Geschiedenis

A New Yorker Book of the Year 2024A Ryan Holiday '(Very) Best Book I Read in 2024'Excellent' Ian Samson, TLS'From plans for flying machines to philosophy - the remarkable joy of jotting things down' Guardian'Surprisingly revealing' The Sunday TimesWe see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did this simple invention come from? How did they revolutionise our lives, and why are they such powerful tools for creativity? And how can using a notebook help you change the way you think? In this wide-ranging story, Roland Allen reveals all the answers. Ranging from the bustling markets of medieval Florence to the quiet studies of our greatest thinkers, he follows a trail of dazzling ideas, revealing how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking. He tells the notebook stories of artists like Leonardo and Frida Kahlo, scientists from Isaac Newton to Marie Curie, and writers from Chaucer to Henry James. We watch Darwin developing his theory of evolution in tiny pocketbooks, see Agatha Christie plotting a hundred murders in scrappy exercise books, and learn how Bruce Chatwin unwittingly inspired the creation of the Moleskine. On the way we meet a host of cooks, kings, sailors, fishermen, musicians, engineers, politicians, adventurers and mathematicians, who all used their notebooks as a space for thinking and to shape the modern world.

Dompel je onder in het tijdperk van vóór het massatoerisme

Winner of the Apollo Book of the Year Award 2024 Drawing is at the heart of human creativity. The most democratic form of art-making, it requires nothing more than a plain surface and a stub of pencil, a piece of chalk or an inky brush. Our prehistoric ancestors drew with natural pigments on the walls of caves, and every subsequent culture has practised drawing—whether on papyrus, parchment, or paper. Artists throughout history have used drawing as part of the creative process. While painting and sculpture have been shaped heavily by money and influence, drawing has always offered extraordinary creative latitude. Here we see the artist at his or her most unguarded. Susan Owens offers a glimpse over artists’ shoulders—from Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Hokusai to Van Gogh, Käthe Kollwitz, and Yayoi Kusama—as they work, think, and innovate, as they scrutinise the world around them or escape into imagination. The Story of Drawing loops around the established history of art, sometimes staying close, at other times diving into exhilarating and altogether less familiar territory.

From the momentus invention of the needle some 40,000 years ago to the development of blue denim, from Neolithic weavers to the biggest names in the fashion industry today – this classic guide covers the landmarks of costume history, the forms and materials used through the ages, the underlying motives of fashion and the ways in which clothes have been used to protect, to express identity, and to attract or to influence others. This sixth edition features a new foreword and concluding chapter by Amy de la Haye. The book is brought right up to date with a discussion about the major political shifts within the fashion industry, highlighting how it has responded to issues surrounding racism and sexism; LGBTQI rights; mental health awareness; body and age diversity and global sustainability.

Turn the pages of this thought-provoking book, and discover maps that challenge conventional wisdom, confront social and political norms and offer fresh perspectives on familiar landscapes.

This meticulously curated selection of 40 maps spans the ages, from ancient parchment scrolls to cutting-edge digital creations. Each map is a window into a different facet of our world, shedding light on the complex interplay of geography, geopolitics, art, history, science, and society.

Maps have always held the power to transport us, not just from one place to another, but from one state of mind to another. Beyond their utilitarian function, maps have an extraordinary ability to tell stories, reveal truths, and inspire revolutions.

They are not mere drawings of geographic boundaries, but gateways to the collective wisdom of humanity. You'll encounter maps that dissect the intricate tapestry of human migration, maps that unveil the secrets of the cosmos and maps, that expose the stark realities of our changing climate. These maps are not just illustrations; they are provocations, invitations to rethink the world.

40 Maps That Will Change How You See the World is not just a book for geographers or history buffs; it is a profound exploration for anyone with a curious mind. Whether you're an armchair traveler, a seasoned explorer, a student of geopolitics, or an art aficionado, this book will challenge your preconceptions, spark lively discussions, and deepen your appreciation for the interconnectedness of our world.

How the medieval study of ancient bronzes influenced the production of knowledge and the making of things in East Asia. This book opens in eleventh-century China, where scholars were the first in world history to systematically illustrate and document ancient artifacts. As Jeffrey Moser argues, the visual, technical, and conceptual mechanisms they developed to record these objects laid the foundations for methods of visualizing knowledge that scholars throughout early modern East Asia would use to make sense of the world around them. Of the artifacts these scholars studied, the most celebrated were bronze ritual vessels that had been cast nearly two thousand years earlier. While working to make sense of the relationship between the bronzes’ complex shapes and their inscribed glyphs, they came to realize that the objects were “nominal things”—objects inscribed with names that identified their own categories and uses. Eleventh-century scholars knew the meaning of these glyphs from hallowed Confucian writings that had been passed down through centuries, but they found shocking disconnects between the names and the bronzes on which they were inscribed. Nominal Things traces the process by which a distinctive system of empiricism was nurtured by discrepancies between the complex materiality of the bronzes and their inscriptions. By revealing the connections between the new empiricism and older ways of knowing, the book explains how scholars refashioned the words of the Confucian classics into material reality.

Murakami tells the true story behind an act of terrorism that turned an average Monday morning into a national disaster.

In spite of the perpetrators' intentions, the Tokyo gas attack left only twelve people dead, but thousands were injured and many suffered serious after-effects. Murakami interviews the victims to try and establish precisely what happened on the subway that day.

He also interviews members and ex-members of the doomsdays cult responsible, in the hope that they might be able to explain the reason for the attack and how it was that their guru instilled such devotion in his followers.

'Not just an impressive essay in witness literature, but also a unique sounding of the quotidian Japanese mind' Independent

'If great books encourage you to look at the world in an entirely new way, then Dominion is a very great book indeed . . . Written with terrific learning, enthusiasm and good humour, Holland's book is not just supremely provocative, but often very funny' Sunday Times History Book of the Year

Christianity is the most enduring and influential legacy of the ancient world, and its emergence the single most transformative development in Western history. Even the increasing number in the West today who have abandoned the faith of their forebears, and dismiss all religion as pointless superstition, remain recognisably its heirs. Seen close-up, the division between a sceptic and a believer may seem unbridgeable. Widen the focus, though, and Christianity's enduring impact upon the West can be seen in the emergence of much that has traditionally been cast as its nemesis: in science, in secularism, and yes, even in atheism.

That is why Dominion will place the story of how we came to be what we are, and how we think the way that we do, in the broadest historical context. Ranging in time from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC to the on-going migration crisis in Europe today, and from Nebuchadnezzar to the Beatles, it will explore just what it was that made Christianity so revolutionary and disruptive; how completely it came to saturate the mind-set of Latin Christendom; and why, in a West that has become increasingly doubtful of religion's claims, so many of its instincts remain irredeemably Christian. The aim is twofold: to make the reader appreciate just how novel and uncanny were Christian teachings when they first appeared in the world; and to make ourselves, and all that we take for granted, appear similarly strange in consequence. We stand at the end-point of an extraordinary transformation in the understanding of what it is to be human: one that can only be fully appreciated by tracing the arc of its parabola over millennia.

Look what the cat dragged in from the Middle Ages - a curious collection of the most wonky, wide-eyed and weirdly drawn cats ever to grace the margins of history. Medieval Cats is the purr-fect gift for cat lovers, history buffs and anyone who delights in the unintentionally hilarious world of medieval illustration.

Between 500 and 1500 AD, monks and manuscript artists tried - and often failed - to capture the elegance of their feline muses. The result? Hundreds of gloriously misshapen cats that stare, stretch and scowl their way through centuries of art.

