Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) was one of the major Latin American writers of the twentieth century, as well as a classically trained pianist and musicologist. His best-known novels are The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral, and The Kingdom of This World. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and raised in Havana, Cuba, Carpentier lived for many years in France and Venezuela before returning to Cuba after the 1959 revolution. A few years later he returned to France, where he lived until his death.

Alejo Carpentier

Dr Aleks Krotoski is an award-winning international broadcaster, author and academic. She has topped the ratings for the BBC and Channel 4, winning Emmy, BAFTA, Radio Academy and Royal Society awards, and has written and presented landmark technology and social science series for both radio (with BBC Radio 4’s The Artificial Human and The Digital Human) and international television (with BBC World’s The Virtual Revolution). Krotoski has held fellowships at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and received an honorary doctorate from the Open University. She currently teaches at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Aleks Krotoski

Aleksandar Ciric

Aleksandar Sotirovski

Aleksandar Zolotic

Aleksandr Orlov

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 and grew up in Rostov-on-Don. He graduated in Physics and Mathematics from Rostov University and studied Literature by correspondence course at Moscow University. In World War II he fought as an artillery officer, attaining the rank of captain. In 1945, however, after making derogatory remarks about Stalin in a letter, he was arrested and summarily sentenced to eight years in forced labour camps, followed by internal exile. In 1957 he formally rehabilitated, and settled down to teaching and writing, in Ryazan and Moscow. The publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in Novy Mir in 1962 was followed by publication, in the West, of his novels Cancer Ward and The First Circle. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in 1974 his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the Soviet Union. He settled in Vermont and worked on his great historical cycle The Red Wheel. In 1990, with the fall of Soviet Communism, his citizenship was restored and four years later he returned to settle in Russia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died in August 2008.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksei Bitskoff

Aleksei Evdokimo

Aleksi Hoffman

Alena Tkach is an award-winning Ukrainian freelance illustrator who studied Graphic Arts at Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. She works mostly as children’s book illustrator and 2D artist. Alena loves llamas because they are cute and sweet, and when they jump it's really funny. Follow Alena on Instagram @alena.tkach.

Alena Tkach

Alessandra Peters

Alessandro Manzoni

Alex Bellos

Alex Bellos is a journalist, broadcaster and puzzle master. He read Mathematics and Philosophy at Oxford University before becoming a journalist and writer. Alex was born in Oxford and grew up in Edinburgh and Southampton and lived in Brazil for five years as a foreign correspondent for the Guardian before returning to the UK He is the author of 8 books about puzzles and mathematics and currently writes weekly puzzle column for the Guardian.

Alex Berenson

Alex Boardman

Alex Brummer

Alex Bulmer

Alex Butterworth

Alex Caine

Alex Carter

Alex Chance

Alex Cliff

Alex Danchev

Alex Dekker served as a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces 'Green Berets' for nearly 20 years, first with 5th Special Forces Group and then as a special operations team member assigned to the United States Army Special Operations Command. He has deployed multiple times to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations worldwide, and has attended multiple advanced tactical and technical schools within the U.S. Special Operations community and interagency. Alex has traveled to dozens of countries for work and personal adventures and has spent years living abroad. He is an avid student of history who has participated as a volunteer in numerous archaeological digs, is an Arabic speaker, and holds a Masters in Applied Intelligence from Georgetown University. When not traveling, Alex lives in Northern Virginia with his wife Savannah, a former CIA Operations Officer, their children, and their German Shepherd Donovan.

Alex Dekker

Alex Dimitrov is the recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Prize from the American Poetry Review and a Pushcart Prize and is the author of Begging For It (2013), Together And By Yourselves (2017), and Love and Other Poems (2021). His work has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Poetry, and more. Formerly, he was the Senior Content Editor at the Academy of American Poets where he edited the popular online series Poem-a-Day and American Poets magazine. From 2009-2013, he founded and ran Wilde Boys, a queer poetry salon in New York. Currently, he teaches creative writing at NYU where he is Writer in Residence.

