the Wall — Madeleine Pelling — Graffiti and rebellion in eighteenth-century Britain, from political slogans to bawdy verse. A fresh and original piece of social history.
14. The Eitingons — Mary-Kay Wilmers — A deeply researched family history spanning a century of upheaval: the Eitingons were traders, Bolsheviks, NKVD assassins and psychoanalysts.
15. The Accidental Soldier — Owain Mulligan — Dispatches from quite near the front line: a wry, observational memoir from a journalist embedded with troops.
16. Into Unknown Skies — David R. Randall — The extraordinary story of an unlikely team's first flight around the world in 1924. Vivid adventure writing from the author of Dreamland.
17. The Dialogues of Plato — Plato's great philosophical conversations — the Symposium, the Republic, the Phaedo — in an accessible introductory edition.
18. The Early History of Rome — Livy (Penguin Classics) — Livy's legendary account of Rome's founding, from Romulus and Remus through the early Republic. Foundational history as literature.
19. The Spark That Lit the Revolution — Robert Henderson — Lenin in London and the politics that changed the world. A compelling account of the years that made Lenin into Lenin.
20. The Dambusters Raid — John Sweetman — The definitive account of Operation Chastise, the daring 1943 bombing raid on the Ruhr dams. Thoroughly researched and gripping.