Geschiedenis

A sweeping history of the Age of Reason, which shows how, although it was a time of progress in many areas, it was also an era of brutality and intolerance, by the author of The Borgias and The Florentines.

During the 1600s, between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment, Europe lived through an era known as the Age of Reason. This was a revolutionary period which saw great advances in areas such as art, science, philosophy, political theory and economics.

However, all this was accomplished against a background of extreme political turbulence and irrational behaviour on a continental scale in the form of internal conflicts and international wars. Indeed, the Age of Reason itself was born at the same time as the Thirty Years' War, which would devastate central Europe to an extent that would not be seen again until the twentieth century.

By exploring all the key events and bringing to life some of the most influential characters of the era, including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Newton, Descartes, Spinoza, Louis XIV and Charles I, Paul Strathern tells the story of this paradoxical age, while also counting the human cost of imposing the progress and modernity upon which the Western world was built.

The internationally bestselling guide to the extraordinary human story, for the curious of all ages The world has existed for over 4 billion years, but humanity arrived much more recently. Here E. H. Gombrich brings to life the full story of human experience on Earth. He paints a colourful picture of remarkable people and events, from Confucius to Catherine the Great, from the invention of art to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. This is a book dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of mankind’s experience across the centuries. It is both a guide to humanity’s achievements and an acute witness to its frailties. The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this is a timeless account of our shared history. Little Histories – Inspiring Guides for Curious Minds

An engaging exploration of why menus matter and the stories they tell.

A comprehensive biography of Julius Caesar, showcasing his roles as a general, orator, writer, and politician. Freeman presents a vivid portrait of a complex man who shaped Rome.

A.J.P. Taylor's "The Origins of the Second World War" explores international politics and foreign policy leading to WWII, challenging the view that Hitler had a detailed war plan.

Miles Davis, a musical genius, recounts his extraordinary life, discussing his drug problem, racism, women, and legendary musicians. Includes a discography and photos.

David McCullough's "1776" recounts the thrilling story of America's birth year, focusing on George Washington’s leadership and the diverse soldiers who fought for independence.

David Herbert Donald's "Lincoln" is a masterful portrait of Abraham Lincoln's journey from humble beginnings to his presidency, highlighting his growth into a great moral leader.

Walter Isaacson's bestselling biography of Steve Jobs, based on over 40 interviews with Jobs and over 100 others, details the life of the innovative Apple cofounder.

Professor E.T. Bell offers a witty and accessible look at the history of mathematics through biographies of its great minds, from Greek geometry to the fourth dimension.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir of resilience and redemption, exploring a deeply dysfunctional yet vibrant family. It was made into a 2017 film starring Brie Larson.

In January 1969, Lt. Col. David H. Hackworth began his second Vietnam tour, transforming the demoralized 4/39th battalion into the legendary Hardcore Recondos.

This definitive, panoramic history by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author unveils the politics and science behind the hydrogen bomb and the Cold War, based on secret files.

An accessible account of the history of economics through the ideas of great thinkers Economics explains the world. For example, the fact that you’re holding this book in your hands puts you in a special position. To many people around the globe, spending money on a book and being able to read it would seem as likely as a trip to the moon. But why can some countries afford the buildings, books and teachers they need to educate their children – and others can’t? The word ‘economics’ might sound a bit dry, but it’s really about getting to the bottom of questions like these. This is a lively, bestselling account of the history of economics, told through events from ancient to modern times and through the ideas of great thinkers in the field. From Adam Smith to Karl Marx and the invention of money to the Great Depression, this Little History illuminates the economic forces that shape our world. Little Histories – Inspiring Guides for Curious Minds

A major new history of Saudi Arabia, from its eighteenth-century origins to the present day Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a major player on the international stage and the site of Islam’s two holiest cities. It is also one of the world’s only absolute monarchies. How did Saudi Arabia get to where it is today? In this comprehensive account, David Commins narrates the full history of Saudi Arabia from oasis emirate to present-day attempts to leap to a post-petroleum economy. Moving through the ages, Commins traces how the Saud dynasty’s reliance on sectarianism, foreign expertise, and petroleum to stabilize power has unintentionally spawned secular and religious movements seeking accountability and justice. He incorporates the experiences of activists, women, religious minorities, Bedouin, and expatriate workers as the country transformed from subsistence agrarian life to urban consumer society. This is a perceptive portrait of Saudi Arabia’s complex and evolving story—and a country that is all too easily misunderstood.