Alex Dimitrov

Alex Dingwall-Main

Alex Duval

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To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Tube, the Penguin Underground Lines brings together 12 books by writers ranging from John O'Farrell to John Lanchester, Lucy Wadham to the Kids' Company 
 
Name: Penguin Underground Lines 
 
Date of Birth: will be born 7th March 2013 
 
Vital statistics: Twelve books, one for each Underground line, to celebrate the Tube's 150th anniversary 
 
Idea for series: Penguin asked twelve people to tell their tale of the city in 15,000 words (or in one case, no words at all), each inspired by a different tube line. 
 
Defining characteristics: While the responses range from the polemical to the fantastical, the personal to the societal, they offer something for every taste. Read individually they're delightful small reads, pulled together they offer a particular portrait of a global city. 
 
The 12 authors: Fantastic Man; Kids Company; Danny Dorling; John Lanchester; William Leith; Richard Mabey; Paul Morley; John O'Farrell; Philippe Parreno; Leanne Shapton; Lucy Wadham; Peter York

Twelve Stories from Twelve Authors: Penguin Underground Lines

The full set of twelve Penguin Lines

Laurence Bergreen

He knew nothing of celestial navigation or of the existence of the Pacific Ocean. He was a self-promoting and ambitious entrepreneur. His maps were a hybrid of fantasy and delusion. When he did make land, he enslaved the populace he found, encouraged genocide, and polluted relations between peoples. He ended his career in near lunacy. 
 
But Columbus had one asset that made all the difference, an inborn sense of the sea, of wind and weather, and of selecting the optimal course to get from A to B. Laurence Bergreen's energetic and bracing book gives the whole Columbus and most importantly, the whole of his career, not just the highlight of 1492. Columbus undertook three more voyages between 1494 and 1504, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. By their conclusion, Columbus was broken in body and spirit, a hero undone by the tragic flaw of pride. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, this book shows how the subsequent voyages illustrate the costs - political, moral, and economic.

Columbus

The Four Voyages, 1492-1504

Fara Dabhoiwala

For most of western history, all sex outside marriage was illegal, with the church and state punishing any dissent. Between 1600 and 1800, this entire world-view was shattered by revolutionary new ideas - that consenting adults have the freedom to do what they like with their own bodies, and morality cannot be imposed by force.  This groundbreaking book shows that the creation of this modern culture of sex - broadcasted and debated in a rapidly expanding universe of public media - was a central part of the Enlightenment, and helped create a new model of western civilization whose principles of equality, privacy and individual freedom last to this day.

The Origins of Sex

A History of the First Sexual Revolution

Lyn Smith

For British children the Second World War was a terrifying time of deprivation, uprootings and separation. But many also endured intense air raids or found themselves, shockingly, caught up in the action. 
 
Young Voices tells how British children across the globe lived in the days before and during the fighting. Meet nine-year-old Jean Greaves, whose father was taken by the Nazis for helping Jewish people; schoolboy Derek Bech who clung to a raft in heavy seas after his ship was torpedoed; baker's boy Ron Hurford in occupied Guernsey who stole German flour for his family; teenager and messenger Peter Izard who dodged a falling doodlebug; Manila internee Jacqueline Towell who couldn't walk for malnutrition; and many others who survived adversity and danger. 
 
Through the breathtaking stories of over one hundred contributors, Lyn Smith has written an extraordinary history of the war as seen through child's eyes.

Young Voices

British Children Remember the Second World War

John Julius Norwich

Intricate, captivating, beautiful, romantic, unique, unforgettable . . . 
 
A History of Venice tells the story of this most remarkable of cities from its founding in the fifth century, through its unrivalled status for over a thousand years as one of the world's busiest and most powerful city states, until its fall at the hands of Napoleon in 1797. Rich in fascinating historical detail, populated by extraordinary characters and packed with a wealth of incident and intrigue, this is a brilliant testament to a great city - and a great and gripping read.

A History of Venice

Steven Pinker

'The most inspiring book I've ever read' Bill Gates, 2017 
 
'A brilliant, mind-altering book ... Everyone should read this astonishing book' Guardian 
 
'Will change the way you see the world' Daily Mail 
 
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2012 
 
Wasn't the twentieth century the most violent in history? In his extraordinary, epic book Steven Pinker shows us that this is wrong, telling the story of humanity in a completely new and unfamiliar way. From why cities make us safer to how books bring about peace, Pinker weaves together history, philosophy and science to examine why we are less likely to die at another's hand than ever before, how it happened and what it tells us about our very natures. 
 
