Geschiedenis

An extraordinary historical journey through England. From Alice Loxton, author of the acclaimed bestseller Eighteen
A Waterstones Best History Book of 2025

‘Joyous. The perfect walk through history‘ – Sir Tony Robinson, actor, presenter and author

'Whimsical, charming and cosy. Will make you want to take a long walk, look at some churchyards, and drink a lovely cup of tea' – Alice Winn, bestselling author of In Memoriam

In 1290, England mourned the death of a queen, Eleanor of Castile, beloved wife of King Edward I, the warrior king. Her body was carried on a 200-mile journey from Lincoln to London, a solemn procession that would become immortalized in stone. To mark the places where it stopped overnight, a heartbroken Edward commissioned twelve magnificent Eleanor Crosses.

More than seven centuries later, bestselling historian Alice Loxton set herself an epic challenge: following in history’s footsteps by walking the entire 200-mile funeral route on the corresponding dates.

As Alice journeys in search of England’s forgotten Queen, over ancient paths and modern motorways, history comes alive in surprising ways. Lively and entertaining, Eleanor uncovers the extraordinary life and formidable character of this lesser-known royal, revealing her inspiring legacy and the hidden history of Britain.

‘Beautiful, elegiac, honest and compelling . . . a modern-day pilgrimage walking in the footsteps of one of the great forgotten queens’ – Kate Mosse, bestselling author of The Map of Bones

‘Loxton has the novelist’s skill of seeing the world through her characters’ eyes, and the historian’s accuracy of vision’ – Philippa Gregory, bestselling author of Normal Women

‘Eleanor is dazzling, alive with wit, elegance and insight. A book that makes history feel urgent, intimate and unforgettable’ – Rob Rinder, bestselling author of The Trial

‘Extensive and intelligent . . . a guide to the nature of British intellectual curiosity’ SpectatorThe reign of Queen Elizabeth I ushered in an unprecedented age of exploration and discovery. Over 500 years that saw ‘the greatest expansion of ideas and knowledge the world has ever seen’, a small island nation, for centuries a cultural backwater, asserted itself as a world power. Breathtaking in scope, embracing literature, science, art, religion, philosophy and politics, The British Imagination brings to life those centuries between Elizabeth I and II, and asks the provocative question – are we still living in a British 'metaphysical empire'?From the acclaimed author of The German Genius and The French Mind, this is a lively and deeply researched history of the most influential personalities and ideas that made modern Britain. ‘Intriguing insights about the contemporary Anglosphere . . . nuanced and appreciative’ Financial Times‘Peter Watson has form when it comes to probing a nation’s psyche . . . Ambitious and stimulating’ Country Life

Historicus Peter Jones toont aan dat de zeven hoofdzonden nog hoogst actueel zijn: de remedies die we zoeken tegen onze eenentwintigsteeeuwse problemen zijn al beschikbaar, met middeleeuwse kennis.

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2026The Number 1 Sunday Times BestsellerThe Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Observer and Economist Book of the YearLonglisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-FictionA sweeping and immersive history of modern Afghanistan – the first book from one of the world’s leading war correspondents. 'Simply unforgettable' ELIF SHAFAK'Terrific' THE TIMES'Incredible' PETER FRANKOPAN'Powerful and charming' FINANCIAL TIMES'Utterly compelling' PHILIPPE SANDS'Masterly' TELEGRAPH'Ingenious' KAMILA SHAMSIE'A must-read' SUNDAY TIMES'Beautiful' RORY STEWARTIn 1969, the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul opened for the first time: a glistening white box, high on a hill, that symbolised Afghans’ hopes for a more prosperous future. In the decades since, its staff have kept working through multiple coups, a Soviet occupation, the US-led invasion, and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. The Inter-Con has never closed its doors. Here, Lyse Doucet offers a vividly human history of modern Afghanistan through the lives of the people who have kept the Inter-Con running. It is the story of a hotel, and the story of a people. _Shortlisted for the Nero Book AwardsShortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje PrizeShortlisted for the RSL Christopher Bland Prize‘Haunting, hopeful and occasionally harrowing . . . much more than a history. It is a love letter to Afghanistan and its people.’ Sunday Times‘Full of warmth, wit, and a lovely eye for the human stories that make the hotel not just a monument to tragedy, but also love and resilience.’ Financial Times‘Beautifully written and observed . . . One of the finest journalists of her generation.’ Observer‘Wonderfully human . . . A masterly evocation of a supremely complex decade in Afghanistan’s history.’ Daily Telegraph‘A monument to Afghan resilience and to the bravery and persistence of its staff . . . Witty, observant and sometimes heartbreaking.’ Guardian

Op basis van de nooit eerder gepubliceerde archieven van C.P.C. Fabius, praeses van het Leidsche Studenten Corps 1940–1945, onthult Breekpunt het verborgen verhaal van het studentenverzet.