Brimming with extraordinary felines, cheeky commentary and a hefty dose of cattitude, Medieval Cats celebrates these delightfully terrible depictions in all their glory - proof that humans have been obsessed with cats for more than a thousand years.

THE PERSIANS is a definitive new history of the Persian Empire, the world's first superpower.

The Great Kings of Persia ruled over the largest Empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the Steppes of Asia, and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. At the heart of the Empire was the fabled palace-city of Persepolis where the Achaemenid monarchs held court in unparalleled grandeur. From here, Cyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, and their heirs passed laws, raised armies, and governed their multicultural Empire of enormous diversity.

The Achaemenids, however, were one of the great dysfunctional families of history. Brothers fought brothers for power, wives and concubines plotted to promote their sons to the throne, and eunuchs and courtiers vied for influence and prestige.

Our understanding of the Persian Empire has traditionally come from the histories of Greek writers such as Herodotus - and as such, over many centuries, our perspective has been skewed by ancient political and cultural agendas. Professor Llewellyn-Jones, however, calls upon original Achaemenid sources, including inscriptions, art, and recent archaeological discoveries in Iran, to create an authentic 'Persian Version' of this remarkable first great empire of antiquity - the Age of the Great Kings.

The paint-loaded palettes of fifty world-renowned artists are displayed alongside the paintings the artists created using those hues, and the colours and brushstrokes employed are analysed to uncover surprising new stories about each artist and their work. Presented broadly chronologically, the artists featured in this revelatory book range from those working in the 17th century to the present day, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Vincent Van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Georgia O’Keeffe and Bridget Riley. Each artist’s palette – whether photographed or visible in self-portraits – is paired with one or more works by the artist that reflect the colours of the paint remaining on the palette. Colour expert and art historian Alexandra Loske skilfully analyses each artist’s colour palette and brushstrokes to reveal not only exactly how they used colour in their work but also to tell the story of their journey with colour and the influence of their approach on the wider culture to which they belonged. For example, Georges Seurat meticulously arranged the paints on his palette in prismatic order, isolating the colours and pairing each with a blot of white paint. His pointillist technique was equally apparent on his palette and his canvas. Kerry James Marshall uses blots of zinc white and smears of pale pink on the surfaces of symbolically oversized white palettes held by black artists in his portraits, raising provocative questions about the role of colour in the story of black history and white western art. The Artist’s Palette will appeal to an art history audience, a wider audience eager to learn more about the use of colour by the great artists and amateur painters looking for inspiration in the creation of their own work.

'A fascinating journey into our relationship with the physical book...I lost count of the times I exclaimed with delight when I read a nugget of information I hadn't encountered before' Val McDermid, The Times

Most of what we say about books is really about the words inside them: the rosy nostalgic glow for childhood reading, the lifetime companionship of a much-loved novel. But books are things as well as words, objects in our lives as well as worlds in our heads. And just as we crack their spines, loosen their leaves and write in their margins, so they disrupt and disorder us in turn. All books are, as Stephen King put it, 'a uniquely portable magic'. Here, Emma Smith shows us why.

Portable Magic unfurls an exciting and iconoclastic new story of the book in human hands, exploring when, why and how it acquired its particular hold over us. Gathering together a millennium's worth of pivotal encounters with volumes big and small, Smith reveals that, as much as their contents, it is books' physical form - their 'bookhood' - that lends them their distinctive and sometimes dangerous magic. From the Diamond Sutra to Jilly Cooper's Riders, to a book made of wrapped slices of cheese, this composite artisanal object has, for centuries, embodied and extended relationships between readers, nations, ideologies and cultures, in significant and unpredictable ways.

Exploring the unexpected and unseen consequences of our love affair with books, Portable Magic hails the rise of the mass-market paperback, and dismantles the myth that print began with Gutenberg; it reveals how our reading habits have been shaped by American soldiers, and proposes new definitions of a 'classic'-and even of the book itself. Ultimately, it illuminates the ways in which our relationship with the written word is more reciprocal - and more turbulent - than we tend to imagine.

From Robert Mapplethorpe to Deborah Bright, this is the essential guide to queer photography.

Best Photography Books of 2024 – WIRED
“…an essential resource for anyone interested in art, identity, and politics—or the intersection of all three.”

“Finally, an inclusive and international queer photo survey from Nan Goldin and Beb, to Peter Hujar and Michel Journiac” – SF Bay Times

Photography - A Queer History examines how photography has been used by artists to capture, create and expand the category 'Queer'. It bookmarks different thematic concerns central to queer photography, forging unexpected connections to showcase the diverse ways the medium has been used to fashion queer identities and communities.

How has photography advanced fights against LGBTQ+ discrimination? How have artists used photography to develop a queer aesthetic? How has the production and circulation of photography served to satisfy the queer desire for images, and created transnational solidarities?

Photography - A Queer History includes the work of 84 artists. It spans different historical and national contexts, and through a mix of thematic essays and artist-centred texts brings young photographers into conversation with canonical images.

• Artists include:
  • Wolfgang Tillmans
  • Roxy Lee
  • Linden
  • Archivo de la Memoria Trans
  • Alvin Baltrop
  • Leonard Fink
  • Nan Goldin
  • Hal Fischer
  • Tessa Boffin
  • Juliana Huxtable
  • Rotimi Fani-Kayode
  • Claude Cahun & MarceI Moore
  • Christopher Udemezue
  • Sarah Pucill
  • Duane Michals
  • Mumtaz Karimjee
  • Alice Austen
  • Mohamad Abdouni
  • Tammy Rae Carland
  • Dean Sameshima
  • Rosy Martin
  • Yuki Kihara
  • Sunil Gupta
  • Mahmoud Khaled
  • Kiss & Tell Collective
  • Ajamu
  • Del LaGrace Volcano
  • Evergon
  • Leon Mostovy
  • Bob Mitzer
  • Robert Mapplethorpe
  • Jill Posener
  • Liliana Zeic
  • Kia LaBeija
  • Phyllis Christopher
  • Libuse Jarcovjakova
  • Kearra Amaya Gopee
  • Richard Sawdon Smith
  • Laurence Rasti
  • Cassils
  • Ma Liuming
  • Michel Journiac
  • Tseng Kwong Chi
  • Jurgen Klauke
  • Paul Mpagi Sepuya
  • Zackary Drucker
  • JEB (Joan E. Biren)
  • Bernice Abbott
  • Zanele Muholi
  • Charan Singh
  • Emily Andersen
  • Fabian Guerrero
  • Eric Gyamfi
  • JJ Levine
  • Peter Hujar
  • Ruth Bernhard
  • Sabelo Mlangeni
  • Daniel Jack Lyons
  • Asa Johannesson
  • Slava Mogutin
  • Evan Benally Atwood
  • David Benjamin Sherry
  • Deborah Bright
  • Young Sun Han
  • John Dugdale
  • Tee Corinne
  • Lola Flash
  • Mark Morrisroe
  • Kali Spitzer
  • Joy Epsialla
  • Laura Aguilar
  • Mickalene Thomas
  • Lin Zhipeng
  • Catherine Opie
  • Jimmy DeSana
  • Pierre Molinier
  • Martine Gutierrez
  • Yve Lomax

The instant Sunday Times bestseller
A Times, New Statesman and Spectator Book of the Year

'Simply the best popular history of the Middle Ages there is' Sunday Times

'A great achievement, pulling together many strands with aplomb' Peter Frankopan, Spectator, Books of the Year

'It's so delightful to encounter a skilled historian of such enormous energy who's never afraid of being entertaining' The Times, Books of the Year

'An amazing masterly gripping panorama' Simon Sebag Montefiore

'A badass history writer... to put it mildly' Duff McKagan

'A triumph' Charles Spencer

Dan Jones's epic new history tells nothing less than the story of how the world we know today came to be built. It is a thousand-year adventure that moves from the ruins of the once-mighty city of Rome, sacked by barbarians in AD 410, to the first contacts between the old and new worlds in the sixteenth century. It shows how, from a state of crisis and collapse, the West was rebuilt and came to dominate the entire globe. The book identifies three key themes that underpinned the success of the West: commerce, conquest and Christianity.