 'May prove to be one of the great books of our time ... he writes like an angel' Economist 
 
'Masterly, a supremely important book ... For anyone interested in human nature, it is engrossing' The New York Times 
 
 'Marvellous ... riveting and myth-destroying' New Statesman 
 
'A marvellous synthesis of science, history and storytelling, written in Pinker's distinctively entertaining and clear personal style ... I was astonished by the extent to which violence has declined in every shape, form and scale' Financial Times 
 
'An outstandingly fruitful read, with fascinating nuggets on almost every page' Sunday Times, Books of the Year

The Better Angels of Our Nature

A History of Violence and Humanity

The Decline of Violence In History And Its Causes

Noam Chomsky

'The fate of democracy is at stake in Madison, Wisconsin, no less than it is in Tahrir Square' 
 
Making the Future is the latest collection of essays from Noam Chomsky, one of our most vital and provocative voices of political dissent. 
 
Taking up the thread from 2007's Interventions, these penetrating and compelling articles examine numerous topics, including the financial crisis, Obama's presidency, WikiLeaks and the on-going conflicts in the Middle East. 
 
Restating and refining his commitment to democracy and finding inspiration in the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, Making the Future is Chomsky's fiercely-argued and timely comment on a fast-changing world.

Making the Future

Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance

Geoffrey Hosking

Geoffrey Hosking has been one of the foremost historians of Russia and her Empire for more than twenty years. He traces Russia's history from the settlement of Kiev through to the present day. He argues that two nation-building movements, one based on a messianic vision of Russia's destiny as God's people, the other a modernising and expansive imperial project of administration and assimilation, have clashed since the rise of Tsarism. These two nascent national identities offer a chance to compare &amp; trace continuities in Tsarist and Soviet Russia &amp; allow us to appreciate more fully the recurrent themes that have at times, and not least this century, appeared wholly without precedent in the history of the world.

Russia and the Russians

From Earliest Times to the Present

David McKittrick

David McVea

'I would strongly advocate that it be made compulsory reading for everyone in Northern Ireland because for the first time it is our history, all of it warts and all, presented in a clear and understandable way' Irish News 
 
First published two decades ago, Making Sense of the Troubles is widely regarded as the most 'comprehensive, considered and compassionate' (Irish Times) history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Written by a distinguished journalist and a teacher of history in Northern Ireland, it surveys the roots of the problems from 1921 onwards, the descent into violence in the late 60s, and the three terrible decades that followed. McKittrick and McVea have now fully updated the book to take into account the momentous events of the ten years that followed their first publication, including the disbanding of the IRA, Ian Paisley's deal with the Republicans and the historic power-sharing government in Belfast.

Making Sense of the Troubles

A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict

Iain Sinclair

'A book full of richness, unexpected enticements, short sharp shocks and breathtaking writing' Guardian 
 
Welcome to the real, unauthorised London: the disappeared, the unapproved, the unvoiced, the mythical and the all-but forgotten. The perfect companion to the city. 
 
'Exhilarating, truly wonderful, a cavalcade of eloquent writing. London demands an anthology like this to remind us of the irascible quirkiness of its residents, and we have Sinclair to thank for marshalling such a perverse and ultimately pleasurable exercise' Independent on Sunday

London

City of Disappearances

Arundhati Roy

The Shape of the Beast is our world laid bare by a mind that has consistently and unhesitatingly engaged with its changing realities and often anticipated the way things have moved in the last decade. 
 
In the fourteen interviews collected here, conducted between January 2001 and March 2008, Arundhati Roy examines the nature of state and corporate power as it has emerged during this period, and the shape that resistance movements are taking. As she speaks about people displaced by dams and industry, the genocide in Gujurat, Maoist rebels, the war in Kashmir and the global War on Terror, she raises fundamental questions about democracy, justice and non-violent protest. 
 
Unabashedly political, this is also a deeply personal collection that talks about the necessity of taking a stand and about the dilemma of guarding the private space necessary for writing in a world that demands urgent, unequivocal intervention.

The Shape of the Beast

Albert Jack

Did you know that the Cornish pasty was invented to protect tin miners from arsenic poisoning, or that the word 'salary' comes from Roman soldiers being paid their wages in salt? 
 