'POETIC AND FIERCE' - Olivette Otele, author of AFRICAN EUROPEANS

'A RICH, SUMPTUOUS AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN TAPESTRY' - Candice Carty-Williams, author of QUEENIE

'A SEARING, NOURISHING JOURNEY THROUGH A HISTORY THE WORLD NEEDS'- Bettany Hughes, author of THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

'PLEASE READ IT!' - Philippa Gregory, bestselling author of NORMAL WOMEN

Discover the reigns of twelve African queens and warriors from across the continent, from pioneering historian and writer, Paula Akpan.

There are women who ruled vast swathes of the African continent. They led, loved and fought for their kingdoms and people and their impact can still be felt today. However, beyond the lands they called home, so few of us have heard their names.

From pre-colonial Nigeria to the rich plains of Rwanda, from Ancient Egypt to apartheid South Africa, historian Akpan writes the stories of these powerful queens and takes you on a spellbinding, enrapturing and immersive journey that is nothing short of revelatory.

Amerikaanse en Engelse steracteurs verbleven maandenlang in Deventer voor de opnames van destijds de duurste film ooit

<b>‘Tweehonderd jaar oorlog’ van historicus Michael Livingston geeft een nieuwe kijk op het langste Europese militaire conflict.</b>

A TIMES BESTSELLER 'If you’re going to buy one book about the Tapestry, make it this one!' Matthew Lyons, writer and historian 'Essential reading for the serious visitor' TLS 'A superb book that emphasises the importance of the Tapestry as both a historical and artistic treasure' Dan Snow 'Full of many fresh insights and unexpected discoveries, providing convincing explanations of many of the most notorious riddles left to us by the makers. A must for anyone interested in the history of Britain' Michael Wood Published on the occasion of its exhibition at the British Museum from September 2026 to July 2027, here is a guide to the Bayeux Tapestry and its legacy, exploring the rich narrative behind its stitches and the turbulent times in which it was created. Political intrigue and treachery, heroism and brutal violence, victory and defeat – all this is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, an epic account of a pivotal moment in English history. However, there is much more to this remarkable historical and artistic treasure, which tells its tale with an intensity and immediacy that speak to our modern world, almost 1,000 years after its creation. Many mysteries and questions still surround this unique embroidery - and not all is as it might appear at first glance. Who made it, and when, why, where and what for? David Musgrove and Michael Lewis set the events depicted in the context of the machinations on either side of the English Channel in the years leading up to the Norman Conquest and tease out what the Tapestry tells us of the deeds of kings as well as aspects of everyday life in medieval Europe.

An epic account of the decades-long battle to control the world's most critical resource – microchip technology

From one of our leading biographers and critics comes an exhilarating, landmark new look at Muriel Spark – shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2025.

VogueVogueChanel in VogueChanel in VoguePublished as two volumes in a slipcase, this high-end, large-format package is the perfect companion to bestselling Chanel books currently in print. The result is the definitive book on the fashion of Chanel as seen through the pages of the world’s most influential fashion magazine.

Ideale kennismaking met Overijssel: van regionale tradities tot nationale invloed.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE AMERICAN LIBRARY IN PARIS BOOK AWARD 2025

'Strikingly accomplished . . . utterly compelling.' SUNDAY TIMES
'A masterpiece of biography.' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'A total joy to read.' SARAH BAKEWELL
'I feel like I've been waiting for this book my whole life.' SHEILA HETI

A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN:
THE GUARDIAN
THE SPECTATOR
THE TELEGRAPH
THE INDEPENDENT
ARTFORUM
WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
NPR'S FRESH AIR

From the celebrated author of Square Haunting comes a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells.

‘Think of the Bible and Homer think of Shakespeare and think of me,’ wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding – and contested – writers of the twentieth century.

In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso’s portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her enigmatic companion Alice B. Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational Autobiography – a veritable celebrity.

Yet Stein hoped to be remembered not for her personality but for her work. From her deathbed, she charged her partner with securing her place in literary history. How would her legend shift once it was Toklas’s turn to tell the stories – especially when uncomfortable aspects of their past emerged from the archive? Using astonishing never-before-seen material, Wade uncovers the origins of Stein's radical writing, and reveals new depths to the storied relationship which made it possible.

