Frederick Walker "Casey" Baldwin—athlete, engineer, aeronaut, sailor, politician, activist, conservationist—was a true gentleman, modest to a fault. As one of Alexander Graham Bell's young associates, Casey was the first Canadian, and the first born in the British Empire, to fly—a full eleven months before the historic 1909 flight in Baddeck of the Silver...

An illustrated introduction to rites and traditions relating to death, funerary rites and commemoration, from Medieval times to the present day.

Death has been a source of grief and uncertainty for humanity throughout history, but it has also been the inspiration for a plethora of fascinating traditions. The covering of mirrors to prevent the departed spirit...

From critically acclaimed Eastern Front expert Prit Buttar comes this detailed and engrossing account of the war on the Eastern Front as the German forces were driven back following the Battle of Kursk.

Making use of the extensive memoirs of German and Russian soldiers to bring their story to life, the narrative follows on from On A Knife's Edge, which...

Titled after the wartime nickname for the part of North Korea that was the epicenter of a bitter struggle for air superiority over the Korean Peninsula, MiG Alley offers an in-depth analysis of the US Air Force's war in Korea, packed with interesting and exciting personal stories based on first-person testimony from both American and Soviet sources.

Of the...

Published to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II, this book tells the story of Case White, the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

The German invasion of Poland on 1 September, 1939, designated as Fall Weiss (Case White), was the event that sparked the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The campaign has widely been described as a...

Millions of people dreamed of killing Adolf Hitler though only a few had the skills, determination, and opportunity to try. During Hitler’s career as messianic leader of the Third Reich, there were more than 30 documented attempts to assassinate him.

Some plotters hoped to confront Hitler close up and gun him down, others to pick him off with a sniper’s...

In the nineteenth century, as towns grew, Britain became increasingly grimy. The causes of dirt and pollution were defined legally as ‘nuisances’ and, in 1835, the new local authorities very rapidly appointed an army of ‘inspectors of nuisances’. This book is the inspectors’ chronicle: it offers their eye-witness accounts and a plethora of details...

For the first time in any modern language, a female scholar and translator reimagines The Art of War.

Sun Tzu’s ancient book of strategy and psychology has as much to tell us today as when it was first written 2,500 years ago. In a world forever at odds, his rules for anticipating the motivations and strategies of our competitors never cease to inspire...

A gripping biography of the infamous Nazi doctor, from a former Justice Department official tasked with uncovering his fate.

Perhaps the most notorious war criminal of all time, Josef Mengele was the embodiment of bloodless efficiency and passionate devotion to a grotesque worldview. Aided by the role he has assumed in works of popular culture, Mengele has...

For over ten years he was the first detective on the scene when a murder was committed in south London. In the confusion and horror of the crime scene he identified the forensic clues that would later be needed to convict the killer in the calm and measured atmosphere of the Old Bailey; calling out the necessary experts from pathologists to ballistics...

'A revelatory and wholly fascinating work of history. Superbly researched and written with gripping fluency, this lost secret of World War II espionage finally has its expert chronicler.' - WILLIAM BOYD

'Gripping and intoxicating, it unfolds like the best screenplay.'- NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE

'This is excellent, surprising and timely. Henry is a proper talent.' ...

‘It was a bridge too far and perhaps the whole plan was doomed to failure from the start, but we had to try, didn’t we?’

17 September 1944: 30,000 airborne soldiers prepare to drop 64 miles behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied Holland; tens of thousands of ground troops race down Hell’s Highway in tanks and armoured cars, trucks and half-tracks to link up...

Reveals the tradition of goddess worship in early Judaism and how Jesus attempted to restore the feminine side of the faith

• Provides historical and archaeological evidence for an earlier form of Hebrew worship with both male and female gods, including a 20th-century discovery of a Hebrew temple dedicated to both Yahweh and the warrior goddess Anat

•...

From the creator of the wildly popular podcast comes Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History: History at the Extremes.

Dan Carlin has created a new way to think about history. His award-winning podcast is revered for its unique blend of high drama, enthralling narration, and Twilight Zone-style twists. A political commentator, Carlin...

The Great Sphinx of Giza, painted friezes in pyramid chambers, and symbolic paintings of the eye of Horus are familiar and breathtaking works of art. Yet behind them lies a deep cosmological tapestry in which the origins of the Earth and riches brought by the Nile flood are explained through deities. As pharaohs, kingdoms and dynasties rise and fall, so the...

Hidden Pearl is an unforgettable true story about a "hidden child" and her family during WW2. It was the most desperate of times when people were facing many dangers on a daily basis. This story is about courage, hope and resilience. Perfect for YA or Adult. Award-winning author J.E. Laufer of "Choices -The True Story of One Family's Daring Escape to...

Although disappointed that they had not won the war by Christmas, the last thing the Allies expected in December 1944 was a full-blown German offensive through the Ardennes. With the aid of specially commissioned full-colour maps, Battle of the Bulge: The First 24 Hours tells the story of the first day of the Ardennes offensive, explaining how the Allies...

By the time Loretto discovered the cache of WWII letters, her father had been dead almost 50 years. She'd accepted she would never know him. All that changed when she decided to type his 500+ letters for her siblings. With each letter she heard her father's voice. With each place she visited and each person she met, the 50 years without him melted away and...

This is a travelogue about the North-East of England and all the history a visitor can see in a very short time.

Places vary from the large city of Newcastle with its iconic bridges across the River Tyne to smaller gems such as Durham with its magnificent Norman cathedral.