Across 16 chapters, blending Dan Jones's trademark gripping narrative style with authoritative analysis, Powers and Thrones shows how, at each stage in this story, successive western powers thrived by attracting – or stealing – the most valuable resources, ideas and people from the rest of the world. It casts new light on iconic locations – Rome, Paris, Venice, Constantinople – and it features some of history's most famous and notorious men and women.

This is a book written about – and for – an age of profound change, and it asks the biggest questions about the West both then and now. Where did we come from? What made us? Where do we go from here?

Also available in audio, read by the author.

History does not repeat, but it does instruct. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. This book deals with this topic.

SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER ‘The most important book of the year’ Daily Mail The brilliant and provocative new book from one of the world’s foremost political writers

Trace the history of the world in over 500 easy-to-follow maps, from the dawn of humanity to the present day. Organized chronologically, A History of the World in 500 Maps tells a clear, linear story, bringing together themes as diverse as religion, capitalism, warfare, geopolitics, popular culture and climate change. Meticulously rendered maps chart the sequence of broad historical trends, from the dispersal of our species across the globe to the colonizing efforts of imperial European powers in the 18th century, as well as exploring moments of particular significance in rich detail. • Visualizes 7 million years of human history. • Analyses cities and kingdoms as well as countries and continents. • Features major technical developments, from the invention of farming in the Fertile Crescent to the Industrial Revolution. • Charts the spread of major global religions, including Christianity and Islam. • Explores the increasing interconnectivity of our world through exploration and trade. • Investigates warfare and battles from across the ages, from Alexander the Great’s conquests to the D-Day offensive.

John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith - and the lives of those photographed - with fierce engagement, intensity and tenderness.

The selection is made and introduced by Geoff Dyer, author of the award-winning The Ongoing Moment.

How do we see the world around us? This is one of a number of pivotal works by creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision for ever.

John Berger was born in London in 1926. His acclaimed works of both fiction and non-fiction include the seminal Ways of Seeing and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and he now lives in a small village in the French Alps.

Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels and several non-fiction books. Winner of the Lannan Literary Award, the International Centre of Photography's 2006 Infinity Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters's E. M. Forster Award, Dyer is also a regular contributor to many publications in the UK and the US. He lives in London.

Provides an insight into everything from holiday romance to hotel mini-bars, airports to sight-seeing. This book suggests how we might be happier on our journeys.

The essential guide to the complex, fascinating world of Chinese myths: retelling the stories and exploring their significance in Chinese culture. This is a concise and entertaining guide to the complex tradition of Chinese mythology. While many around the world are familiar with some aspects of Chinese myth – through Chinese New Year festivities or the classic adventures of the Monkey King in Journey to the West – few outside of China understand the richness of Chinese mythology, influenced by Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Offering much more than any competing overview of Chinese mythology, The Chinese Myths not only retells the ancient stories but also considers their place within the patterns of Chinese religions, culture and history. Tao Tao Liu introduces us to an intriguing cast of gods, goddesses, dragons and monks, including: the ancient hero, Yi the Archer, who shot suns out of the sky to save humanity from a drought; Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, to whom there are temples dedicated all over East Asia; and Madame White Snake, a water snake spirit in the guise of a mysterious widow, her story adapted into countless films and operas. This book is for anyone interested in China, as knowing its myths allows readers to understand and appreciate its culture in a new light.

Christian Dior: The Illustrated World of a Fashion Master is a stunning illustrated biography of legendary designer Christian Dior from internationally renowned fashion illustrator Megan Hess.

Discover the key moments of Dior's fascinating life and iconic items from the fashion world that he created. Dior's love of flowers, creativity, femininity and good-luck charms were woven into everything he designed, and his New Look remains iconic to this day.

Elegantly enclosed by a hardback cover and ribbon, Megan's beautiful illustrations follow Dior through three distinct chapters: the highs and lows of his early life, set against a backdrop of bohemian and wartime Paris; the couture house that he built into an empire in just ten years; and the incredible legacy he left behind for one of fashion's most influential brands.

Christian Dior is a celebration of a man whose life was as remarkable as the clothes that he created, brought to life on the page by the expert hand of Megan Hess.

'Barthes' purpose is to tear away masks and demystify the signs, signals and symbols of the language of mass culture' The Times

In this magnificent and often surprising collection of essays Barthes explores the myths of mass culture. Taking subjects as diverse as wrestling, films, plastic and cars, Barthes elegantly deciphers the symbols and signs embedded deep in familiar aspects of modern life, unmasking the hidden ideologies and meanings which implicitly affect our thought and behaviour. This early classic of semiotics from one of France's greatest thinkers may irrevocably change the way you view the world around you.

A TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025
WINNER OF THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024
WINNER OF THE FRANCO-BRITISH SOCIETY LITERARY AWARD 2024

A vital re-examination of the trailblazing and controversial artist Paul Gauguin – and the first full biography in over thirty years – written by the award-winning author of I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche.

*Gorgeously illustrated with 70 full-colour images*

'Scintillating.' FINANCIAL TIMES
'Immaculate.' NEW STATESMAN
'Phenomenal.' PROSPECT
'A heroic rehabilitation.' THE TIMES

Paul Gauguin is chiefly known as the giant of post-Impressionist painting whose bold colours and compositions rocked the Western art world. It is less well known that he was a stockbroker in Paris and that after the 1882 financial crash he struggled to sustain his artistry, and worked as a tarpaulin salesman in Copenhagen, a canal digger in Panama City, and a journalist exposing the injustices of French colonial rule in Tahiti.

In Wild Thing, the award-winning biographer Sue Prideaux re-examines the adventurous and complicated life of the artist. She illuminates the people, places and ideas that shaped his vision: his privileged upbringing in Peru and rebellious youth in France; the galvanising energy of the Paris art scene; meeting Mette, the woman who he would marry; formative encounters with Vincent van Gogh and August Strindberg; and the ceaseless draw of French Polynesia.

Prideaux conjures Gauguin’s visual exuberance, his creative epiphanies, his fierce words and his flaws with acuity and sensitivity. Drawing from a wealth of new material and access to the artist’s family, this myth-busting work invites us to see Gauguin anew.

‘Het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict’ van historicus Ilan Pappe is essentieel om het conflict te begrijpen.

In ‘De Tempeliers’ beschrijft historicus Dan Jones op verhalende wijze de opkomst en ondergang van de middeleeuwse tempelridders, voor de liefhebbers van waargebeurde geschiedenisverhalen.

Een boeiende atlas over de geschiedenis van de Veluwe, vanaf de ijstijd tot aan de dag van vandaag

Nieuwe ideeën voor langetermijnpolitiek

A masterful history of the great dynasty of the Netherlands' Middle Ages.
'A sumptuous feast of a book' The Times, Books of the Year

'Thrillingly colourful and entertaining' Sunday Times

'A thrilling narrative of the brutal dazzlingly rich wildly ambitious duchy' Simon Sebag Montefiore

5 stars! Daily Telegraph

'A masterpiece' De Morgen

'A history book that reads like a thriller' Le Soir

At the end of the fifteenth century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom. Torn apart by the dynastic struggles of early modern Europe, this extraordinary realm vanished from the map. But it became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands. This is the story of a thousand years, a compulsively readable narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury and madness. It is about the decline of knightly ideals and the awakening of individualism and of cities, the struggle for dominance in the heart of northern Europe, bloody military campaigns and fatally bad marriages. It is also a remarkable cultural history, of great art and architecture and music emerging despite the violence and the chaos of the tension between rival dynasties.