This is Gertrude Stein as she was when nobody was watching: captivating, complex and human.

Gangsters, geweld en politieke intrige: ‘Maffia’ van historicus Ryan Gingeras is een ontluisterende geschiedenis van de onderwereld.

The new Sunday Times bestseller from the Baillie Gifford-winning author of East West Street and The Ratline

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNEW STATESMAN, ATLANTIC AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE YEAR'A brilliant tale of greed, paranoia and hubris... a good place to start for anyone seeking to understand the current crisis' Financial Times'If you want to understand the turmoil in Gaza, Syria and beyond, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is a good place to start' The Times'Excellent' Telegraph'Exceptional' New York TimesA spellbinding narrative history of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its devastating consequences by the Sunday Times bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia. Before the revolution, the Shah of Iran seemed invincible. The world watched in awe as he commanded a huge army and oversaw an economy awash with billions of dollars of oil revenues. The regime’s secret police had crushed communist opposition and the Shah appeared to have bought off the conservative Muslim clergy inside the country. On the international stage, Iran had become an invaluable ally to the West during the Cold War. But village streets spoke of a different country – people derided the Shah as an American lackey and blamed him for economic inequality, for spending recklessly on lavish parties and for ignoring the Muslim majority. When a volcanic religious revolution erupted, led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini, the Shah was forced off the throne and into exile. How did it all go so wrong?Brilliantly brought to life by the Sunday Times bestselling author Scott Anderson, this gripping behind-the-scenes narrative reveals how the Iranian Revolution was as world-shattering an event as the French and Russian revolutions, and how its repercussions are still felt around the world today. In the Middle East, in India, in Southeast Asia, and now in Europe and the United States, the hatred of economically-marginalized, religiously-fervent masses for a wealthy secular elite has led to violence and upheaval – and Iran was the template. 'Gripping... Anderson does an excellent job of narrating the extraordinary events of the revolution'Spectator'Told with clarity and directness. It is unlikely that a more authoritative account of this torrid period will ever be written'Observer'A sweeping, gripping book, one that makes past times and dead people (often weird, complex and evil) spring to life with its narrative verve and attention to detail... Riveting... Compelling'Wall Street Journal'Timely... a lively tale of palace intrigue'New Yorker'The most compelling account yet of the revolution in Iran... Outstanding'Eugene Rogan, author of The Fall of the Ottomans'Thrilling... the gold standard account of the Shah’s fall... An epic and heart-breaking tragedy'Azadeh Moaveni, author of Guest House for Young Widows‘A masterfully told account… A must-read’ Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ghost Wars‘Delivers remarkable new insights into one of history’s least understood upheavals’ Kim Ghattas, author of Black Wave'Thrilling and fully authoritative' Azadeh Moaveni, award-winning author of Lipstick Jihad and Guest House for Young Widows'Important and riveting' Sebastian Junger, bestselling author of In My Time of Dying and Tribe

Historicus Odd Arne Westad beschrijft in 'De naderende storm' welke paralellen er zijn met de vooravond van de Eerste Wereldoorlog en hoe we een nieuwe wereldoorlog kunnen voorkomen.

'Wolf Hall for the Ottoman Empire . . . History at its most gripping' Daily Telegraph on The Lion House

A ground-breaking, present-tense reconstruction of the life and world of one of the most consequential figures in world history, Suleyman the Magnificent, from the author of The Lion House

Chosen by The Times as one of the Best Books of 2025

‘A wonderful book – entrancing, addictive, full of effortless erudition’ Rory Stewart

Istanbul, 1538. The greatest of the Ottoman Sultans is at the pinnacle of world power, while his family and future are at the mercy of their own dynastic law: whichever of his five sons succeeds him must eventually kill all the others. So why not get a head start?

For the next fifteen years, as Suleyman the Magnificent and his terrifying pirate captain Barbarossa face down imperial enemies across two hemispheres, the self-fulfilling curse of the Ottomans gathers its own unstoppable momentum.

From the burning pyres of Paris to the rain-lashed mountains of Transylvania, from Buda to Basra, from Crimea to the coast of India, The Golden Throne is an intensely gripping yet entirely historical reconstruction of the life and world of the most feared and powerful man of the sixteenth century, revealing the price of succession and the terrible cost of success.