Een prachtig geïllustreerde uitgave over de rijke internationale geschiedenis van Nederlandse en Belgische steden, van de hand van meer dan vijftig tophistorici.

The most vivid, moving and comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution available today.

Unrivalled in scope and brimming with human drama, A People's Tragedy is widely hailed as the definitive account of the Russian Revolution.

Orlando Figes weaves scholarship and storytelling to capture both the epic scale and personal cost of 1917. Gripping and compassionate, he draws on the diaries and letters of workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world degenerates into violence and dictatorship, conveying above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it.

Illustrated with over 100 photographs and now including a new introduction that reflects on the revolution's centennial legacy, A People's Tragedy is - a masterful and definitive record of one of the most important events in modern history

‘A modern masterpiece.’ Andrew Marr

‘The most moving account… since Doctor Zhivago.’ Independent

In the early morning of 9 April 1940, a fleet of German battleships entered the Oslofjord.
Norwegian artillery delayed them long enough for King Haakon VII and his cabinet to escape to England, but there was no stopping the Nazi Blitzkrieg. Norway stood on the cusp of a traumatic five-year occupation whose aftershocks would continue to trouble its national consciousness long after the defeated Germans departed in May 1945.

Robert Ferguson tells the extraordinary – and relatively little-known – story of the occupation and its judicial aftermath. He focuses in particular on German attempts to use a Norwegian Nazi administration under Vidkun Quisling to impose a National Socialist revolution on the country, and on the many brave and ingenious ways in which the Norwegians resisted.

Ferguson describes the occupation in all its aspects – from Nazi terror to non-violent resistance, from censorship to sabotage – via a series of heterogeneous but interlinked narratives. Key players in the occupation and its wider story – including the pitiless Reichskommissar Josef Terboven, the Norwegian crime writer-turned-SS-strongman Jonas Lie, the principled Lutheran bishop Eivind Berggrav and the enigmatic double agent Gunnar Waaler – are drawn in memorably vivid colours.

A riveting account of the Second World War’s forgotten occupation, Norway’s War evokes in moving fashion the moral and physical courage of a people who, faced with the brutal tyranny of a totalitarian invader, refused to be cowed.

Quirky, daring and unconventionally chic, Miu Miu is the fashion house for those that dare to be different.

The cult little sister brand of Prada, the maison was launched as an 'anti-fashion' brand in 1993 and its pieces have been worn by celebrities including Sydney Sweeney and Chloë Sevigny. From recent viral micro-miniskirts and covetable ballet flats to archive whimsical prints, artist collaborations and off-kilter colors, Miu Miu is the brand designed with a rare female point of view for daring women.

With over 100 images of their most iconic pieces, accompanied by expert text, Little Book of Miu Miu explores the history of the iconic fashion house whose current and archival designs are coveted by the It girls of today.

A history of twenty-nine European borderlines from a political analyst and Tim Marshall's 'borders expert'.

'A revolutionary book' Sunday Times
'A pulsating account' Peter Frankopan

*A SPECTATOR AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR*

How did the People’s Republic of China transform from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today? Drawing on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, award-winning historian Frank Dikötter recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers alike celebrate as an economic miracle. In a fascinating tale spanning five decades, he examines the country’s economic transformation alongside the regime’s determined suppression of dissent, its increasing hostility towards the West and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship led by Xi Jinping – one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world.