Friso Wielenga’s detailed history of the Netherlands traces its political development from independence to today, incorporating significant explorations of culture, economics, international relations, colonisation and decolonisation in the process. It provides a thorough and well-balanced overview of the key moments in and vital aspects of Dutch history since 1500. Challenging incorrect assumptions concerning political consensus and religious toleration in the country, A History of the Netherlands offers a masterful analysis of domestic politics and the nation’s international involvements.

This new edition includes:

* Enhanced and expanded examinations of 21st century developments to the present
* Greater coverage of the Dutch role in the slave trade, the Atlantic trade and the Glorious Revolution
* More material on multiculturalism and integration politics and the World War Two deportation and extermination of the Dutch Jewry
* Historiographical updates throughout

The book is vital reading for anyone looking for a rich understanding of the Netherlands and its past.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller

‘Walter Isaacson is not an art historian, he’s simply a lover of Leonardo, who manages to communicate the sheer joy of this remarkable man’
Books of the Year - The Times

He was history’s most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us?

Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.

He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.

His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history’s most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo’s lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions.

Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it—to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.

An extraordinary exploration of the ancestry of Britain through seven burial sites. By using new advances in genetics and taking us through important archaeological discoveries, Professor Alice Roberts helps us better understand life today.

‘This is a terrific, timely and transporting book - taking us heart, body and mind beyond history, to the fascinating truth of the prehistoric past and the present’ Bettany Hughes

We often think of Britain springing from nowhere with the arrival of the Romans. But in Ancestors, pre-eminent archaeologist, broadcaster and academic Professor Alice Roberts explores what we can learn about the very earliest Britons, from burial sites and by using new technology to analyse ancient DNA.

Told through seven fascinating burial sites, this groundbreaking prehistory of Britain teaches us more about ourselves and our history: how people came and went and how we came to be on this island. It explores forgotten journeys and memories of migrations long ago, written into genes and preserved in the ground for thousands of years.

This is a book about belonging: about walking in ancient places, in the footsteps of the ancestors. It explores our interconnected global ancestry, and the human experience that binds us all together. It’s about reaching back in time, to find ourselves, and our place in the world.

PRE-ORDER CRYPT, THE FINAL BOOK IN ALICE ROBERTS' BRILLIANT TRILOGY – OUT FEBRUARY 2024.

A powerful and revelatory history book about the bloodlands - the lands that lie between Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany - where 14 million people were killed during the years 1933 - 1944.

In the middle of Europe, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered fourteen million people in the bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow. In a twelve-year-period, in these killing fields - today's Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Western Russia and the eastern Baltic coast - an average of more than one million citizens were slaughtered every year, as a result of deliberate policies unrelated to combat.

In this book Timothy Snyder offers a ground-breaking investigation into the motives and methods of Stalin and Hitler and, using scholarly literature and primary sources, pays special attention to the testimony of the victims, including the letters home, the notes flung from trains, the diaries on corpses. The result is a brilliantly researched, profoundly humane, authoritative and original book that forces us to re-examine one of the greatest tragedies in European history and re-think our past.

A splendid – and necessary – publication…a great resource Iain SinclairCharles Booth’s landmark survey of life in late-19th-century London, published for the first time in one volume. In the late nineteenth century, Charles Booth's landmark social and economic survey found that 35 percent of Londoners were living in abject poverty. Booth's team of social investigators interviewed Londoners from all walks of life, recording their comments, together with their own unrestrained remarks and statistical information, in 450 notebooks. Their findings formed the basis of Booth's colour-coded social mapping (from vicious and semi-criminal to wealthy) and his seventeen-volume survey Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People of London, 1886-1903. Organized into six geographical sections, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps presents the hand-colored preparatory and printed social mapping of London. Accompanying the maps are reproductions of pages from the original notebooks, containing anecdotes and observations too judgmental for Booth to include in his final published survey. An introduction by professor Mary S. Morgan clarifies the aims and methodology of Booth's survey and six themed essays contextualize the the survey's findings, accompanied by evocative period photographs. Providing insights into the minutia of everyday life viewed through the lens of inhabitants of every trade, class, creed, and nationality, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps brings to life the diversity and dynamism of late nineteenth-century London.

The pacy, sensitive and formidably argued history of the causes of the First World War, from acclaimed historian and author Christopher Clark

FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014
SUNDAY TIMES and INDEPENDENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2012
Winner of the Los Angeles Times History Book Prize 2014

The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination?

In The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Above all, it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic, near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe.

Reviews:

'Formidable ... one of the most impressive and stimulating studies of the period ever published' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

'Easily the best book ever written on the subject ... A work of rare beauty that combines meticulous research with sensitive analysis and elegant prose. The enormous weight of its quality inspires amazement and awe ... Academics should take note: Good history can still be a good story' Washington Post

'A lovingly researched work of the highest scholarship. It is hard to believe we will ever see a better narrative of what was perhaps the biggest collective blunder in the history of international relations' Niall Ferguson

'[Reading The Sleepwalkers], it is as if a light had been turned on a half-darkened stage of shadowy characters cursing among themselves without reason ... [Clark] demolishes the standard view ... The brilliance of Clark's far-reaching history is that we are able to discern how the past was genuinely prologue ... In conception, steely scholarship and piercing insights, his book is a masterpiece' Harold Evans, New York Times Book Review

'Impeccably researched, provocatively argued and elegantly written ... a model of scholarship' Sunday Times Books of the Year

'Superb ... effectively consigns the old historical consensus to the bin ... It's not often that one has the privilege of reading a book that reforges our understanding of one of the seminal events of world history' Mail Online

'A monumental new volume ... Revelatory, even revolutionary ... Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable' Boston Globe

'Superb ... One of the great mysteries of history is how Europe's great powers could have stumbled into World War I ... This is the single best book I have read on this important topic' Fareed Zakaria

'A meticulously researched, superbly organized, and handsomely written account' Military History

'Clark is a masterly historian ... His account vividly reconstructs key decision points while deftly sketching the context driving them ... A magisterial work' Wall Street Journal

'This compelling examination of the causes of World War I deserves to become the new standard one-volume account of that contentious subject' Foreign Affairs

'A brilliant contribution' Times Higher Education

'Clark is fully alive to the challenges of the subject ... He provides vivid portraits of leading figures ... [He] also gives a rich sense of what contemporaries believed was at stake in the crises leading up to the war' Irish Times

'In recent decades, many analysts had tended to put most blame for the disaster [of the First World War] on Germany. Clark strongly renews an older interpretation which sees the statesmen of many countries as blundering blindly together into war' Stephen Howe, Independent Books of the Year

About the author:

Christopher Clark is Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St Catharine's College. He is the author of The Politics of Conversion, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Iron Kingdom. Widely praised around the world, Iron Kingdom became a major bestseller. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In the Artist's Journey, follow in the footsteps of some of the world’s most famous painters, and the journeys which inspired some of their greatest works.