‘The pace, the language and the story-telling are simply magnificent’ Victoria Hislop

‘Thrilling entertainment created out of meticulously researched history’ Robert Peston

‘Mesmerizing, superb, impossible to put down' Simon Sebag Montefiore

'Wonderful and highly enjoyable' Margaret MacMillan

"Astonishing...Brings to life a thriving – and rather civilized – empire" - The Telegraph

"sparkles with energy, insight and passion... difficult to put down." Nicholas Morton, BBC History Magazine

Control the sea, and you control everything...a gripping tale of dynastic rivalry and innovation, from the author of the classic work Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.

Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world. How did a nomad come to conquer China and master the sea? Based on ten years of research and a lifetime of immersion in Mongol culture and tradition, Emperor of the Seas brings this little-known story vibrantly to life.

Kublai Khan is one of history’s most fascinating characters. He brought Islamic mathematicians to his court, where they invented modern cartography and celestial measurement. He transformed the world’s largest land mass into a unified, diverse and economically progressive empire, introducing paper money. And, after bitter early setbacks, he transformed China into an outward looking sea-faring empire.

By the end of his reign, the Chinese were building and supplying remarkable ships to transport men, grain, and weapons over vast distances, of a size and dexterity that would be inconceivable in Europe for hundreds of years. Khan had come to a brilliant realization: control the sea, and you control everything.

A master storyteller with an unparalleled grasp of Mongol sources, Jack Weatherford shows how Chinese naval hegemony changed the world forever - revolutionizing world commerce and transforming tastes as far away as England and France.

Een briljante biografie over een van de meest dubieuze meesterbreinen uit de geschiedenis.

In ‘Wereldreizigers’ verhaalt archeoloog Alexander van de Bunt de oergeschiedenis van Europa en brengt hiermee de vroege mensheid bijzonder dichtbij.

A Book of the Year in the Daily Telegraph and Economist LONGLISTED for the CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2026'This book reads like a spy novel' FINANICAL TIMES'Entertaining and vivid' OBSERVER–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-The astonishing story of the ten million books that were smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.For almost five decades after the Second World War, Europe was divided by the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. The Iron Curtain, a near-impenetrable barrier of wire and wall, tank traps, minefields, watchtowers and men with dogs, stretched for 4,300 miles from the Arctic to the Black Sea. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the conflict would be fought in the psychological sphere. It was a battle for hearts, minds and intellects.No one understood this more clearly than George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the ‘CIA books programme’, which aimed to win the Cold War with literature.From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s global CIA ‘book club’ would infiltrate millions of banned titles into the Eastern Bloc, written by a vast and eclectic list of authors, including Hannah Arendt and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell and Agatha Christie. Volumes were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travellers. Once inside Soviet bloc, each book would circulate secretly among dozens of like-minded readers, quietly turning them into dissidents. Latterly, underground print shops began to reproduce the books, too. By the late 1980s, illicit literature in Poland was so pervasive that the system of communist censorship broke down, and the Iron Curtain soon followed.Charlie English tells this true story of spycraft, smuggling and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who risked their lives to stand up to the intellectual strait-jacket Stalin created. People like Miroslaw Chojecki, an underground Polish publisher who endured beatings, force-feeding and exile in service of this mission. And Minden, the CIA’s mastermind, who didn’t waver in his belief that truth, culture, and diversity of thought could help free the ‘captive nations’ of Eastern Europe. This is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free.

Marcus Aurelius was een keizer met twee gezichten: pragmatisch en wreed. Anton van Hooff plaatst hem in de context van zijn culturele omgeving.

‘De Reformatie’ van Diarmaid MacCulloch is een meeslepende uiteenzetting over een cruciale episode in de Europese geschiedenis. Onmisbaar voor wie het Europa van nu wil begrijpen.

‘Brilliant’ – The Times

‘Hugely informative and entertaining’ – New Scientist

‘Put this at the head of your reading lists immediately’ – Eric Idle

From Royal Society Science Book Prize winner Henry Gee, a thrilling and thought-provoking account of the rise and fall of humankind.

For the first time in over ten millennia, the rate of human population growth is slowing down. The global population is forecast to begin declining in the second half of this century, and in 10,000 years’ time our species will likely be extinct.

In The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire, Henry Gee shows how we arrived at this crucial moment in history, beginning his story deep in the palaeolithic past and charting our dramatic rise from one species of human among many to the most dominant animal ever to live on Earth.

But rapid climate change, a stagnating global economy, falling birth rates and an unexplainable decline in average human sperm count are combining to make our chances for longevity increasingly slim. There could be a way forward, but the launch window is narrow . . .

