Europe

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling....

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell....

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day....

The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages....

The #1 New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her magnum opus—a landmark work of feminist nonfiction that radically redefines our understanding of the extraordinary roles ordinary women played throughout British history....

Here are the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths, stylishly retold by Stephen Fry. The legendary writer, actor, and comedian breathes life into ancient tales, from Pandora's box to Prometheus's fire, and transforms the adventures of Zeus and the Olympians....

September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever....

From the award-winning historian, war reporter, and author Damien Lewis (Zero Six Bravo, Judy) comes the incredible true story of the top-secret "butcher-and-bolt" black ops units Prime Minister Winston Churchill tasked with stopping the unstoppable German war machine....

German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative....

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away....

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own....

The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times best-selling author of The Storm of War....

Philippa Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research initiative: ‘The Missing Princes Project' and sheds light upon one of history's greatest miscarriages of justice, revealing a phenomenal untold story....

Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible....

In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric....

Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power....

In the newest installment of the best-selling series Mythos, legendary author and actor Stephen Fry moves from the exploits of the Olympian gods to the deeds of mortal heroes....

Poisoner, despot, necromancer - the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds....

A never-before-told story of Virginia Hall, the American spy who changed the course of World War II, from the author of Clementine....

The sensational biography of Princess Diana, now revised to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her death....

Stephen E. Ambrose draws from hundreds of interviews with US Army veterans and the brave Allied soldiers who fought alongside them to create this exceptional account of the day that shaped the twentieth century....

In this brilliant conclusion to his best-selling Mythos trilogy, legendary author and actor Stephen Fry retells the tale of the Trojan War....

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is historian Christopher Clark's riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I. Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I....

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world....

In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career....

"Edge of the Earth" is a book that explores the history of geographical discovery, starting from the earliest known maps and voyages of exploration to the most recent advancements in space exploration. The book covers the contributions of explorers and cartographers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and James Cook, as well as the technological advancements that allowed for better navigation and mapping. The book is divided into chapters that cover different regions of the world and the discoveries made by explorers in each region. The book also discusses the impact of...

Alexander Larman completes his acclaimed Windsor family trilogy, using rare and previously unseen documents to illuminate their unique family dynamic. Through his chronicling of events like the Royal Wedding, George VI’s death and the discovery of the Duke of Windsor’s treacherous activities in WWII, Larman paints a vivid portrait of the end of one sovereign’s reign and the beginning of another’s that heralded a new Elizabethan Age which would bring power and glory back to a monarchy desperately in need of it.

Josephine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Terezia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Recamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt.

From 1792 to 1795, George Vancouver sailed the Pacific as the captain of his own expedition and as an agent of imperial ambition. To map a place is to control it, and Britain had its eyes on America's Pacific coast. And map it Vancouver did. His voyage was one of history's greatest feats of maritime daring, discovery, and diplomacy, and his marine survey of Hawaii and the Pacific coast was at its time the most comprehensive ever undertaken.

The mourners fall silent with anticipation as Pericles walks briskly from the sepulchre to the erected stage. After a slight pause, he takes a deep breath and begins an eloquent funeral oration. He speaks on the glory of Athens and the honor of her dead. It is the Athenian winter of 431 B.C. and the city-state is engaged in a bitter war with its rival Sparta. Pericles’ resounding voice echoes off the surrounding hills and into the ears of Thucydides, the historian who records them in his work, The History of the Peloponnesian War. About eight hundred years later, a Christian bishop in ...

The KGB is one of the most famous abbreviations of the 20th century, and it has become synonymous with the shadowy and often violent actions of the Soviet Union’s secret police and internal security agencies. In fact, it is often used to refer to the Soviet state security agencies throughout its history, from the inception of the inception of the Cheka (Extraordinary Commission) in 1917 to the official elimination of the KGB in 1992.

Why do we run? To what end, all the effort and pain? Wherefore this love of muscle, speed, and sweat? The Greeks were the first to ask these questions, the first to suspend war, work, politics, to enjoy public celebrations of athletic prowess. They invented sport and they were also the first to understand how physical activity connected to our mental well-being.

Despite their alliance against the Persian invasion in 480 B.C., the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta created separate spheres of influence. Following periods of intermittent conflict, in 431 B.C. they began a destructive war against each other that lasted twenty-seven years. To help explain this struggle, Thucydides, an Athenian military general and historian, looked for cause and effect relationships. He concluded that human emotions and interests, a nation’s pursuit of power, and influential leaders proved instrumental. These elements, which are all part of the theory of realism,...

Embark on an extraordinary journey with young heroes who fled their Hitler-occupied homeland to become WWII pilots. Facing scarcity and peril, they ventured across Europe, ultimately reaching England, where they valiantly served in the military. Some paid the ultimate price, while the survivors returned home as war heroes. However, their freedom was short-lived. Communist Czechoslovakia subjected them to persecution, humiliation, and imprisonment. “The aircraft stopped reacting to the pilot’s flying controls and headed toward unavoidable death. The drops of cold sweat appeared on ...

This collection of Fife County folk-lore, superstion, legend, and more from the extensive Folk Lore Society public domain volumes is full of the lore of places, ghosts, witch craft, charms, potions, folk-tales, etc.

Discover the prodigious global influence of il bel paese in this star-studded retelling of Italy's past-from a foremost author of historic Italy. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced book.

I have formed the opinion that the folk of the East Riding are more reticent of tongue and pen than are those of other parts of Yorkshire, for I cannot believe that they are freer from superstition than their neighbours—are less sufficingly suckled in a creed outworn," which seems destined to assert itself to the end of Time. Ethnic influences may account for their reserve. Looking round on the company among which he found himself at Routh, Walter White had little difficulty in discovering the three principal varieties of Yorkshire men : " There was the tall, broad-shouldered rustic, ...

In this fascinating and exhaustively researched book, the first of its kind in the English language, Tom Williams brings to life French football’s chequered coming of age over the last 40 years. Featuring exclusive interviews with great figures of the French game such as Alain Giresse, Jean-Pierre Papin, Emmanuel Petit and Blaise Matuidi, and with a cast of characters that also includes Michel Platini, Thierry Henry, Karim Benzema, Chris Waddle and Lionel Messi, it's a book no football fan will want to miss.

In England, Tom Baldwin, bestselling biographer of Keir Starmer, and Marc Stears, influential think tank head, unravel seven myths that have distorted ideas of this country and provided ammunition for charlatans or culture warriors from both left and right. Instead of vainly promising to solve everything all at once, Baldwin and Stears provide clues for how a humbler, less grandiose, set of ideas rooted in real lives can help fix some of the things that have gone so badly wrong in recent years.

The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10,000-strong airborne divisions: the 1st, 6th and 44th Indian, each composed of parachutists and glider-borne troops. Wearing their distinctive maroon berets, steel helmets and Dennison smocks, they served with distinction in every major theatre of the conflict and played a starring role in some most iconic airborne operations in history.