‘Essential reading for anyone who wants to know what has shaped today’s China and what the Chinese Communist Party’s choices mean for the rest of the world’ New Statesman

‘A blow-by-blow account of the uneven, reactive and sometimes chaotic course of economic policies . . . An important corrective’ Financial Times

‘Dikötter has been mining Chinese primary sources for decades . . . A clear-eyed and detailed account’ Observer

'Not all lost cities are real, but this one was.'
The extraordinary story of Alexander the Great's lost city, and a quest to unravel one of the most captivating mysteries in ancient history.

‘Superb … impeccably researched, but with the pace and deftly woven plot complexity of a John le Carré novel ... utterly brilliant’ William Dalrymple, Guardian
‘[An] exceptional biography ... This is a jewel of a book’ Sunday Times
‘A brilliant and evocative biography, written with consummate scholarship, great style and wit’ Daily Telegraph

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For centuries the city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains was a meeting point of East and West. Then it vanished. In 1833 it was discovered in Afghanistan by the unlikeliest person imaginable: Charles Masson, an ordinary working-class boy from London turned deserter, pilgrim, doctor, archaeologist and highly respected scholar.

On the way into one of history’s most extraordinary stories, Masson would take tea with kings, travel with holy men and become the master of a hundred disguises; he would see things no westerner had glimpsed before and few have glimpsed since. He would spy for the East India Company and be suspected of spying for Russia at the same time, for this was the era of the Great Game, when imperial powers confronted each other in these staggeringly beautiful lands. Masson discovered tens of thousands of pieces of Afghan history, including the 2,000-year-old Bimaran golden casket, which has upon it the earliest known face of the Buddha. He would be offered his own kingdom; he would change the world, and the world would destroy him.

This is a wild journey through nineteenth-century India and Afghanistan, with impeccably researched storytelling that shows us a world of espionage and dreamers, ne’er-do-wells and opportunists, extreme violence both personal and military, and boundless hope. At the edge of empire, amid the deserts and the mountains, it is the story of an obsession passed down the centuries.

**Chosen as a Book of the Year by the Spectator, Listener and Sydney Morning Herald**

Miss Dior is a wartime story of freedom and fascism, beauty and betrayal and 'a gripping story' (Antonia Fraser).

*The New Look, a new Apple TV drama series starring Maisie Williams as Catherine Dior – in a role inspired by Justine Picardie’s Miss Dior – is out now*

'Exceptional . . . Miss Dior is so much more than a biography. It’s about how necessity can drive people to either terrible deeds or acts of great courage, and how beauty can grow from the worst kinds of horror.’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

Miss Dior explores the relationship between the visionary designer Christian Dior and his beloved younger sister Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie’s journey takes her to wartime Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance and the battle against the Nazis, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück.

Tracing the wartime paths of the Dior siblings leads Picardie deep into other hidden histories, and different forms of resistance and sisterhood. She discovers what it means to believe in beauty and hope, despite our knowledge of darkness and despair, and reveals the timeless solace of the natural world in the aftermath of devastation and destruction.

*A beautiful, full colour package featuring over 200 archival images.*

‘Extraordinary . . . Picardie uses her investigative reporting skills . . . the result is Netflix-worthy and the pace page-turning . . . Catherine’s story shines — the quiet Dior who preferred flowers to fashion, the unsung heroine who survived the abuse of the Third Reich to help liberate France.’
SUNDAY TIMES

