History

After two years of nonstop negotiations with the Russian authorities, Jean-Christophe Brisard and Lana Parshina were granted access (read more)

After two years of nonstop negotiations with the Russian authorities, Jean-Christophe Brisard and Lana Parshina were granted access to secret files detailing the Soviets' incredible hunt to recover Hitler's body: the layout of the bunker, plans for escaping, eyewitness accounts of the Fuhrer's final days, and human remains-a bit of skull with traces of the lethal bullet and a fragment of jaw bone. For the first time, the skull, teeth and other elements were analysed by a medical examiner with cutting edge forensics equipment. The authors use these never before seen documents and research to reconstruct the events in fascinating new detail. (hide)

In 1940, at the French port of Dunkirk, more than 300,000 trapped Allied troops were dramatically rescued from destruction at the (read more)

In 1940, at the French port of Dunkirk, more than 300,000 trapped Allied troops were dramatically rescued from destruction at the hands of Nazi Germany by an extraordinary seaborne evacuation. The true history of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians involved in the nine-day skirmish has passed into legend.

Now, the story Winston Churchill described as a 'miracle' is narrated by bestselling author Joshua Levine in its full, sweeping context, including new interviews with veterans and survivors. Told from the viewpoints of land, sea and air, Joshua Levine's Dunkirk is a dramatic account of a defeat that paved the way to ultimate victory and preserved liberty for generations to come.
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Michael Pye's The Edge of the World is an epic adventure: from the Vikings to the Enlightenment, from barbaric outpost to global (read more)

Michael Pye's The Edge of the World is an epic adventure: from the Vikings to the Enlightenment, from barbaric outpost to global centre, it tells the amazing story of northern Europe's transformation by sea. "An utterly beguiling journey into the dark ages of the north sea. A complete revelation...Pye writes like a dream.

Magnificent." (Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps). This is a story of saints and spies, of fishermen and pirates, traders and marauders - and of how their wild and daring journeys across the North Sea built the world we know. When the Roman Empire retreated, northern Europe was a barbarian outpost at the very edge of everything.

A thousand years later, it was the heart of global empires and the home of science, art, enlightenment and money. We owe this transformation to the tides and storms of the North Sea. The water was dangerous, but it was far easier than struggling over land; so it was the sea that brought people together.
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Who made modern Britain the country it is today? What does it mean to be the new Elizabethans? Back in 1953 when the Queen ascended (read more)

Who made modern Britain the country it is today? What does it mean to be the new Elizabethans? Back in 1953 when the Queen ascended her throne, Britain was a very different nation. People wore more hats and uniforms, went regularly to church and were deeply class conscious. The Windrush generation had arrived just five years earlier, and many African-Caribbean and Indian people new to the UK were being denied housing, work, and entry to pubs, clubs and places of worship. (hide)

The status of boundaries and borders, questions of global poverty and inequality, criteria for the legitimate uses of force, the (read more)

The status of boundaries and borders, questions of global poverty and inequality, criteria for the legitimate uses of force, the value of international law, human rights, nationality, sovereignty, migration, territory, and citizenship: debates over these critical issues are central to contemporary understandings of world politics. Bringing together an interdisciplinary range of contributors, including historians, political theorists, lawyers, and international relations scholars, this is the first volume of its kind to explore the racial and imperial dimensions of normative debates over global justice.

Published:28 Feb 2019 (hide)

Readers can discover all about the peculiar history of England from ancient times to Agincourt with volume I of this three-part series. (read more)

Readers can discover all about the peculiar history of England from ancient times to Agincourt with volume I of this three-part series. The unfolding story will tell of early hunter-gatherers and the first farmers; of Roman occupation eventually giving way to the often brutal land-hungry Anglo-Saxons; of Viking incursions and the 1066 Conquest by their cousins, the Normans; and of later incomers from all parts of the globe. (hide)

Englishness is an idea, a consciousness and a proto-nationalism. There is no English state within the United Kingdom, no English (read more)

Englishness is an idea, a consciousness and a proto-nationalism. There is no English state within the United Kingdom, no English passport, Parliament or currency, nor any immediate prospect of any. That does not mean that England lacks an identity, although English nationalism, or at least a distinctive nationalism, has been partly forced upon the English by the development in the British Isles of strident nationalisms that have contested Britishness, and with much success.
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HMS Erebus was one of the great exploring ships, a veteran of groundbreaking expeditions to the ends of the Earth. In 1848, it disappeared (read more)

HMS Erebus was one of the great exploring ships, a veteran of groundbreaking expeditions to the ends of the Earth. In 1848, it disappeared in the Arctic, its fate a mystery. In 2014, it was found.

This is its story. Michael Palin - Monty Python star and television globetrotter - brings the remarkable Erebus back to life, following it from its launch in 1826 to the epic voyages of discovery that led to glory in the Antarctic and to ultimate catastrophe in the Arctic.
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Pub Date:28/01/2016 - Europe's Utopias of Peace explores attempts to create a lasting European peace in the aftermath of the Napoleonic (read more)

Pub Date:28/01/2016 - Europe's Utopias of Peace explores attempts to create a lasting European peace in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and the two world wars. The book charts the 250 year cycle of violent European conflicts followed by new utopian formulations for peace. The utopian illusion was that future was predictable and rules could prescribe behaviour in conflicts to come.

Bo Strath examines the reiterative bicentenary cycle since 1815, where each new postwar period built on a design for a project for European unification. He sets out the key historical events and the continuous struggle with nationalism, linking them to legal, political and economic thought. Biographical sketches of the most prominent thinkers and actors provide the human element to this narrative. (hide)

Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of post-colonial India. During its deadliest decade, as many as 250,000 (read more)

Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of post-colonial India. During its deadliest decade, as many as 250,000 people were killed. This book makes an urgent intervention in the history of the conflict, which to date has been characterized by a fixation on sensational violence-or ignored altogether.

Mallika Kaur unearths the stories of three people who found themselves at the center of Punjab's human rights movement: Baljit Kaur, who armed herself with a video camera to record essential evidence of the conflict; Justice Ajit Singh Bains, who became a beloved "people's judge"; and Inderjit Singh Jaijee, who returned to Punjab to document abuses even as other elites were fleeing. (hide)