A major new history of North and South Korea, from the late nineteenth century to the present day "Cha and Pacheco Pardo have years of expertise in Korean international relations. . . . A crisp and balanced account."-Christopher Harding, The Telegraph Korea has a long, riveting history-it is also a divided nation. South Korea is a vibrant democracy, the tenth largest economy, and is home to a world-renowned culture. North Korea is ruled by the most authoritarian regime in the world, a poor country in a rich region, and is best known for the cult of personality surrounding the ruling Kim family. But both Koreas share a unique common history. Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo draw on decades of research to explore the history of modern Korea, from the late nineteenth century, Japanese occupation, and Cold War division to the present day. A small country caught amongst the world's largest powers-including China, Japan, Russia, and the United States-Korea's fate has been closely connected to its geography and the strength of its leadership and society. This comprehensive history sheds light on the evolving identities of the two Koreas, explaining the sharp differences between North and South, and prospects for unification.

Niccolò Machiavelli provides a remarkably uncompromising picture of the true nature of power, no matter what era or by whom it is exercised.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an afterword by Oliver Francis.

Drawing on examples from the ancient Greeks and Romans and from Machiavelli’s contemporaries, The Prince offers – some believed with satirical intent – advice on how a ruler should preserve his power, conduct and warfare, and maintain his reputation. Machiavelli not only influenced many of the great statesmen of his age, but was also one of the founding fathers of modern political thought. The Prince, written in 1513 and published in 1532, is one of the most famous pieces of writing of all time.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

*Now with a fun pub quiz*
'An idiosyncratic ride through history' Independent
'Holland and Sandbrook have pretty much reinvented popular history for the modern age' The Times

The nation’s favourite historians, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, take on the most curious moments in history, answering the questions we didn’t even think to ask . . .

- What was the most disastrous party in history?
- How did a hair appointment almost blow Churchill’s cover?
- Why did the Nazis believe they were descended from the people of Atlantis?
- What made Alfred the Great so great?

From a British political leader who allegedly plotted to feed his lover to alligators, to a Brazilian emperor whose subjects mistook him for a banana, there is nothing too big or too small for Tom and Dominic to unpick.

Shortlisted for the HWA Non-Fiction Crown Award 2023

The history of a demonic tradition that was stolen from women – and then won back again.

'Remarkable work... Extraordinary, meticulous detail' Literary Review

'Deftly fuses scholarly rigour, control of literary and archaeological sources' BBC History Magazine

Creatures like Lilith, the seductive first wife of Adam, and mermaids, who lured sailors to their death, are familiar figures in the genre of monstrous temptresses who use their charms to entice men to their doom.

But if we go back 4,000 years, the roots of these demons lie in horrific creatures like Lamashtu, a lion-headed Mesopotamian demon who strangled infants and murdered pregnant women, and Gello, a virgin ghost of ancient Greece who killed expectant mothers and babies out of jealousy. Far from enticing men into danger and destruction, these monsters were part of women’s ritual practices surrounding childbirth and pregnancy. So how did their mythology evolve into one focused on the seduction of men?

Sarah Clegg takes us on an absorbing and witty journey from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day, encountering a multitude of serpentine succubi, a child-eating wolf-monster of ancient Greece, the Queen of Sheba and a host of vampires. Clegg shows how these demons were appropriated by male-centred societies, before they were eventually recast as symbols of women’s liberation, offering new insights into attitudes towards womanhood, sexuality and women’s rights.

Putting the Women Back into Roman History

A fascinating introduction to the world of Korean myth and legend.

'We need this book' SIMON REEVE
'Illuminating' FINANCIAL TIMES

Why is Africa often perceived as a single country?
What role did African soldiers play in the Second World War?
Who else led the charge against Apartheid in South Africa?
How did an African man become one of the wealthiest people in history?

It's a Continent unravels these untold stories and delves into the fascinating and diverse cultures of Africa's 54 nations.

With its bold and colourful narrative, It's a Continent breaks down this vast and complex continent, chapter by chapter, focusing on each country's unique history. From ancient kingdoms to modern struggles for independence, from overlooked heroes to monumental achievements, this book shines a light on the pivotal moments that have shaped Africa's position on the global stage.

This book is a corrective to the misconceptions and misrepresentations of Africa as a monolith. Through its pages, you'll discover Africa's diversity, beauty and complexity and gain a deeper appreciation for its rich heritage and contributions.

Nature and Its Symbols is the fifth volume in the series A Guide to Imagery, reference guides whose goal is to explain the symbols used in art. This volume includes chapters on plants, flowers, fruits, and animals of the earth, air, and water, as well as fantastical creatures such as centaurs, griffons, and dragons. The vivid illustrations, which include paintings and tapestries from some of the world's premier museums, are accompanied by texts that offer a careful analysis of the artists' depictions of the natural world. Each entry discusses the symbolic significance of the particular plant, fruit, or animal portrayed, its mythic or literary origins, and the episodes or individuals associated with it. These salient points are also called out in summary form within each entry, making the information easily accessible. The reader discovers, for example, that the iris can represent Jesus or the purity of the Virgin Mary as well as the kings of France or the city of Florence. The monkey, which can be symbolic of the devil, heresy, or bad temper, is also associated with the three wise men who travelled to Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Jesus.

The authoritative, epic history of the British colonisation of Australia.

In 1787, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King George III, the British Government sent a fleet to colonise Australia.

Documenting the brutal transportation of men, women and children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system which was to be the precursor to the Gulag and was the origin of Australia, The Fatal Shore is the definitive, masterfully written narrative that has given its true history to Australia.

'A unique phantasmagoria of crime and punishment, which combines the shadowy terrors of Goya with the tumescent life of Dickens' Peter Ackroyd, The Times

‘An enthralling account… brimming over with rare and pungent characters, and tales of pathos, bravery, and horror’ Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard

THE BESTSELLING SWEDISH PHENOMENON

What looks good and why?

Design consultant Frida Ramstedt runs Scandinavia's leading interior design blog. In this book she distils the secrets of successful interior design and styling to help you create a home that works best for your space, taste and lifestyle. Filled with practical tips, rules-of-thumb and tricks of the trade, The Interior Design Handbook will help you to think like a professional designer.


'Frida has created this BIBLE to interior design ... such useful info that has taken me years to learn, all in one place' Rebecca Wakefield, Studio Fortnum

'Beautifully illustrated with handy line drawings ... The Interior Design Handbook gets down to the nitty gritty of successfully putting a room together' Fabric Magazine

'Take it to bed and you'll be utterly engrossed and elightened' Stylist

Ranging from the age of slavery to contemporary injustices, this groundbreaking history of race, gender and class inequality by the radical political activist Angela Davis offers an alternative view of female struggles for liberation.

Tracing the intertwined histories of the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, Davis examines the racism and class prejudice inherent in so much of white feminism, and in doing so brings to light new pioneering heroines, from field slaves to mill workers, who fought back and refused to accept the lives into which they were born.

'The power of her historical insights and the sweetness of her dream cannot be denied' The New York Times

*A TIME, New Yorker, Financial Times and History Today Book of the Year*

'Hilarious' Sam Leith
'I loved this book' Susie Dent'
'Witty and affectionate' Lynne Truss

Perfect for book lovers, a delightful history of the wonders to be found in the humble book index

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book - it's just where you go to look things up. But here, hiding in plain sight, is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. Here we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. This is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past. Here, for the first time, its story is told.

Charting its curious path from the monasteries and universities of thirteenth-century Europe to Silicon Valley in the twenty-first, Dennis Duncan reveals how the index has saved heretics from the stake, kept politicians from high office and made us all into the readers we are today. We follow it through German print shops and Enlightenment coffee houses, novelists' living rooms and university laboratories, encountering emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians and - of course - indexers along the way. Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart, and we have been for eight hundred years.