‘Popular history at its very best, thought-provoking and accessible. Underpinned by serious research, and written with panache, it summons up a vanished world’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPHThis is an astonishing new account of Alexander the Great – one of the most important figures of the ancient world, whose earlier years have until now been a mystery. Alexander the Great’s story often reads like fiction: son to a snake-loving mother and a battle-scarred father; tutored by Aristotle; a youth from the periphery of the Greek world who took part in his first campaign aged sixteen, becoming king of Macedon at twenty and king of Asia by twenty-five; leading his armies into battle like a Homeric figure.Each generation has peered through the frosted glass of history and come to their own conclusion about Alexander, be it enlightened ruler, military genius, megalomaniac, drunkard or despot. Yet the first two decades of his life have until now been a mystery – a matter of legend and myth. This extraordinary history draws on new discoveries in archaeology to tell the early story of Alexander and his rise – including detail on the tempestuous relationship between Alexander’s parents, Philip and the Molossian princess Olympias, his education by Aristotle and the strict military training which would serve him so well in later years. And more than ever, it emerges, the story of Alexander’s reign confronts us with difficult questions that are still relevant today – of the relationship between East and West, the legacy of colonialism and the impacts of authoritarian rule.Drawing together startling modern archaeological discoveries, this book brings Alexander’s ancient world back into focus. With each fragment of this shattered past, excavated by shovel, pick and trowel, a new history is being written. The forgotten story of young Alexander is being unearthed.

Gorgeously displayed in an accordion-fold binding, this is a visual ode to the beauty of cherry blossoms—harbingers of spring—by legendary artists of Japanese woodblock printing.

Cherry blossoms are beloved signs of spring renewal celebrated by garden clubs, botanic gardens, and popular festivals. This collection features over seventy works printed in a special format that allows for an unbroken, ever-scrolling display of these detailed, jewel-like artworks accompanied by an informative booklet in a handsome slipcase.

The cherry tree, a traditional symbol of Japan, heralds spring with a spectacular display of subtle color variation spreading like a soft, fragrant cloud over the countryside giving rise to hanami, the ancient cherry blossom festival chronicled by great artists from Hokusai and Hiroshige to Keibun, Bairei, and Hasui. This book showcases classic woodblock prints that highlight the intense yet ephemeral beauty of this unique floral moment—an occasion where family and friends gather in celebration to reflect upon the transience of all things and the fragility of existence. The fleeting beauty of the cherry blossom provides the occasion to contemplate and find wisdom in nature’s cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

This collection is perfect for fans of Japanese art and culture as well as anyone who appreciates the beauty and lore of this beloved flowering tree—long treasured in Japan but now also synonymous with the US capital.

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 DALRYMPLE

Memory 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.

A dazzling history of a dangerous emotion, by acclaimed historian Agnes Arnold-Forster.

In 1945 werd Boedapest, ooit een van de culturele hoofdsteden van het Oostenrijks-Hongaarse rijk, het toneel van de laatste grote, wrede belegering tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog - nu op briljante wijze tot leven gebracht in deze nieuwe geschiedenis.

An indispensable guide to the international history of illustrated images, from 1750 to the present day.

The Garden Against Time is the No.1 Sunday Times bestseller from acclaimed writer Olivia Laing; a passionate, epic exploration of the power and possibilities of gardens.

'What a wonderful book this is' – Nigel Slater
‘A book for thinking gardeners everywhere’ – Mary Keen

When Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants, the work drew them into an exhilarating investigation of paradise and its long association with gardens.

Moving between the real and the imagined, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to a wartime sanctuary in Italy, to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery, Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth.

But the story of the garden can also be a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams, from the improbable queer utopia conjured by Derek Jarman on the beach at Dungeness to the vision of a common Eden cultivated by William Morris. New modes of living can and have been attempted amidst the flower beds, experiments that could prove vital in the coming era of radical change.

‘This book is what we need right now: paradise, regained’ – Philip Hoare
‘Every generation gets one perfect book about gardens and this is ours’ – Julia Bell
‘Prepare yourself to be enchanted’ – Jilly Cooper
‘The most magical writing’ – Jeremy Lee
‘I felt doubly alive after reading it’ – Celia Paul
‘Quite literally unputdownable’ – Jinny Blom

Ajax is op 18 maart 1900 opgericht en heeft 125 jaar aan historie. Arco Gnocchi vertelt de verhalen achter de meest bijzondere en legendarische wedstrijden, memorabele spelers en grootste successen.

