History & Archaeology Books

**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER**   The book that inspired Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed TV series, produced by Tom Hanks and starring Damian Lewis.   In Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose pays tribute to the men of Easy Company, a crack...

“Perlstein...aims here at nothing less than weaving a tapestry of social upheaval. His success is dazzling.” —Los Angeles Times“Both brilliant and fun, a consuming journey back into the making of modern politics.” —Jon Meacham“Nixonland is a grand...

In Seize the Fire, Richard Flanagan argues that Australia is not a fixed entity, but a molten idea - a country with a future that is ours to shape and ours to dream anew.Australia is not a fixed entity, a collection of outdated bigotries and reactionary...

Over the past 2000 years London has developed from a small town, fitting snugly within its walls, into one of the world's largest and most dynamic cities. This book illustrates and helps to explain the transformation. Side-by-side with the great,...

The sea monsters on medieval and Renaissance maps, whether swimming vigorously, gambolling amid the waves, attacking ships, or simply displaying themselves for our appreciation, are one of the most visually engaging elements on these maps, and yet they...

'The absence of Beard is usually a sign of physical and moral weakness.' 'Take two drawings of the head of a lion, one with and the other without the mane. You will see how much of the majesty of the king of the woods, as well as that of the lord of the...

The ways of war in the Middle Ages never cease to fascinate. There is a glamour associated with knights in shining armour, colourful tournaments and heroic deeds which appeals to the modern imagination. Because medieval warfare had its colourful side it...

Far below, through the moonlit wood, the lake was visible again and the Island in it. Dim, like a phantom ship, it lay in the silver waters and from the nearer end of it shone a narrow rectangle of light... so dull and red and smoky looking that it...

A Pygmalion-style story told with von Arnim's characteristic wit and charm, this novel introduces us to Salvatia (known as Sally), a much longed-for child to humble shopkeepers. Sally grows up to be an extremely beautiful girl, attracting the attentions...

Miss Cullen finds herself in a dreadful predicament. Four years from retirement, she can no longer meet the educational standards expected nor control her pupils at Besley High School for girls. She knows that no other school will hire her now, but if...

She got up, without meeting his eyes, and went into the bedroom to dress. That was life all over; you wanted to make a good exit, and you remembered you were still in your housecoat.Single girl Liza leaps into an exciting new sexual relationship with...

Enjoy daily distraction with this engaging Almanac. Each date is assigned one or more literary connections. Book lovers will find extracts from authors' diaries and letters, chance upon the narrative twists and transformative moments in their favourite...

'There was no one in the room. Blinds and curtains were closed; the light of the skies, if any, was shut out. ... Only the fire was alive, consuming its life-for what? Then the door opened and as Claudia came with hurried steps into the fire's glow, two...

'Joanna sat with her cheek against her [Libby's] shining hair. She had hardly thought of Steven since he slammed his way out of the house, but now, welling up within her and pouring out over her love for Libby, came an intolerable flood of envy.' Widowed...

"May I ask your daughter's age?" "Nan is thirty-three.""A dangerous age."Rose Macaulay takes a lively and perceptive look at three generations of women within the same family and the 'dangers' faced at each of those stages in life. The book opens with...

She had saved her. But at what a cost! Her position, her name, her character she had given them all, but Clarissa was hers. Upon the death of her mother, Agatha Bodenham finds herself alone for the first time in her life. Solitary and socially awkward by...

"I shall turn this into a tea-house, with lunches if requested, and shall serve pleasant meals in the orchard," announced David, "and with my penchant for cooking I ought to make a fortune." "Oh dear!" said Germayne.David Tompkins thinks it is a splendid...

Few if any alcoholic drinks have the dramatic and multi-faceted history of gin. In this fascinating new instalment of the British Library's pocket philosophies, gin is explored through its origins in Holland, where it was popularised by William of...

Julia Almond believes she is special and dreams of a more exciting and glamorous life away from the drab suburbia of her upbringing. Her work in a fashionable boutique in the West End gives her the personal freedom that she craves but escape from her...

Have you ever wondered about the difference between a lager and an ale? Or marvelled at how, with only four basic ingredients, there are around 150 different styles of beer?In The Philosophy of Beer, Jane Peyton, the UK's first Beer Sommelier of the...

'Sometimes I think that was the happiest day of my life, those hours of heat and silence and colour, along with David high up on the moor. But then I remember that I have said that of many other days, so I cannot be sure.'A female narrator looks back on...

"'You don't mean you're going to divorce him?' Miss Spanner said with horror."A sophisticated, emotive novel, Chatterton Square concerns the complex web of relationships between two neighbouring families, the Blacketts and the Frasers. Framed by the...