Why do we eat goose (or turkey) at Christmas? Is the Scotch egg actually from Scotland and what did some retired crusaders have to do with French toast? Who was the original Earl Grey and what sauce was inspired by Parliament? What dish was invented by Greek bandits on the run? Why were hot cross buns seen as magical and what's so rebellious about a haggis or medicinal about a gin and tonic? Did you know what the romantic history is behind the Bakewell Pudding? 
 
Albert Jack tells the strange tales behind our favourite dishes and drinks and where they come from (not to mention their unusual creators). What Caesar Did For My Salad is bursting with fascinating insights, characters and enough stories to entertain a hundred dinner parties.

What Caesar Did For My Salad

The Secret Meanings of our Favourite Dishes

T. M. Devine

In Scotland's Empire, T.M Devine tells the compelling story of Scotland's role in forging and expanding the British Empire, from the Americas to Australia, India to the Caribbean. 
 
 By 1820 Britain controlled a fifth of the world's population, and no people had made a more essential contribution than the Scots - working across the globe as soldiers and merchants, administrators and clerics, doctors and teachers. 
 
 In this widely praised book, T. M. Devine - acclaimed author of The Scottish Nation and To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora - traces the vital part Scotland played in creating an empire - and the fundamental effect this had in moulding the modern Scottish nation. 
 
 'A tour de force ... Tom Devine is the pre-eminent historian of modern Scotland' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Niall Ferguson, author of Empire 
 
 'Captivating ... tells the story of the Scots who put their marching boots on, or were forced into them, to start a new life abroad' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Barclay McBain, Herald 
 
 'A fascinating work, replete with telling detail' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Allan Massie, Literary Review 
 
 'Nobody has done more over the past thirty years to bring Scottish historiography into rigorous and unsentimental alignment with developments elsewhere than Tom Devine' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Colin Kidd, The Times Literary Supplement 
 
 'Captivating ... tells the story of the Scots who put their marching boots on, or were forced into them, to start a new life abroad' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Economist 
 
 T.M. Devine, OBE is University Research Professor and Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His other books include The Scottish Nation and To the Ends of the Earth.

Scotland's Empire

The Origins of the Global Diaspora

Part of his trilogy on Scottish history, T. M. Devine's To the Ends of the Earth is a compelling account of the Scots as a 'global people', charting their forgotten role in the building of the modern world. 
 
The Scots are one of the world's greatest nations of emigrants. For centuries, untold numbers of men, women and children sought their fortunes in every part of the globe, from the British Empire to the United States, in cities and on prairie farms, as traders, bankers, missionaries, soldiers, politicians and engineers. 
 
With To the Ends of the Earth T.M. Devine - acclaimed author of The Scottish Nation and Scotland's Empire - puts this extraordinary epic centre stage in Scottish history, cutting through myth and sentiment surrounding stories such as the Highland Clearances and the Enlightenment to show the true impact of Scottish emigration on the world, and on the nation it left behind. 
 
 'A seminal work' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Harry McGrath, Herald 
 'Devine's final book in a remarkable trilogy ... fascinating and far-reaching ... His conclusions are ... thoughtful and incisive' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Scottish Field 
 '[This] rigorous and unsentimental history of Scotland's global diaspora ... explodes myths and foregrounds the prosaic realities of emigration ... it has the fascinating charm of a detective story' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Guardian 
 'Presents a grand overview of Scottish emigration ... very revealing' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Tom Nairn, Scottish Review of Books 
 'Devine has brought a greater understanding to this fascinating subject and offers an intriguing perspective on a key component of our history and national identity' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Alex Salmond, First Minister Of Scotland, Herald 
 
 T.M. Devine, OBE is University Research Professor and Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His other books include The Scottish Nation and To the Ends of the Earth.

To the Ends of the Earth

Scotland's Global Diaspora, 1750-2010

Neil MacGregor

This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. The book's range is enormous. It begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today. 
 
Neil MacGregor's aim is not simply to describe these remarkable things, but to show us their significance - how a stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency or how an early Victorian tea-set tells us about the impact of empire. Each chapter immerses the reader in a past civilisation accompanied by an exceptionally well-informed guide. Seen through this lens, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. An intellectual and visual feast, it is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years.