Dit boek vertelt het verhaal van de vele onzichtbare vrouwen die de wereld deden kantelen. Maar het gaat ook over de vraag: waarom moesten zij onzichtbaar worden gemaakt?

De langverwachte memoires van Ai Weiwei

Hoe het vroege christendom de klassieke cultuur tracht te vernietigen - Midprice

‘Ik ontsnapte uit Auschwitz’ is het indrukwekkende levensverhaal van Rudolf Vrba, een Slowaakse Jood die uit Auschwitz ontsnapte en het leven van ten minste 200.000 Joden wist te redden.

THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING SENSATION THAT TURNED HISTORY ON ITS HEAD, FROM THE CREATOR OF NETFLIX'S ANCIENT APOCALYPSE, STARRING KEANU REEVES

'One of the intellectual landmarks of the decade' Literary Review
'Readers will hugely enjoy their quest in these pages of inspired storytelling' Times
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A revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of readers throughout the world to change their preconceptions about the origins of modern society.

An intellectual detective story, this unique history book directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain.

This groundbreaking evidence includes:
· Accurate ancient maps that show the world as it last looked during the Ice Age, thousands of years before any civilisation capable of making such maps is supposed to have existed.
· Evidence of the devastating scientific and astronomical information encoded into prehistoric myths.
· The incredible construction of the great pyramids of Egypt and of megalithic temples on the Giza plateau.
· The mysterious astronomical alignments of the pyramids and the Great Sphinx.
· The megalithic temples of the Andes.
· The myths of Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl.
· The pyramids of the Sun and the Moon in Mexico.
· The doomsday calendar and eerie memories of the ancient Maya.
· The warning from the Hopi of Arizona.
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'Hancock's sweep through the ancient world is arresting and audacious' Daily Mail

'Hancock has invented a new genre: an intellectual whodunit by a do-it-yourself sleuth with whom we can all identify' Guardian

'Part travelogue, part sensation, part unravelling, a fascinating story' Catholic Herald

(Part one of a trilogy, followed by MAGICIANS OF THE GODS and AMERICA BEFORE)

Division in society. The spread of misinformation. The rise of extremism. Centrism holds the answers. In an age of complex global challenges, extremism and populism offer a simple but fatally flawed narrative to a public craving a sense of normalcy. There is another way. Centrism has proven itself not only the most effective antidote to their dangerous brand of politics but also as a successful way to lead countries. Far from being an arbitrary middle point between left and right, centrism offers a coherent set of political ideas, principles and approaches - the importance of moderation and pragmatism; the embrace of complexity; the deep commitment to liberal democracy; the belief in equality of opportunity; and the belief that through balancing the tensions that exist in every nation we can make people’s lives better. It is about finding the most productive and effective balance between globalisation and local communities, civil rights and security, religion and democracy, free markets and protecting the weakest in society. Drawing together politicians, thought leaders and social commentators – from Tony Blair to Michael Bloomberg, from Malcolm Turnbull to Kathryn Murdoch - The Centre Must Hold contains a series of essays from those who have led from the centre or made significant contributions to centrist thought and policy-making, including former prime ministers, policy makers, ministers and leading journalists from across the world. Praise for The Centre Must Hold: ‘This book should be studied in every school across the globe’ Anthony Seldon, author of Johnson at 10: The Inside Story ‘A work of real breadth and hidden depths’ Ian Dunt, author of How Westminster Works ‘This book’s clear-eyed case for our cherished liberal values is urgently needed.’ The Right Honourable Sir Ed Davey MP, Leader, Liberal Democrats

Het onvertelde verhaal van het meisje uit 'Soldaat van Oranje'

Inmiddels een moderne klassieker. Paulien Cornelisse neemt je mee op ontdekkingstocht, en laat Nederlandssprekenden weer houden van hun eigen taal en taalgebruik.