My Husband Simon tells the story of the married life of Nevis Falconer, a young woman novelist, and Simon Quinn. Temperamentally unsuited, they are only kept together by a mutual physical attraction, in spite of innumerable quarrels. They live this...

The Tree of Heaven follows the fortunes of the Harrison family as the children grow up in the shadow of the First World War and Dorothy's brothers go off, one by one, to the trenches, while she becomes involved with the suffrage movement, and later joins...

When her bohemian life in Paris falls flat at the beginning of the First World War, Sally Lunton returns to the care of her guardian in Little Crampton to find a husband. With some encouragement from the local busybody, she makes a play for Mr Bingley,...

Throughout the Middle Ages, medieval manuscripts often featured dogs, from beautiful and loving depictions of man's best friend, to bloodthirsty illustrations of savage beasts, to more whimsical and humorous interpretations. Featuring stunning...

Throughout history people have sought ways in which to map the heavens. From the sources of mathematics and mythology sprang the classic star chart, the finest examples of which are both scientific documents and works of art. In this beautifully...

The art of predicting earthly events from the movements of stars and planets has always been a source of fascination. Medieval astrologers, though sometimes feared to be magicians in league with demons, were usually revered scholars whose ideas and...

Winner of Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year 2016They would be better dead, they said, than set adrift upon the world. But set adrift they were - thousands of them, their communities destroyed, their homes demolished and burned.Such were the...

Gadigal Country, Woolloomooloo Farm, Riley Estate, Burdekin's paddock, Burlington Picture Palace, First Church of Christ Scientist, party mansion, Yirranma Place.The many transformations of 262 Liverpool Street, lying at the corner of Forbes Street in...

Take a trip down memory lane with Bob Byrne ...Remember loading up the back of the car and heading away with the family over the summer holidays? Being part of Beatlemania when the group toured in '64? Watching Dennis Lillee deliver a stinging bouncer in...

Documentary photography offers one way of looking, but this type of looking is also about feeling. It is a style of making photographs designed to draw people into the world and activate their interest in something beyond themselves.Australian...

Wales is a land with a vast wealth of ghost stories, including fantastical animals, flickering death omens and unseen things that go bump in the night. Whether these tales are based on true events, or are the creations of active imaginations, is known...

When and how did we humans lose our connection with nature and how do we find it again?Matthew Yeomans seeks to answer these questions as he walks more than 300 miles through the ancient and modern forests of Wales, losing himself in their stories (and...

This is the first full-length study of the material and visual culture of the British labour movement in almost half a century. It draws together the fruits of recent research into a comprehensive material and visual analysis of the nineteenth-century...

In 2020 and 2021, at the height of the Covid pandemic, Gwrych Castle was familiar to the British public as the setting of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Lesser known is that, at the beginning of the Second World War, this once-grand country house...

The Society for the Reformation of Manners in Hull was formed in 1698 by religiously-inspired mariners, merchants and tradesmen who aimed to hinder the spread of sin and wickedness in their town. Their methods included initiating prosecutions against...

"A trailblazer in the field of premodern global history, Andrea here guides readers through the medieval expansion of the 'first Europe' from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries. Ranging from Ireland to Ethiopia, from the Mongol Empire to the so-called...

Batik occupies a special place in Indonesian culture. Each fabric has a rich story to tell-as a reflection of the nation's religious beliefs (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam), sophisticated court cultures and cosmopolitan history (that...

In Tir the Welsh word for 'land' writer and ecologist Carwyn Graves takes us on a tour of seven key elements of the Welsh landscape, such as the ffridd, or mountain pasture, and the rhos, or wild moorland. By diving deep into the history and ecology of...

What does Australia's military history reveal about us?In Beyond The Broken Years fifty years after The Broken Years, Bill Gammage's classic on World War One soldiers, was published provocative military historian Peter Stanley argues why it's vital for...

Indigenous artists from across the planet provide truth-telling about the past and inspiration to imagine better futures.marramarra (a Wiradjuri word meaning to create, make or do) explores how contemporary Indigenous artists and their communities are...

My hair is a statement and always will be, even when I no longer have any.The social revolution of the Swinging Sixties led to a renaissance of unchecked hair growth, and long hair, especially on men, was worn as a political or countercultural symbol of...

Opechancanough was born in the 1540s, as was his brother, Wahunsenacawh, better known as Powhatan, the Indian King and father of Pocahontas. Opechancanough lived near the location of the English settlement of Jamestown when John Smith and company built a...

From the Watergate scandal, deposition of Haile Selassie and the expulsion of Solzhenitsyn from the Soviet Union, to ABBA's landmark victory at the Eurovision Song Contest and the production of the very first Volkswagen Golf - a concise,...

Do you wonder if that family legend your grandparents told was true? Or have you never known much about your family history and would like to find out more?The Family History Book takes you through the steps of researching and building a family tree,...