Military history Books

In Great at Heart Gavin Long finally gets the biography he richly deserves.While Charles Bean is the subject of several major biographies, this is the first life story of his acolyte, war correspondent and editor and principal author of the official...

The members of the Australian battalion of Gull Force endured some of the harshest prisoner of war conditions of any Australian during the Second World War.In February 1942, on the remote island of Ambon in Indonesia, 1150 Australian soldiers were...

The first ever puzzle book from FlightRadar24 At any one time there are nearly 20,000 flights in the sky, and more than 75 million flights a year – and, since 2006, the website Flightradar24 has kept its beady eye on them all. For the first time ever,...

An astonishing tale of romance, resistance and bravery‘A sad and beautiful book, shining a light on quiet heroism in dark times.’ Lucy Adlington, New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmakers of Auschwitz Sabine’s War is the previously untold...

A Times History Book of the Year 2022From Sunday Times bestselling historian Saul David, the dramatic tale of the first American troops to take the fight to the enemy in the Second World War, and also the last. The ‘Devil Dogs’ of K Company, 3/5...

‘Lucid and damning … an absorbing – and infuriating – tale of complicity, coverup and denial’ PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of EMPIRE OF PAINA groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third...

From the Arizona Congressman, a "powerful" and "searing" (PW) chronicle of the eternal bonds forged between the Marines of Lima Company, the hardest-hit unit of the Iraq WarAt first, they were “Lucky Lima.” Infantryman Ruben Gallego and his brothers in...

In 1914, despite being forbidden, many a Kiwi soldier's kitbag included a portable camera known as 'The Soldier's Kodak'. The images they recorded form the basis of this poignant collection of our soldiers from the First World War. In a major research...

‘Among the most moving documents I have read in years … You will not forget it’ Elie Wiesel From her small, sunny hometown between the beautiful Carpathian Mountains and the blue Danube River, Elli Friedmann was taken – at a time when most girls are...

"Magnificently researched, brilliantly written, Lethal Tides is immensely entertaining and reads like an action novel. Catherine Musemeche has brought to life the incredible work of the scientists and researchers who made such a remarkable...

(Previously published as ‘After the Flood’)Former RAF Tornado Navigator and Gulf War veteran John Nichol sets out on a personal journey to discover what happened to 617 Squadron after the flood. RAF 617 Squadron’s destruction of the dams at the heart of...

The authors of The Bright Ages return with a real-life Game of Thrones—the story of the Carolingian Civil War, a bloody, protracted battle pitting brother against brother, father against son, that would end an empire, upend a continent, and redefine...

A gripping memoir by a former NZSAS commander on serving in Afghanistan over four deployments and operating at the edge of his limits 'Frighteningly, devastatingly real.' - The Post In 2011, following the Taliban siege on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel,...

With a new foreword by Viet Thanh NguyenA beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's speech "Beyond Vietnam,” part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins.At New York City's Riverside Church in 1967, Dr. King...

‘A lyrical investigation … both powerful and transcendent’ CHIGOZIE OBIOMA‘Acutely observed, hauntingly rendered and deeply affecting’ AMINATTA FORNA‘Both epic and intimate’ MARGO JEFFERSONAn astonishing search for a missing person, the hidden tragedies...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"A fast-paced debut...Espionage buffs will savor this vibrant account." - Publishers Weekly A U.S. naval counterintelligence officer working to safeguard Pearl Harbor; a Japanese spy ordered to Hawaii to gather information on...

"A beguiling tale of espionage and double-dealing in the years leading up to World War II. ... Strap in for a narrative that demands a suspension of disbelief—and richly rewards it." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review); Best Books of February...

The Iraq War’s only living Medal of Honor recipient reveals the untold story of the remarkable brotherhood behind one of the war’s legendary acts of valor In 2004, he stormed an enemy stronghold to save his platoon. Fourteen years later, his unit...

‘Excellent’ Antony Beevor‘Saul David is a brilliant historian … In shocking and jaw-dropping detail, he brings a battle that deserves far greater prominence and understanding vividly back to life’ James Holland From award-winning historian Saul David,...

The Sunday Times bestseller‘An utterly engrossing book’ Nigella Lawson‘Remarkable and gripping’ Edmund de Waal'A near-perfect study of Jewish identity in the 20th century … I don’t hesitate to call it a masterpiece’ Telegraph After her grandmother died,...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA masterly history of the Dambusters raid from bestselling and critically acclaimed Max Hastings. Operation Chastise was one of the most extraordinary episodes of the Second World War, yet it has also become one of the most...