Drawing on a dazzling array of the latest scientific research, Gee tells the extraordinary story of humanity with characteristic warmth and wit, and suggests how our exceptional species might avoid its tragic fate.

‘Like Jared Diamond meets Arthur C. Clarke with a dash of Douglas Adams’ – Philip Ball, author of How Life Works

'THE GOLD STANDARD OF NARRATIVE HISTORY' - DAN SNOW

How could a barely literate peasant from Siberia determine the fate of the world? Undoubtedly, the so-called 'mad monk' Rasputin bewitched Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra. Yet their strange and scandalous relationship conceals a riddle , one that casts an intriguing light on the controversial 'great man' theory of history.

Rasputin was a devoted monarchist, not a revolutionary. He had no official position, no forces at his command. Nevertheless, he contributed more to the fall of the Romanov dynasty than any other individual. So demoralised was the Tsarist officer corps by stories of corruption, to say nothing of the rumours of his debauchery with the Empress - and even her daughters - that when the February Revolution broke out, not a sword was raised in defence of the regime.

Just as Rasputin cast a spell over the Romanovs, his legend has bewitched historians. More than a century later, we still fail to comprehend fully the collapse of the greatest autocracy on Earth. Was there any truth to the wild tales that brought down the empire? Or was his true legacy an unsettling lesson on the potency of myth?

A panoramic history of the arrival of the Stuarts, and how the reign of King James I saw England reach new corners of the globe.

A remarkable account of the terrible climax of the Second World War in AsiaA Telegraph Book of the Year 2025 'A short but quietly devastating book, in which Overy adds new perspectives to a subject that has often been approached from a narrowly American angle... Overy's book is a sombre reminder that the border between civilisation and savagery is wafer-thin.' - Philip Snow, Literary ReviewIn the closing months of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Japanese, mostly civilians, died in a final outburst of violence from the air. American planes were beginning to run low on plausible targets when it was decided to use two atomic weapons in a final, terrible flourish to try to end the war. Richard Overy’s remarkable new book rethinks how we should regard this last stage of the war and the role of the bombing. This book explores the way in which the willingness to kill civilians and destroy cities became normalized in the course of a horrific war as moral concerns were blunted and scientists, airmen, and politicians followed a strategy of mass destruction they would never have endorsed before the war began. But it also engages with the new scholarship that shows how complex the effort to end the war was in Japan, where ‘surrender’ was entirely foreign to Japanese culture.

In ‘Gaza’ geeft historicus Jan-Auwke Diepenhorst een helder overzicht van de complexe geschiedenis van dit gebied.

Een Tsjechische spion, een verloren identiteit en een moeder die haar zoon dacht terug te vinden. Dit waargebeurde verhaal onthult misleiding, verraad en een spionagezaak die Europa schokte.

'Superb and timely' KATE MOSSE
'Impressive, important, deeply moving' SARAH WATERS
'Brilliant' ANTHONY HOROWITZ

What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be forced to provide solace to the perpetrators of a genocide that claimed the lives of their family and friends?

In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Almost fifty women and girls from eleven nations were assembled to play marching music to other inmates - forced labourers who left each morning and returned, exhausted and often broken, at the end of the day - and give weekly concerts for Nazi officers. Individual members were sometimes summoned to give solo performances of an officer's favourite piece of music. It was the only entirely female orchestra in any of the Nazi prison camps and, for almost all of the musicians chosen to take part, being in the orchestra was to save their lives. In The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, award-winning historian Anne Sebba tells their astonishing story with sensitivity and care.

The story of the ancient world’s most spectacular library, and the civilization that created it

'A thrilling trip back to Mesopotamia, birthplace of horoscopes and algorithms … via the abundant records they left behind, written on clay tablets… absorbing… hums with life' - Mathew Lyons, Daily Telegraph

'Fascinating and rich in detail… provides an excellent survey of Mesopotamian literary classics.. and offers snippets of daily life' - Literary Review

When a team of Victorian archaeologists dug into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge ever seen: the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, seventh century BCE ruler of a huge swathe of the ancient Middle East known as Mesopotamia. After his death, vengeful rivals burned Ashurbanipal’s library to the ground - yet the texts, carved on clay tablets, were baked and preserved by the heat. Buried for millennia, the tablets were written in cuneiform: the first written language in the world.

More than half of human history is written in cuneiform, but only a few hundred people on earth can read it. In this captivating new book, Assyriologist Selena Wisnom takes us on an immersive tour of this extraordinary library, bringing ancient Mesopotamia and its people to life. Through it, we encounter a world of astonishing richness, complexity and sophistication. Mesopotamia, she shows, was home to advanced mathematics, astronomy and banking, law and literature. This was a culture absorbed and developed by the ancient Greeks, and whose myths were precursors to Bible stories - in short, a culture without which our lives today would be unrecognizable.

