The Building of England: The Architectural History of a Nation
From awe-inspiring Norman castles, to the homes we live in, Simon Thurley explores how the architecture of this small island influenced the world.
History: specific events & topics
The Spy in the Archive: How one man tried to kill the KGB
LONGLISTED for the CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2026
The compulsively readable new book from The Rest is Classified host Gordon Corera. About how one man – Vasili Mitrokhin – turned first disaffected dissident and then traitor to the KGB, stealing the most secret Soviet archives and smuggling them to the West.
I, Vera: The Many Lives of Vera Gedroits, a Radical Princess
‘Vera Gedroits was a true medical heroine: outrageous, intrepid and devoted to saving lives. Miranda Seymour’s genius as a story teller brings this astonishing woman blazing back to life. I shall never forget her’ LADY ANTONIA FRASER
‘Miranda Seymour has written a wonderful and unputdownable book about an astonishing woman’ MEL GIEDROYC
Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York
THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLER
A Book of the Year in The Times and Financial Times
‘This isn’t a book; it’s a case for revolution’ CAMILLA LONG, SUNDAY TIMES
‘A damning cannonball of truth through the York ramparts’ MAIL ON SUNDAY
‘Surely has a claim to the title of book of the year, for its seismic impact’ JANINE GIBSON, FINANCIAL TIMES
Parallel Lives: A Love Story from a Lost Continent
This is the simplest tale in the world. Two people meet and fall in love. But the route which brought Larissa Salmina and Francis Haskell to a backstreet Venetian restaurant in 1962 was anything but straightforward.
Sword: D-Day – Trial by Battle
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A Times and Waterstones Book of the Year
‘The messy, dirty, bloody reality of Operation Overlord comes alive in Sword, Hastings’s portrait of the individual soldiers who risked their lives on the beaches of Normandy. He brings these men to life with sensitivity and beautiful prose’ THE TIMES
Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures
A groundbreaking new perspective on catastrophes throughout human history, with vital lessons for our future
Kafkaesque: Ten Great Writers Translate the Twentieth Century
‘A book to underline endlessly, to carry around until battered, and then to tell all your friends to buy because you’re too reluctant to give up your own copy. A wonder’ Polly Barton
‘Brings a welcome freshness of vision and a dashing style … provocative and illuminating’ The Spectator
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Lifeboat at the End of the World: A Volunteer’s Story
‘Unflinchingly candid and extraordinarily powerful’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘Dominic Gregory hasn’t just delivered a survey of courage and determination – Lifeboat at the End of the World is a hymn to human decency, and that makes it a very timely book indeed’ TIM WINTON
Do you really think all lives are worth saving?
After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order
‘The twenty-first century’s counterpart to Hobbes’s Leviathan.’ EMMANUELE COCCIA
What has happened to the nation-state? From a prizewinning writer, After Nations offers a sweeping history of this most unquestioned of modern structures and a bold speculation about its future.
Searching for My Slave Roots
Malik Al Nasir was born in Liverpool to mixed parentage, with a white mother and a black father. Bemused by childhood memories of racist shouts for him to ‘go back to where you came from’ – he came from Liverpool after all – he began to look into his father’s ancestry.
Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance
‘A historically insightful read’Financial Times
‘A wry, rollicking, and provocative history’ Michael Taylor, author of The Interest
‘A thought-provoking analysis of Africa’s relationship with economic imperialism’ Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata, authors of It’s A Continent
The Indefatigable Asa Briggs
Asa Briggs’s energy fuelled him to write more than fifty books, including five formidable volumes on the history of broadcasting. At the zenith of his fame he was one of the best-known historians of his generation, his name on a cover a guarantee of substantial sales.
Moscow Underground: Unabridged edition
‘A gripping thriller and Belkin is a character many readers will want to encounter again’ THE SUNDAY TIMES
‘Remarkable … If only all first novels were as enthralling as this’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘Merridale’s talents as a Russia expert and writer combine to beam light on the depths of Moscow’s underworld’ THE SUN
No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs
’Anyone interested in the future of autocracy should buy it’ Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Demoracy
**Shortlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Literature**
A devastating account of China’s genocide of the Uyghurs, by a leading Uyghur activist and Time #100 nominee
Counting: Humans, History and the Infinite Lives of Numbers
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COUNT? WHY ARE HUMANS THE ONLY SPECIES ON EARTH THAT CAN DO IT? WHERE DID COUNTING COME FROM? HOW HAS IT SHAPED SOCIETIES ALONG THE WAY? AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?