NUMBER 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERNo one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life’s challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership. In First Man In, he shares the core lessons he’s learned over...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The definitive history of combat aviation and fighter aircraft, from World War I to present INCLUDES 32 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND 12 MAPSLords of the Sky is the “dramatic, fast-paced, and definitive" (Michael...

The gripping true story of the woman who became the Gestapo's most wanted spy In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a naïve,...

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen;...

This epic book, spanning two continents, recounts the story of three generations of two families whose lives unexpectedly intersect in their adopted country. Beautifully capturing the loss faced when war dislocates families, it also tells of the...

Harry Peters - formerly Hermann Ludwig Pollnow, known to his family as Mutzi - was born in Berlin in 1920. As a teenager, he fled Nazi Germany and landed in rural Australia. Harry's parents, Max and Edith, stayed and perished in Nazi camps.This story, of...

*Victorian Community History Awards : History Publication Commendation*Save Our Sons tells for the first time the full story of the Save Our Sons movement of Australian women who banded together to oppose conscription during the Vietnam War.In 1965,...

The story of the 'Dunera Boys' is an intrinsic part of the historyof Australia in the Second World War and in its aftermath. The injustice these2000 men suffered through British internment in camps at Hay, Tatura and Orangeis well known. Less familiar is...

In this collection Freda Hodge retrieves early voices of Holocaust survivors. Men, women and children relate experiences of deportation and ghettoisation, forced labour camps and death camps, death marches and liberation. Such eye-witness accounts...

The Ypres salient 'was the favourite battle ground of the devil and his minions' wrote one returned serviceman after the First World War. Few who fought in the infamous third battle of Ypres now known as Passchendaele in 1917 would have...

The Emperor's Grace is the story of the men of "C" Force the first contingent of Australian, British and Dutch POWs shipped from Singapore to Japan in November 1942 who worked in the Kawasaki Shipyard in Kobe before the...

Camouflage Australia provides international context for the historical circumstances and events of the organisation of camouflage in World War II in Australia and the Pacific region. She elaborates on the parallel involvement of British and American...

The internment camp on Rottnest Island, established for enemy aliens from Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I, can be considered a historical oddity, not least because Indigenous prisoners were also held captive there by Australian soldiers...

The Shipwrecks of the Roaring 40s project was funded by the Australian Research Council to investigate some of the earliest and most important shipwrecks in Western Australia, including the four Dutch East Indiamen wrecked in the 17th and 18th centuries...

In New Guinea’s jungles, a fierce battle turned the tide of the Pacific War—the first major land defeat for the unstoppable Japanese forces.By mid-August 1942, Imperial Japanese forces dominated the Southeast Asian and Pacific theatres, seemingly...

"From the skies over war-torn Europe to the opulent halls of English nobility, Edward Bagot's journey is a riveting testament to courage, heritage, and unwavering faith." Edward Bagot’s memoir offers a unique personal perspective on World War II,...

Wing Commander Vic Hodgkinson DFC served as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force throughout WWII. Starting in 1939, he was a founding member of 10 Squadron RAAF, operating Short Sunderland flying boats. Loaned to the RAF in early 1940, the squadron...

With the Australian troops crossing of the Kumusi River in mid-November 1942, after pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track to the north coast of Papua New Guinea, the time had come to face the entrenched Japanese at their beachhead at Gona,...

Forgotten men and women from Australia in a forgotten war – Burma 1942-1945.If you didn’t know that Australians were involved in the longest campaign of WWII, in Burma, in what was called ‘a forgotten war’, this book illuminates the lost stories of their...

This fiercely funny memoir is set in Melbourne during the 1940s. The entrenched Protestant–Catholic divide of those times informs the narrative. Juxtaposed is the gulf between Melburnians and the thousands of Yanks stationed in their city following Pearl...

On 22nd April 1995, more than 4,000 Rwandans were massacred and thousands more injured in a place called Kibeho. Terry Pickard, a seasoned soldier and medic, was one of a 32-strong force of Australian UN peacekeepers present on that terrible Saturday...

Between 1946 and 1966 large numbers of displaced persons (DPs) came to Australia to escape the horrors of war-torn Europe. Peter Brune’s latest work had its genesis in more than 40 interviews he conducted with DPs in the period 2001—2022. He spoke to...

With the Australian troops crossing of the Kumusi River in mid-November 1942, after pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track to the north coast of Papua New Guinea, the time had come to face the entrenched Japanese at their beachheads at Gona,...

The inaugural Royal Australian Air Force Oral Histories series publication, First Nations Aviators, will introduce you to a number of First Nations People who have proudly served the Air Force, in various capacities, from the Second World War through to...