The Library of Ancient Wisdom unearths a civilization at once strange and strangely familiar: a land of capricious gods, exorcisms and professional lamenters, whose citizens wrote of jealous rivalries, profound friendships and petty grievances. Through these pages we come face to face with humanity’s first civilization: their startling achievements, their daily life, and their struggle to understand our place in the universe.

'I have never read a book on Mesopotamia that so beautifully brings to life the people themselves ... It melts away the sense of time.'
TOM HOLLAND

'Tender, moving and vivid.'
ROBERT MACFARLANE

'Beautiful'
STEPHEN GREENBLATT

'Fascinating and magnificent, beautifully written and explained: this book is a masterpiece.'
GEORGE MONBIOT

'Ancient Mesopotamia comes alive in Moudhy Al-Rashid's must-read, millennia-spanning history ... spellbinding'
NEW SCIENTIST

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Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.

What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world's first museum, and a working mother struggling with 'the juggle' in 1900 BCE.

Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.

Wervelende biografie van het bewogen leven van Germaine de Staël, de enige vrouw waar Napoleon bang voor was. Ze vocht voor vrijheid, vrouwenrechten en was een pionier van Europees denken.

Lavishly illustrated in full color, How to Read a Wedding Dress displays annotated images of historical garments that outline important features and highlight how styles have developed over time, offering a fascinating overview of changing bridal trends over three centuries.

In this ideal companion to her bestselling guide, How to Read a Dress, Lydia Edwards offers a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of bridal wear around the world, from the Renaissance up to the modern day. This guide explores prevalent trends and developments, including how the Victorian fashion for white silk (a break from the previous 18th-century tradition of the bride simply donning a ‘best’ dress) over the course of the 19th century developed into the now familiar and indeed ubiquitous cultural icon of the white wedding dress and veil. Finally, she explores how today, brides worldwide are reimagining the past and incorporating ‘vintage’ style as an integral part of their big day and considers style choices influenced by gender identity fluidity and same-sex marriage.

Equipping the reader with eclectic examples of bridal wear over the centuries, this is the ultimate guide to the wedding dress for students, researchers of fashion history, and anyone looking for inspiration for their big day.

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2025

'A fascinating alternative history covering 2,500 years and a geographical span from Japan to California' NEW STATESMAN
'A revelation . . . The tale of each carpet as Armstrong tells it is untidy and tragic and comical all at once' TESSA HADLEY

On the saddles of warlords, draping the walls of palaces, under the feet of presidents, dictators and religious leaders: where there is power, there have been carpets.

Threads of Empire is a vivid new history of global power told through the stories of the world's most fascinating rugs. From colonial bureaucrats to Lutheran priests, oil barons to Islamic rules, Scythian chieftains to Churchill and Stalin, textile scholar Dorothy Armstrong explores how these objects have always travelled in the slipstream of power - and how the unwritten histories of those who made them are woven into the fabric beneath our feet.

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, Adam Hochschild's King Leopold’s Ghost is the true and haunting account of Leopold's brutal regime and its lasting effect on a ruined nation. In the late nineteenth century, when the great powers in Europe were tearing Africa apart and seizing ownership of land for themselves, King Leopold of Belgium took hold of the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. In his devastatingly barbarous colonization of this area, Leopold stole its rubber and ivory, pummelled its people and set up a ruthless regime that would reduce the population by half. While he did all this, he carefully constructed an image of himself as a deeply feeling humanitarian. King Leopold's Ghost is the inspiring and deeply moving account of a handful of missionaries and other idealists who travelled to Africa and unwittingly found themselves in the middle of a gruesome holocaust. Instead of turning away, these brave few chose to stand up against Leopold. Adam Hochschild brings life to this largely untold story and, crucially, casts blame on those responsible for this atrocity. 'All the tension and drama that one would expect in a good novel' - Robert Harris, author of FatherlandNow part of the Picador Collection

A nation on the cusp of war. A king ousted from his capital by the people. A society on the brink of collapse. From Jonathan Healey comes a gripping history about the months that sent England into civil war

‘An old-fashioned Westminster thriller . . . You could hardly find a more engrossing or exciting story’ DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES

‘A rollicking history, packed with fire and excitement *****’ DANIEL BROOKS, TELEGRAPH

‘The House of Cards-ish drama remains gripping to the last’ LITERARY REVIEW

After years of tension between a king and his people, in 1641 England reaches a semblance of peace. Armies have disbanded, legislation has passed to ensure Parliament will continue to sit, and the people are tentatively optimistic. Radical politicians congratulate themselves on a stunning political victory. Royal servants are coming to accept an altered future.