A History of the World in 100 Objects

Claire Tomalin

Acclaimed as the greatest comic actress of her generation, Dora Jordan played a quite different role offstage as the mistress of one of the sons of George lll. Dora bore him ten children, and they lived in quiet happiness in Bushy Park on the Thames until the unexpected news arrived of his ascendancy to the throne as William lV - at which point he was forced to abandon her. 
Claire Tomalin vividly recreates the political, theatrical and royal worlds of the late eighteenth century. The story of how Dora moved between stage and home, of how she battled for career and family, makes for a classic tale of royal perfidy and womanly courage.

Mrs Jordan's Profession

The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King

John Guy

Leading British historian John Guy, author of Thomas Becket and My Heart is My Own, uncovers one of the most touching and compelling family relationships in history in A Daughter's Love. 
 
Sir Thomas More is a stalwart figure of British history. Lord Chancellor in Henry Tudor's government, opposed to Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn and famously executed for treason, he is a well studied and eminent figure. 
 
John Guy's revealing new work sheds light on a little known aspect of More, as a politician and as a man. His daughter Margaret played a key role in More's private and public life, but has been all but hidden from his story. 
 
Neglected from previous historical works, A Daughter's Love uses original sources to reveal a deep and loving relationship between father and daughter. Margaret, a prodigy encouraged by her father, was highly skilled in Latin and Greek, even emending texts from the prominent scholar Erasmus. She became her father's advisor, confidante and friend, exchanging long, loving letters during his incarceration and providing comfort in his final hours. It is these letters, which she smuggled from the Tower, that provide compelling new insights into the famed politician. 
 
A Daughter's Love is a riveting new portrait of Thomas More and the daughter who played a central role in his life and work, from one of Britain's most acclaimed historians.

A Daughter's Love

Thomas and Margaret More - The Family Who Dared to Defy Henry VIII

Jeremy Paxman

The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. 
 
In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves.

Empire

What Ruling the World Did to the British

Matthew De Abaitua

Could there be another way of life? Can I survive with less stuff? Should I run for the hills? 
 
These are all good questions that people have asked before, throughout history, and which have inspired people to set up camp. But now camping is part of the drive for self-sufficiency, a reaction against mass tourism, a chance to connect with the land, to experience a community, to leave no trace . . . 
 
From packing to pitching, with hikes into the deep history of the subject and encounters with the great campers and camping movements of the past, this is a witty and philosophical blend of 'how to', history and personal anecdotes - a must for every camper.

The Art of Camping

The History and Practice of Sleeping Under the Stars

Niall Ferguson

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece.

The War of the World

History's Age of Hatred

Walter Lord

Julian Fellowes

Brian Lavery

'There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers.' - Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice-President 
 
On April 15th, 1912, Titanic, the world's largest passenger ship, sank after colliding with an iceberg, claiming more than 1,500 lives. Walter Lord's classic bestselling history of the voyage, the wreck and the aftermath is a tour de force of detailed investigation and the upstairs/downstairs divide. A Night to Remember provides a vivid, gripping and deeply personal account of the 'unsinkable' Titanic's descent. 
 
WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY JULIAN FELLOWES

A Night to Remember

The Classic Bestselling Account of the Sinking of the Titanic

Is America the new world empire? Presidents from Lincoln to Bush may have denied it but, as Niall Ferguson's brilliant and provocative book shows, the US is in many ways the greatest imperial power of all time. What's more, it always has been an empire, expanding westwards throughout the nineteenth century and rising to global dominance in the twentieth. But is today's American colossus really equipped to play Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on its shoulders? The United States, Ferguson reveals, is an empire running on empty, weakened by chronic defecits of money, manpower and political will. When the New Rome falls, he warns, its collapse may come from within. 
 
'One of the timeliest and most topical books to have appeared in recent years' Literary Review 
 
'Yet another tour de force from a writer who displays all his usual gifts of forceful polemic, unconventional intelligence and elegant prose ... guaranteed to spark fierce debate' Irish Times 
 
'A bravura exploration of why Americans are not cut out to be imperialists but nonetheless have an empire. Vigorous, substantive, and worrying' Timothy Garton Ash

Colossus

The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

Evgeny Morozov

'Offers a rare note of wisdom and common sense, on an issue overwhelmed by digital utopians' Malcolm Gladwell 
 
We were promised that the internet would set us free. From the Middle East's 'twitter revolution' to Facebook activism, technology would spread democracy and bring us together as never before. 
 