ECONOMIST, SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES AND GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017

'Comprehensive and compelling ... A nuanced, landmark study that has deservedly won plaudits from both Palestinian and Israeli historians' Justin Marozzi, The Times

A century after Britain's Balfour Declaration promised a Jewish 'national home' in Palestine, veteran Guardian journalist Ian Black has produced a major new history of one of the most polarising conflicts of the modern age.

Drawing on a wide range of sources - from declassified documents to oral testimonies and his own decades of reporting - Enemies and Neighbours brings much-needed perspective and balance to the long and unresolved struggle between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land.

Beginning in the final years of Ottoman ruleand the British Mandate period, when Zionist immigration transformed Palestine in the face of mounting Arab opposition, the book re-examines the origins of what was a doomed relationship from the start. It sheds fresh light on critical events such as the Arab rebellion of the 1930s; Israel's independence and the Palestinian catastrophe (Nakba in Arabic) of 1948; the watershed of the 1967 war; two Intifadas; the Oslo Accords and Israel's shift to the right. It traces how - after five decades of occupation, ever-expanding Jewish settlements and the construction of the West Bank 'separation wall' - hopes for a two-state solution have all but disappeared, and explores what the future might hold.

Yet Black also goes beyond the most newsworthy events - wars, violence and peace initiatives - to capture thereality of everyday life on the ground in Jerusalem and Hebron, Tel Aviv,Ramallah, Haifa and Gaza, for both sides of an unequal struggle. Lucid, timelyand gripping, Enemies and Neighbours illuminates a bitter conflict that shows no sign of ending - which is why it is so essential that we understand it.

*WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2023*
*A NEW YORKER BOOK OF THE YEAR*

'The best book about the subject I have ever read' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

A sweeping history of occupation and resistance in war-torn Europe, from the acclaimed author of The Eagle Unbowed

Across the whole of Nazi-ruled Europe the experience of occupation was sharply varied. Some countries - such as Denmark - were within tight limits allowed to run themselves. Others - such as France - were constrained not only by military occupation but by open collaboration. In a historical moment when Nazi victory seemed permanent and irreversible, the question 'why resist?' was therefore augmented by 'who was the enemy?'.

Resistance is an extraordinarily powerful, humane and haunting account of how and why all across Nazi-occupied Europe some people decided to resist the Third Reich. This could range from open partisan warfare in the occupied Soviet Union to dangerous acts of defiance in the Netherlands or Norway. Some of these resistance movements were entirely home-grown, others supported by the Allies.

Like no other book, Resistance shows the reader just how difficult such actions were. How could small bands of individuals undertake tasks which could lead not just to their own deaths but those of their families and their entire communities?

Filled with powerful and often little-known stories, Halik Kochanski's major new book is a fascinating examination of the convoluted challenges faced by those prepared to resist the Germans, ordinary people who carried out exceptional acts of defiance and resistance.

'A superb, myth-busting survey of the many ways in which the subjugated peoples of Europe tried to fight back' Saul David, Daily Telegraph

From the bestselling author of Stalingrad, Berlin and D-Day comes the story of the German's ill-fated final stand.

'Rich in detail and drama. Enthralling' Mail on Sunday
______________

On 16 December, 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes. He believed he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp, then force the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. Many were exultant at the prospect of striking back.

The Ardennes offensive, with more than a million men involved, became the greatest battle of the war in western Europe. American troops, taken by surprise, found themselves fighting two panzer armies. Belgian civilians fled, justifiably afraid of German revenge. Panic spread even to Paris. While many American soldiers fled or surrendered, others held on heroically, creating breakwaters which slowed the German advance.

The harsh winter conditions and the savagery of the battle became comparable to the eastern front. And after massacres by the Waffen-SS, even American generals approved when their men shot down surrendering Germans. The Ardennes was the battle which finally broke the back of the Wehrmacht.
______________

'If you're a fan of Beevor's work, find some space on your bookshelf for this one. If you've never read him before, start here and work your way back - it's history nerd heaven!' History of War Magazine

'Beevor weaves a brilliant narrative out of all this drama. As in his previous books, his gifts are strongest in focusing on telling details from different perspectives . . . A vital historical insight' Sunday Times

'A sweeping, sobering read, written with all the confidence and aplomb that Beevor fans would expect. Beevor is as good on the rows behind the front lines as he is on the battles themselves' Independent

Geert Mak spent the year 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, St Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the condition of Europe at the verge of a new millennium.

The result is mesmerising: Mak's rare double talent as a sharp-eyed journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes In Europe a dazzling account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, and the voices of prominent figures and unknown players; from the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Adriana Warno in Poland, with her holiday job at the gates of the camp at Birkenau.

But Mak is above all an observer. He describes what he sees at places that have become Europe's well-springs of memory, where history is written into the landscape. At Ypres he hears the blast of munitions from the Great War that are still detonated twice a day. In Warsaw he finds the point where the tram rails that led to the Jewish ghetto come to a dead end in a city park. And in an abandoned crèche near Chernobyl, where tiny pairs of shoes still stand in neat rows, he is transported back to the moment time stood still in the dying days of the Soviet Union.

Mak combines the larger story of twentieth-century Europe with details that suddenly give it a face, a taste and a smell. His unique approach makes the reader an eyewitness to his own half-forgotten past, full of unknown peculiarities, sudden insights and touching encounters. In Europe is a masterpiece; it reads like the epic novel of the continent's most extraordinary century.

The perfect Father's Day gift

Tolkien's One Ring, at the centre of one of the greatest fantasy tales ever told, is an undeniably iconic and powerful symbol in literature.

Tracing centuries of ancient folklore, The Ring Legends of Tolkien is a deep and highly informed investigation into the inspiration behind Tolkien's epic fantasy world, exploring the origins of the One Ring, as well as the extraordinary myths and legends that inspired Tolkien's works.



This work is unofficial and is not authorized by the Tolkien Estate or HarperCollins Publishers.

From the bestselling author of the Ibis trilogy and The Great Derangement, The Nutmeg's Curse is an enthralling, panoramic history of the influence of colonialism on the world today, told through the surprising story of the nutmeg.

Words are grained into our landscapes, and landscapes are grained into our words. Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. This is a guide to literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to describe land, nature and weather.

The idea of a single devine being - God, Yahweh, Allah - has existed for over 4,000 years. But the history of God is also the history of human struggle. While Judaism, Islam and Christianity proclaim the goodness of God, organised religion has too often been the catalyst for violence and ineradicable prejudice.

In this fascinating, extensive and original account of the evolution of belief, Karen Armstrong examines Western society's unerring fidelity to this idea of One God and the many conflicting convictions it engenders. A controversial, extraordinary story of worship and war, A History of God confronts the most fundamental fact - or fiction - of our lives.

Het verhaal achter het legendarische automerk, met spectaculaire foto's, toelichting bij de verschillende modellen en een uitgebreide geschiedenis, voor echte Ferrari-liefhebbers.

If you think art history has to be pale, male and stale - think again.

This illustrated introduction to the history of China offers a fresh understanding of China’s progress from the Neolithic age to the present. Told in six chapters arranged chronologically, through art, artefacts, people and places, and richly illustrated with expertly selected objects and artworks, it firmly connects today’s China with its internationally engaged past. From the earliest archaeological relics and rituals, through the development of writing and state, to the advent of empire, the author charts China’s transformation from ancient civilization into the world’s most populous nation and influential economy, offering the reader a myriad historical insights and cultural treasures along the way. This accessible book presents an eclectic mix of materials including Chinese theatre, the decorative arts, costume, jewelry and furniture-making, running through to the most recent diffusion of Chinese culture. Published to coincide with the reopening of the British Museum’s Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia, this book will stimulate, fascinate and inform anyone interested in one of the greatest and most influential nations of the modern world.