Then comes winter. With it, chaos, protests, political deadlock, and eventually a remarkable attempt by King Charles I to destroy his opponents. On 4 January 1642 Charles marches on the small riverside city of Westminster at the head of an army, seeking to arrest five Members of Parliament. In doing so, he sets in motion a series of events that will lead to bloodshed and war, changing a nation forever.

Why did the English Civil War break out? The Blood in Winter tells the story of an English people's great political awakening, and of a nation that splintered into bloodshed at a terrifying speed. Jonathan Healey recreates the claustrophobic atmosphere of the day, with rowdy protestors in the streets and London blanketed in coal smoke. It is a story of remarkable but flawed characters, all faced with unpalatable choices, and a frightening picture of a society in profound distress.

'What a wonderful book! The storytelling, the research, the deep love of her subject -- this must be the climax of Rappaport's long and illustrious career'
Lucy Worsley

To Queen Victoria she was Aunt Julie; to Catherine the Great she was Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna, granddaughter-in-law. This is the story of Princess Juliane-Henriette-Ulrike of Saxe-Coburg, the Rebel Romanov.

Born in 1781 in a small impoverished duchy of Germany, Julie's quiet life took a fairy-tale turn when she married into the Russian Imperial Family - the Romanovs. But this world of baroque splendour, of opulent palaces and grandeur, was no happily ever after. Taken to Russia at just fourteen, her marriage was hastily brokered to save the Saxe-Coburg duchy from financial ruin. Her husband, Grand Duke Konstantin, was cruel and abusive, Julie was uprooted from her home, family, language and culture.

As Russia and Europe were thrown into tumult by the murder of Emperor Paul and the rise of Napoleon, Julie finally made her escape back to Germany, where she lived for two decades as a social pariah, denied a divorce by the Imperial Family. Forced to give up two illegitimate children to protect her family's honour, she eventually built a life for herself in Switzerland, where she entertained poets and philosophers, regaling them with tales from the Russian court.

Helen Rappaport recreates the extraordinary life of this forgotten figure. In doing so she sheds new light on the Romanovs, reveals the sacrifices Julie made to further her family's interests - her brother became king of Belgium, her sister gave birth to Queen Victoria - and investigates the true nature of Julie's relationship with Tsar Alexander I. Rich in history, drama and royal intrigue, Julie's remarkable story is told at last.

Amid the lush abundance of Java's landscape, two boys spend their days exploring the vast lakes and teeming forests. But as time passes the boys come to realize that their shared sense of adventure cannot bridge the gulf between their backgrounds, for one is the son of a Dutch plantation owner, and the other the son of a servant. Inevitably, as they grow up, they grow estranged and it is not until years later that they meet again. It will be an explosive and emblematic meeting that marks them even more deeply than their childhood friendship did.

Een belangrijk boek. Ik hoop vurig dat velen Applebaums voortreffelijke geschiedenis zullen lezen. The New York Times Book Review

'A fascinating book about four women - it tells us so much about their world, and about our own… What jumps off the page is the liveliness of the women, their passion, their courage and their own way of being...' PHILIPPA GREGORY, author of The Other Boleyn Girl and Normal Women

'A celebration of female ambition and endeavour... enormous fun' The Sunday Times

A spectacular, vivid, groundbreaking work of history which takes us into the minds and lives of medieval women.

What was life really like for women in the medieval period? How did they think about sex, death and God? Could they live independent lives? And how can we hear their stories?

Few women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings during medieval times. But remarkably, there are at least four extraordinary women who did. Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a "no-good wife". In their own ways these four very different writers pushed back against the misogyny of the period. Each broke new ground in women’s writing and left us incredible insights into the world of medieval life and politics.

This mesmerizing book is an unforgettably lively and immersive journey into the everyday lives of medieval women through the stories of these four iconic women writers, some of which are retold here for general readers for the first time.

‘Fascinating, absorbing and educative’ A. C. Grayling
‘Highly original and beautifully written’ Dominic Lawson

A compelling insight into how our imagination works, based on the latest scientific research.