We couldn't have been more wrong. In The Net Delusion Evgeny Morozov shows why internet freedom s an illusion. Not only that - in many cases the net is actually helping oppressive regimes to stifle dissent, track dissidents and keep people pacified, with companies such as Google and Amazon helping them do it. 
 
This book shows that free information doesn't mean free people - and that, right now, everyone's liberty is at stake.

The Net Delusion

How Not to Liberate The World

Molly Weir

'Poverty is a very exacting teacher and I had been taught well' 
 
The post-war urban jungle of the Glasgow tenements was the setting for Molly Weir's childhood. From sharing a pull-out bed in her mother's tiny kitchen to running in terror from the fever van, it was an upbringing that was cemented in hardship. Hunger, cold and sickness was an everyday reality and complaining was not an option. 
 
Despite the crippling poverty, there was a vivacity to the tenements that kept spirits high. Whether Molly was brushing the hair of her wizened neighbour Mrs MacKay, running to Jimmy's chip shop for a ha'penny of crimps or dancing at the annual fair, there wasn't a moment to spare for self-pity. Molly never let it get her down as she and the other urchins knew how to make do with nothing. 
 
And at the centre of her world was her fearsome but loving Grannie, whose tough, independent spirit taught Molly to rise above her pitiful surroundings and achieve her dreams.

Shoes Were For Sunday

Martin Jacques

China will replace the United States as the world's dominant power. In so doing, it will not become more western but the world will become more Chinese. 
 
Jacques argues that we cannot understand China in western terms but only through its own history and culture. To this end, he introduces a powerful set of ideas including China as a civilization-state, the tributary system, the Chinese idea of race, a very different concept of the state, and the principle of contested modernity. 
 
First published in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim - and controversy - 'When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Rise of a New Global Order' has sold a quarter of a million copies, been translated into eleven languages, nominated for two major literary awards, and has been the subject of an immensely popular TED talk. In the three years since the first edition was published, the book has transformed the debate about China worldwide and proved remarkably prescient. 
 
In this greatly expanded and fully updated paperback edition, with nearly three-hundred pages of new material backed up by the latest statistical data, Martin Jacques renews his assault on conventional thinking about China's ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, thereby transforming the world as we know it.

When China Rules The World

The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World [Greatly updated and expanded]

Virginia Nicholson

We tend to see the Second World War as a man's war, featuring Spitfire crews and brave deeds on the Normandy beaches. But in conditions of "Total War" millions of women - in the Services and on the Home Front - demonstrated that they were cleverer, more broad-minded and altogether more complex than anyone had ever guessed. 
 
In Millions Like Us Virginia Nicholson tells the story of the women's war, through a host of individual women's experiences. She tells how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared; how they re-made their world in peacetime. And how they would never be the same again ...

Millions Like Us

Women's Lives in the Second World War

Stephanie Williams

'May God forgive us for our sorry deeds and for our glorious intentions' 
 
Who were the men governing the Empire in the nineteenth century? 
How were they chosen and controlled? Were they sane or mad? 
And why did they do it? 
 
From Fiji to the Falkland Islands, from Malaysia to Australia and South Africa, from Lagos to Ottawa, ordinary British men and women, with no training, were dispatched to strange places, among strange people and faced unimaginable conditions. Some started wars. Others fought disease, injustice and slavery. Many died or went mad. Running the Show, drawing on vast unpublished sources, reveals the day-today lives, griefs and triumphs of governors at the height of the British Empire as they struggled to make sense of their charges and, frequently, themselves.

Running the Show

The Extraordinary Stories of the Men who Governed the British Empire

Robert Bickers

In the early nineteenth century China remained almost untouched by British and European powers - but as new technology started to change this balance, foreigners gathered like wolves around the weakening Qing Empire. Would the Chinese suffer the fate of much of the rest of the world, carved into pieces by Europeans? Or could they adapt rapidly enough to maintain their independence? 
 