A revised and updated edition of this seminal title, surveying the diverse, ever-evolving field of contemporary African art from the 1950s to now.

What inspires explorers to push back the boundaries of the known world? Why do they risk their lives in unforgiving conditions far from home? How do they survive at the limits of human endurance? Who are the great pioneers of land, sea and space? Where next? This book charts the great expeditions of forty of the world’s most intrepid explorers, from da Gama to Gagarin. Gertrude Bell plotted the desert sands, politics and poetry of Arabia; Francis Garnier was driven almost insane on the banks of the Mekong; Edward Wilson twice tried to reach the South Pole with Scott; Nain Singh mapped the vast spaces of Tibet, counting every step. Written by a host of distinguished travel writers, broadcasters and historians, here are journeys to savour from every corner of the earth – and beyond.

Crumbling ruins, undead fiends, dark alleys and forests teeming with horrors seen and unseen: the tendrils of the Gothic have crept out of the architecture of churches, mosques and grand houses and into suburban malls, overcrowded cities, the deserted corners of the world and beyond, taking the shape of monsters from Beowulf to Gojira, Cthulhu or the wendigo to our own terrifying, warped reflections. Across time, form and media, this book traces the weaving path of the Gothic from the shadows of history to the very heart of popular culture today. With over 350 illustrations

The remarkable story of the Knights Templar – the wealthiest, most powerful and most secretive of the military orders that flourished in the crusading era.

Celebrate the culture and fanaticism of book lovers with beloved illustrator Grant Snider’s I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf, a full-color graphic novel celebrating books, authors, and reading. With a striking package including a die-cut cover, it’s the perfect addition to any reader's bookshelf.

In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics.

"This is a delightful and humorous collection of comics about the joys of being a book lover, from collecting large amounts of books to (sometimes) getting around to reading them.”—Book Riot

“With I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf, Snider—an artist, writer and orthodontist—has gathered up a decade’s worth of his comics for boisterous bookworms into one convenient volume. Snider’s thoughtful cartoons for bibliophiles also reveal he’s a well-rounded reader himself.” —New York Times Book Review

“I confess:
I’m in love with books.
I read in social situations.
I will use anything as a bookmark.
I confuse fiction with reality.
I am wanted for unpaid library fines.
I steal books from my children.
I like my realism with a little bit of magic.
I like to sniff old books.”

From its founding in Florence in 1921 as luggage supplier to the elite to its modern standing as purveyor of cult accessories and couture, the house of Gucci is a titan of the luxury fashion world. Over the last century, Gucci's signature leather goods and decadent garments have elegantly combined the understated with the opulent, united under the covetable double G logo. Little Book of Gucci tells the story of the brand's beginnings as a luxury luggage and equestrian outfitter, recounting how the family overcame rifts and wartime hardship to be reborn as a giant of 1990s haute couture and, under Alessandro Michele's current stewardship, made its mark on streetwear and a new generation of fans. Over 100 gorgeously curated images showcase Gucci's edgy yet sensual designs, confirming its place as the most influential label of our times.

From the author of The Changing Mind and The Organized Mind comes The New York Times bestseller which unravels the mystery of our perennial love affair with music

*****

'What do the music of Bach, Depeche Mode and John Cage fundamentally have in common?'

Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language.

From Mozart to the Beatles, neuroscientist, psychologist and internationally-bestselling author Daniel Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience.

In This Is Your Brain On Music Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand music, and what it can teach us about ourselves.

*****

'Music seems to have an almost wilful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know . . . Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox' Sting

'You'll never hear music in the same way again' Classic FM magazine

'Music, Levitin argues, is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development' Literary Review

In 1568 the Seventeen Provinces in the Netherlands rebelled against the colonial rule of the king of Spain. A confederation of duchies, counties and lordships, they demanded the right of self-determination, the freedom of conscience and religion, and the right to be represented in government. Their long struggle for liberty and the subsequent rise of the Dutch Republic was a decisive episode in world history and an important step on the path to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his compelling retelling of the conflict, Anton van der Lem explores the main issues at stake on both sides of the struggle and why it took eighty years to achieve peace. He recounts in vivid detail the roles of the key protagonists, the decisive battles and the war’s major turning points, from the Spanish governor’s Council Of Blood to the Twelve Years Truce, while all the time unraveling the shifting political, religious and military alliances that would entangle the foreign powers of France, Italy and England. Featuring striking illustrations that have rarely been seen before, this is a timely and balanced account of one of the most historically important conflicts of the early modern period.

THE NO. 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, NOW A MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES

'Reminds us that the mind is the greatest mystery in the universe' Yuval Noah Harari, Guardian, Books of the Year

Could psychedelic drugs change our worldview? Join Michael Pollan on a journey to the frontiers of the human mind.

Diving deep into an extraordinary world - from shamans and magic mushroom hunts to the pioneering labs mapping our brains - and putting himself forward as a guinea-pig, Michael Pollan has written a remarkable history of psychedelics and a compelling portrait of the new generation of scientists fascinated by the implications of these drugs. How to Change Your Mind is a report from what could very well be the future of consciousness.

'A sweeping and often thrilling chronicle of the history of psychedelics, all interwoven with Pollan's adventures as a psychedelic novice. This is a serious work of history and science, but also one in which the author, under the influence of toad venom, becomes convinced he's giving birth to himself' Oliver Burkeman, Guardian

'A mind-altering book ... full of transformations' Richard Godwin, Evening Standard

'An irresistible blend of history, research and personal experience. In terms of the psychedelic wave, the book is the big kahuna, the Big Bang moment for a movement that is gathering force' John McKenna, Irish Times

'Entertaining and engrossing' Paul Laity, Financial Times

'Deeply absorbing, wise and beautifully written' Mick Brown, Literary Review

'An astounding book' Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine

Chinese ceramics are among the most significant and widely collected decorative arts produced anywhere in the world, with a history that spans millennia. Despite the saturation of Chinese ceramics in global culture—in English, the word “china” has become synonymous with “porcelain”—the function of these works and the meaning of their often richly decorated surfaces are not always readily apparent. This new installment in the successful How to Read series enlightens readers on Chinese ceramics of all kinds, using highlights from the outstanding collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a teaching tool. Accessible to a general audience and written by an expert on the subject, this book explains and interprets 40 masterworks of Chinese ceramics. The works represent a broad range of subject matter and type, from ancient earthenware to 20th-century porcelain, and from plates and bowls to vases and sculptural figures. Lavish illustrations showcase these stunning works and the decorations that adorn them, including symbolic scenes, flowers, and Buddhist and Chinese historical figures. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

A major reassessment of Germaine Richier's work and impact on 20th-century sculpture. Germaine Richier (1902–59) occupies a central position in the history of modern sculpture. Predominantly working in bronze, her art revitalized the form of the figure, forging radical new images of men and women in the post-war period which blended the human body and natural forms in a hybrid of abstraction and figuration. As the first woman artist to have a solo exhibition in her own lifetime at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, she held a unique position in the 1940s and 50s as a successful female career artist, exhibiting internationally and developing a style that has been largely overshadowed by the predominant male canon. This major reassessment of Richier’s complete oeuvre establishes her key position within the artistic context of her time and, more broadly, her influential impact on 20th-century sculpture. Writers including Mika Biermann, Marie Darrieussecq, Maryline Desbiolles and Philippe Lançon, the philosopher Geneviève Fraisse, the anthropologist Charles Stépanoff and the artist ORLAN, evaluate the contemporary resonance of Richier’s creations, where her themes of identity, existence and our relationship with nature are increasingly relevant today. An anthology of the artist’s own writings, plus extracts from previously unpublished letters, complete this definitive volume, marking a long overdue appreciation of Germaine Richier’s distinct artistic originality.