People often think of imagination as something used only in creative endeavours. In fact, we use imagination constantly as we reminisce, anticipate, plan, daydream, read, create imagined worlds. The truth is we live in the here and now much less than we tend to think. Imagination isn’t the exception in our daily lives; it’s our default setting. Yet only now are we beginning to understand exactly how it works.

From hallucination to sleepwalking, from REM sleep to delusions, neurologist Adam Zeman brilliantly guides us through the latest scientific studies in the world of the imagination. He draws on research in neuroscience, the study of human origins and child development to show how the human brain is above all else a creative, imaginative organ – and that we have evolved to share what we imagine.

Our brains behave in strikingly similar ways when we observe, remember, imagine or act. Imagine looking at a cube and your eye will trace the contours of the cube as if you were actually seeing it. Yet it turns out that people differ hugely in their imaginative experience. Some people lack sensory imagery altogether – they would be unable to picture their family if asked to – but still lead fulfilling, even highly creative, lives.

From how we visualise to how we understand the minds of others, from the benefits of play to mental disorders, The Shape of Things Unseen dazzles and delights. It is an essential guide to the latest discoveries about the workings of the human mind.

Een relevante en actuele bundel over de turbulente relatie tussen protestanten en het klimaat.

Terwijl de ene broer de romantiek een plaats gaf in een democratisch systeem, liet de andere zich betoveren door de koortsdroom van een dictator.

*WINNER OF A PALESTINE BOOK AWARD*From the award-winning writer and thinker, an essential reckoning with the war in Gaza, its historical conditions, and moral and geopolitical ramifications'Courageous and bracing, learned and ethical, rigorous and mind-expanding' NAOMI KLEIN'Mishra has made a powerful contribution to the moral history of the world' ANDREW O'HAGAN'Urgent' HISHAM MATAR'Brilliant' WILLIAM DALRYMPLEMemory of the Holocaust, the ultimate atrocity of Europe’s civil wars and the paradigmatic genocide, has shaped the Western political and moral imagination in the postwar era. Fears of its recurrence have been routinely invoked to justify Israel’s policies against Palestinians. But for most people around the world – the ‘darker peoples’, in W. E. B. Du Bois’s words – the main historical memory is of the traumatic experiences of slavery and colonialism, and the central event of the twentieth century is decolonisation – freedom from the white man’s world. The World After Gaza takes the war in the Middle East, and the bitterly polarised reaction to it within as well as outside the West, as the starting point for a broad reevaluation of two competing narratives of the last century: the West’s triumphant account of victory over Nazi and communist totalitarianism, and the spread of liberal capitalism, and the global majority's frequently thwarted vision of racial equality. At a moment when the world’s balance of power is shifting and a long-dominant Western minority no longer commands the same authority and credibility, it is critically important to enter the experiences and perspectives of the majority of the world’s population. As old touchstones and landmarks crumble, only a new history with a sharply different emphasis can reorient us to the world and worldviews now emerging into the light. In this concise, powerful and pointed treatise, Mishra reckons with the fundamental questions posed by our present crisis – about whether some lives matter more than others, why identity politics built around memories of suffering is being widely embraced and why racial antagonisms are intensifying amid a far-right surge in the West, threatening a global conflagration. The World After Gaza is an indispensable moral guide to our past, present and future.

The Renaissance is one of the most studied and celebrated eras of history. Spanning the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of modernity, it has come to symbolise the transformative rebirth of knowledge, art, culture and political thought in Europe. And for the last two hundred years, historians have struggled to describe what makes this famous golden age unique.

In Inventing the Renaissance, acclaimed historian Ada Palmer provides a fresh perspective on what makes this epoch so captivating. Her witty and irreverent journey through the fantasies historians have constructed about the period show how its legend derives more from later centuries’ mythmaking than from the often grim reality of the period itself. She examines its defining figures and movements: the enduring legacy of Niccolò Machiavelli, the rediscovery of the classics, the rise of the Medici and fall of the Borgias, the astonishing artistic achievements of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Cellini, the impact of the Inquisition and the expansion of secular Humanism. Palmer also explores the ties between culture and money: books, for example, could cost as much as grand houses, so the period’s innovative thinkers could only thrive with the help of the super-rich. She offers fifteen provocative and entertaining character portraits of Renaissance men and women, some famous, some obscure, whose intersecting lives show how the real Renaissance was more unexpected, more international and, above all, more desperate than its golden reputation suggests.

Drawing on her popular blogs and writing with her characteristic energy and wit, Palmer presents the Renaissance as we have never seen it before. Colloquial, funny and brilliant, you would never expect a work of deep scholarship to make you alternately laugh and cry.