Tourists can find Roman ruins in abundance and large, modern sculptures along with...

Much more than a simple diary transcription, this book describes the early family history of a young man, a brother, and a father; all who answered Lincoln’s call for volunteers. A must read for Civil War enthusiasts. This well-researched work is built around the first diary written by Pvt. William J. McLean, 34th New York Infantry, beginning with his...

The Crusades shook the world. But why did they happen?

Their origins are revealed in a new light. As part of a medieval world war that stretched from Asia to Europe. At its centre was an ancient empire – Byzantium.

Told for the first time as a single, linked narrative are three great events that changed history: the fall of Byzantium in the eleventh...

How can you speak up for someone accused of a savage murder?

Or sway a jury?

Or get a judge to drop a case?

"Gripping' - The Times

In this vivid memoir, England's most experienced murder case lawyer revisits his most notorious trials, from the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando, to the man given life because of an earprint, and the first British prosecution for...

Introduction by Deborah E. Lipstadt, author of Denial

July 15, 1942, Wednesday
Remember this day; remember it well. You will tell generations to come. Since 8 o’clock today we have been shut away in the ghetto. I live here now. The world is separated from me and I’m separated from the world.

Renia is a young girl who dreams of becoming a poet. But Renia is...

Martha Gellhorn was a strong-willed, self-made, modern woman whose pioneering journalism paved the way for women who came after her. An ardent anti-fascist, she abhorred “objectivity shit” and wrote about real people doing real things with intelligence and passion. Her life, reportage, fiction and correspondence all reveal her passionate advocacy of social...

Murder by poison alarmed, enthralled, and in many ways encapsulated the Victorian age. Linda Stratmann's dark and splendid social history reveals the nineteenth century as a gruesome battleground where poisoners went head-to-head with authorities who strove to detect poisons, control their availability, and bring the guilty to justice. She corrects many...

The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana's celebrated phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Today, the consensus that it is moral to remember, immoral to forget, is nearly absolute. And yet is this right? David Rieff, an independent writer who has reported on bloody conflicts in...

From the Charge of the Light Brigade to Scott of the Antarctic and beyond, it seems as if glorious disaster and valiant defeat have been essential aspects of the British national character for the past two centuries. In this fascinating book, historian Stephanie Barczewski argues that Britain's embrace of heroic failure initially helped to gloss over the...

October 1917, heralded as the culmination of the Russian Revolution, remains a defining moment in world history. Even a hundred years after the events that led to the emergence of the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state, debate continues over whether, as historian E. H. Carr put it decades ago, these earth-shaking days were a "landmark in the...

When first opened to the public in 1853, New York's Crystal Palace created a sensation. Those who had seen London's Crystal Palace, the structure it was openly intended to emulate, argued that America's copy far surpassed it. Built in what is today Bryant Park, a four-acre site between 40th and 42nd Streets, the colossus of glass and steel indeed seemed...

Goodreads Choice Nominee Ralph Webster tells the true story of his grandmother’s desperate journey from her life at the Pensione Alexandra in Naples to America - after Mussolini and the Fascists join with Hitler - and as countries across the world close their doors to Jewish refugees fleeing the spread of Nazi evil.

In 1934, at age fifty-one, Elsa’s...

The untold story of how FDR did the unthinkable to save the American economy

The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that when, in a bid to pull the country out of depression and get people back to work, he depreciated the U.S. dollar in...

It’s 1943, and Captain Hook is at sea aboard a hijacked German U-boat.

Hook has heard all the Peter Pan-themed jokes about his name—he knows that humour can be an indispensable tool for survival in war. And now, as his crew embark on their most daring mission yet, they may need it more than ever.

The crew set off for the French port of La Rochelle, with the...

Sometimes, a snake is just a snake. And sometimes…

First-century Rome.

Senator Gaius Lucius Nerva is taken ill at a dinner party and dies a few days later. His heartbroken wife, Flavia, is told it was a natural death. Calidus, Nerva’s recently freed slave, suspects otherwise.

As he embarks upon the funeral ceremonies, Calidus becomes more and more...

The authors of such literary classics as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë were extraordinary not only because they were successful female writers in Victorian England, but also because they were sisters.

Growing up, all three sisters’ writings were significantly influenced by each other, but perhaps most...

A “comprehensive history of Satan’s snuff” (GQ), Tim Madge’s critically acclaimed White Mischief: A Cultural History of Cocaine. This informative, intriguing and often challenging account provides an overview of changing attitudes toward cocaine, from the wonder cure when it was first discovered 150 years ago, right through to its champagne status today.

Percy Sykes began his career with Army Intelligence in India. Their main concern was the threat to India of the Russian advances across Central Asia. In 1893 they sent Sykes into eastern Persia on the first of many expeditions. Always with his terrier and often with his sister or his wife, he rode over thousands of miles of unknown desert, marsh and...

The Middle Class is a canter through the history of the men and women who made modern Britain and who now, in greater numbers than ever, dominate the country. There are pauses to analyse their ideals, dreams, ambitions and tastes. The book opens with Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and ends with Margaret Thatcher and her translation of middle-class values into...

The Greatest Day in History charts the events leading up to Armistice Day 1918, the day the First World War finally came to an end. Everyone remembered where they were on 11 November 1918, from Marlene Dietrich in Berlin and Gandhi on his sick bed to Charles de Gaulle in a German prison camp.

Eamon de Valera was in Lincoln Gaol. The Kaiser was in...