The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science, and philosophy. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. They wrote down the timeless myths of Odysseus and Oedipus, and the histories of Leonidas s three hundred Spartans and Alexander the Great. But understanding these uniquely influential people has been hampered by their diffusion across the entire Mediterranean. Most ancient Greeks did not live in what is now Greece but in settlements scattered across Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Russia, and Ukraine. They never formed a single unified social or political entity. Acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall s Introducing the Ancient Greeks is the first book to offer a synthesis of the entire ancient Greek experience, from the rise of the Mycenaean kingdoms of the sixteenth century BC to the final victory of Christianity over paganism in AD 391. Each of the ten chapters visits a different Greek community at a different moment during the twenty centuries of ancient Greek history. In the process, the book makes a powerful original argument: A cluster of unique qualities made the Greeks special and made them the right people, at the right time, to take up the baton of human progress. According to Herodotus, the father of history, what made all Greeks identifiably Greek was their common descent from the same heroes, the way they sacrificed to their gods, their rules of decent behavior, and their beautiful language. Edith Hall argues, however, that their mind-set was just as important as their awe-inspiring achievements. They were rebellious, individualistic, inquisitive, open-minded, witty, rivalrous, admiring of excellence, articulate, and addicted to pleasure. But most important was their continuing identity as mariners, the restless seagoing lifestyle that brought them into contact with ethnically diverse peoples in countless new settlements, and the constant stimulus to technological innovation provided by their intense relationship with the sea. Expertly researched and elegantly told, Introducing the Ancient Greeks is an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the Greeks."

The tragic life of Julian, the last non-Christian emperor of Rome, by award-winning author Philip Freeman “When we think of ancient Rome, it’s impossible not to think of Christianity, one of its most notable exports—but what if it hadn’t been? This is the question provoked by classicist Philip Freeman in Julian, an appealing new entry in Yale’s Ancient Lives series, which tells the story of the old faith’s last imperial torchbearer.”—Anna Heyward, New York Times Book Review Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire. As emperor, Julian (331–363) set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians. Had Julian not been killed by a random Persian spear, he might well have changed all of history.

Now in B-format paperback, A Brief History of Nakedness traces our preoccupation with nudity in religion, politics and popular culture. Rather than study the history of the fine-art nude, for example, this book explores new territory – revealing the ways in which religious teachers, politicians, protestors and cultural icons have used nudity to enlighten or empower themselves, or simply to entertain us. From the naked sages of India and St Francis of Assisi to modern-day druids and Christian nudists, from The Full Monty and Calendar Girls to Lady Godiva and Lady Gaga, A Brief History of Nakedness surveys the touching, sometimes tragic, and often bizarre story of our relationship with our own and with others’ naked bodies.

The Second World War is the most cataclysmic and violent sequence of events in recent times. Are you ready for the truth about World War Two? This title features the experiences of dozens of individuals, from civilians and soldiers, to sailors, pilots, leading military strategists, industrialists and heads of state, and uncovers the strategy.

In Armageddon, one of Britain's most highly regarded historians tells the epic story of the bloody last eight months of the war in Europe. 'Hastings triumphs . . . he conveys brilliantly what fighting was like for those who had to do it' – David Stafford, The Times'Masterly' – Craig Brown, Mail on SundayIn 1944 German forces suffered catastrophic defeats during the battles for Holland and the German border. Yet in the following weeks the ailing Wehrmacht was able to achieve one of the greatest military feats of the Second World War. The Germans regrouped and found the strength to halt the seemingly inexorable Allied advance, prolonging the war into 1945. Drawing on original research and fascinating individual experiences, Max Hastings's definitive account provides a fresh and gripping insight into the final twists and turns of the war, revealing how Europe's fate hung in the balance until the bitter end. 'Magisterial . . . Armageddon is a magnificent achievement' – Christopher Silvester, Financial Times