This important and compelling book explains the roots of China's complex relationship with the West by illuminating a dramatic, colourful and sometimes shocking period of the country's history.

The Scramble for China

Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914

Robert Holland

Blue-Water Empire is Robert Holland's magnificent narrative of Britain's military and cultural ties with the Mediterranean Sea, in the style of the epic naval histories of N. A. M. Rodger. 
 
Britain has been a major presence in the Mediterranean from the Battle of the Nile to the end of empire, as both a military and a colonising force on the islands and coastlines of the sea. Robert Holland traces the fascinating story of that presence, from its legacies in culture, language and law to the Mediterranean's own influence on Britain. 
 
Evoking the conflicts and contrasts between British and local societies caught up in dramatic events, as well as their mutual resilience under pressure, Blue Water Empire charts with vigour, flair and clarity the British experience in the Mediterranean in the age of empire. 
 
Reviews: 
 
'An important corrective to current historical amnesia ... the definitive account of Anglo-Mediterranean history for years to come' Amanda Foreman, New Statesman 
 
'A rich and readable account of the British in the Middle Sea ... As Holland's learned, lucid and enjoyable work makes clear, many British politicians saw the Mediterranean as the pre-eminent global strategic arena, representing the key to victory in Europe and Asia' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 
 
'This is an important subject, and it has never before been drawn together into a single coherent narrative ... Blue-Water Empire puts the land, not the sea, at the heart of the story' Literary Review 
 
'Robert Holland's masterly history of the Mediterranean is a pleasure to read. Blue-Water Empire shows how Britain's mastery of the Middle Sea shaped the modern world, whilst reminding us how profoundly the Mediterranean has influenced the British' Simon Ball (author of The Bitter Sea: The Struggle for Mastery in the Mediterranean, 1935-1949) 
 
'Lively and absorbing' Philip Mansel, Spectator 
 
About the author: 
 
Robert Holland is one of the world's leading historians of the Mediterranean and the author of Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954-59, and (with Diana Markides) The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1850-1960. He holds professorial positions at the Centre for Hellenic Studies in King's College London and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in the same University.

Blue-Water Empire

The British in the Mediterranean since 1800

John Stubbs

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAVALIERS BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR 
 
'Dashing and daring, colourful, subtle and provocative . . . stuffed almost to bursting-point with character and incident. Feasting on poems, diaries, plays, masques, letters and biographies, Reprobates introduces us to . . . a flamboyant parade of chancers, dreamers, turncoats, heroes, idiots and hedonists who grab the reader's shoulders and force a drink on us as if in some dim-lit, tallow-smoked tavern of the 1630s' Independent

Reprobates

The Cavaliers of the English Civil War

Intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in art, music and cuisine. And a pure sociopath. This is the series that launched the world’s number one villain – Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal Lecter

Happy Families

Harlem Renaissance Series

Harold Fry

Harry Hole

Harry and the Dinosaurs

Hatchimals

Hattie B, Magical Vet

Hawk series

Hawthorne

Heart Hassle

Heartland Trilogy

Heaven Official's Blessing

Heavenly Bodies

Henry Pratt is the epitomy of the great British underdog. Nothing is ever simple in his world, just when it seems things are going right, life throws him another unwanted curve-ball. Join Pratt as he traverses the highs and lows of everyday life in this comic masterpiece.

Henry Pratt

Her Hidden Fire

To some a brilliant warrior, to others a devil in human form; Hereward is as adept in the art of slaughter as the enemies that gather to claim England's throne. With King Edward heirless and ailing, Hereward has been declared an outlaw. What is he willing to risk in order to save the land he loves? 
 
Hereward's tales are of heroism, treachery, rebellion and bloody battles, with William the Bastard never too far away.

Hereward

Heroes of Olympus

Heroes of Olympus Graphic Novels

Hetty Feather was left at a foundling hospital when she was a tiny baby. Having grown up in a loving foster family until she was five, and then finding herself returned to the hospital, she begins to question who her actual family are, and is determined to stop at nothing to find out where she came from. Jacqueline Wilson’s acclaimed series follows Hetty and her friend Diamond as they work their way up from their lowly backgrounds to become stars, overcoming loss, unkind bosses and flirtatious boys.

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