Een indrukwekkend verslag van monumentale kastelen en paleizen in Europa, met prachtige foto's, fascinerende geschiedenis en heldere uitleg over de ontwikkeling en bouw.

Earthly DelightsArt critic and writer Jonathan Jones tells the story of Renaissance artists as pioneers, adventurers and "geniuses," a Renaissance concept. Albrecht Dürer gazes with wonder on Aztec art in Brussels in 1520, Leonardo da Vinci tries to perfect a flying machine, Hieronymus Bosch finds inspiration in West African ivory carvings imported by the Portuguese to Antwerp. A then unknown Netherlandish painter, Pieter Bruegel, arrives in 1550s Rome just as Michelangelo is striving in the same city to raise the new St Peter’s Basilica towards heaven. From Atlantic voyages to Germanic woods, Italian palazzi to the royal castle of Prague, this was an age when people dared to experiment with the occult and dabble in utopias: to think and create new worlds.

'Ken Follett can't write a bad book, and Never is his best' – Stephen King

Expertly researched and visionary in scale, international no. 1 bestseller Ken Follett’s Never is more than a thriller. It imagines a World War Three scenario we all hope never comes true, one which will keep you transfixed until the final page . . .

A stolen US army drone.
A shrinking oasis in the Sahara Desert.
A secret stash of deadly chemicals.

Each is a threat to global stability. Each can be overcome with only the highest levels of diplomacy. But when those in charge disagree and refuse to back down, an international chain reaction kicks off with potentially catastrophic consequences: a world edging closer to war . . .

Now three people must work with the utmost skill to stop that from happening:

A spy working undercover with jihadis.
A brilliant Chinese spymaster.
A US president beleaguered by a populist rival for the next election.

The only question is – in a game of brinksmanship, can the inevitable ever be stopped?

'Bold in scale and meticulously researched' – Sunday Times Thriller of the Month

'Stunning . . . one of the most compelling reads of the year' – Daily Express

'Urgent and fiercely compelling’ – Washington Post

More than 175 million copies sold worldwide. Published in over eighty territories and thirty-seven languages. The international no.1 bestselling phenomenon returns.

God: An Anatomy is cultural history and often controversial examination of the real God of the Bible.

This beautifully illustrated book brings to life the greatest treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Fifty of the most important objects on display today are each accompanied by a short, accessible text giving the reader just enough information to understand their relevance and importance while retaining a sense of wonder at these ancient artefacts. Each carefully selected object is presented with a full-page colour image and a facing text explaining what the object is, where it was found and why it was buried with the young Pharaoh. There are quotes throughout the text from Howard Carter on his discovery of the tomb in 1922. An introduction by the esteemed Egyptologist Garry Shaw gives a brief overview of the history of ancient Egypt and sets out what we know about the life and times of the young king. He offers a graphic depiction of the dramatic story of the discovery and opening of the tomb by Howard Carter in 1922, and touches on the latest theories and scientific work that has taken place, as well as explaining what is still left to be discovered and the controversial nature of some of the latest interpretations. This is the perfect pocket-sized companion for anyone visiting the Tutankhamun exhibition travelling around the world, the New Egyptian Museum in Giza or any of the renowned collections of Egyptology in museums across the world. With 92 illustrations, 80 in colour

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of the 'Five Best Books to understand the Israel-Palestine Conflict', as chosen by the GuardianShortlisted for the 2020 Cundill History PrizeA Granta Book of the Year 2023'This cogent and compelling Palestinian perspective is long overdue' Guardian'Riveting and original ... a work enriched by solid scholarship, vivid personal experience, and acute appreciation of the concerns and aspirations of the contending parties in this deeply unequal conflict ' Noam ChomskyThe twentieth century for Palestine and the Palestinians has been a century of denial: denial of statehood, denial of nationhood and denial of history. The Hundred Years War on Palestine is Rashid Khalidi's powerful response. Drawing on his family archives, he reclaims the fundamental right of any people: to narrate their history on their own terms. Beginning in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, Khalidi reveals nascent Palestinian nationalism and the broad recognition by the early Zionists of the colonial nature of their project. These ideas and their echoes defend Nakba - the Palestinian term for the establishment of the state of Israel - the cession of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, the Six Day War and the occupation. Moving through these critical moments, Khalidi interweaves the voices of journalists, poets and resistance leaders with his own accounts as a child of a UN official and a resident of Beirut during the 1982 seige. The result is a profoundly moving account of a hundred-year-long war of occupation, dispossession and colonialisation.

The story of our Universe, from its beginning in the first milliseconds of the Big Bang right up to our present moment and beyond, told in a gripping narrative. We have entered a new age of exploration and discovery, enabling us to probe ever more distant reaches of space and greatly advance our knowledge of the Universe. Today, telescopes peer not only into outer space, but also into the deep past. Paul Murdin takes us on an original and breathtaking journey across the lifetime of the Universe, from the first milliseconds of the Big Bang right up to our present moment and even beyond. Murdin draws on the latest discoveries in astronomy to describe the most important characters and events in the life of our Universe: the most powerful explosions, the most curious planets, and the most spectacular celestial bodies. He charts our developing understanding of the cosmos, showing how thinkers have deduced profound truths from even the simplest observations – everyone can see that it is dark at night, but only recently have we understood this as proof that the Universe has not been the same forever. Since then, the Universe has grown up from childhood: astronomers have tracked it as it passed through maturity and as it now moves into middle age. Murdin shows how our own lives were seeded from the Big Bang, galaxies, stars and planets. He considers some of the key questions: how did structures like galaxies and ourselves emerge from the dense maelstrom of the Universe’s birth? How did the ‘dark matter’ that we can’t even see speed up the development of galaxies, and how does ‘dark energy’ work to speed up the expansion of the Universe? Why hasn’t the Universe collapsed in on itself – and will it one day? And finally, he offers a glimpse into the future old age of our Universe, and what it means for us all.

Created in collaboration with the British Museum, this richly illustrated volume displays the arts, histories, and cultures of Southeast Asia from about 6,000 years ago to the twenty-first century, covering modern-day Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, Brunei, the Philippines, and Singapore. The incredible diversity of the region appears through the ancient sculptures of Java, Bagan, Angkor, and Sukhothai, paintings, ceramics, silver, ritual objects, basketry, textiles, and contemporary art.Southeast Asia: A History in ObjectsExploring topics like the monuments of Angkor Wat and Borobudur, the spirits of the Philippines, funerary figures of the Toraja people, the narrative paintings of Bali, and the musical instruments and shadow puppets of Java and Thailand, this volume is an informative visual treat for curious minds, historians, and cultural adventurers everywhere.

Arranged in a handy A-Z format, A Dictionary of Tolkien explores and explains the creatures, plants, events and places that make up these strange and wonderful lands. It is essential reading for anyone who loves Tolkien's works and wants to learn more about them. This book is unofficial and is not authorised by the Tolkien Estate or HarperCollins Publishers.

This handy guide to the Greek and Roman Myths brings classical mythology to life. Written by a bestselling author on Ancient Greece and Rome, the book features an engaging blend of stories, facts and quotations from ancient authors, and places ancient myths in a modern context, discussing the ‘afterlives’ of the myths and the relevance of their messages today. Factfiles on heroes and heroines and family trees of the gods also make this a useful reference book for students.