The captivating story of an Italian family that escaped death at the hands of Mussolini’s Blackshirts and their perilous lives before and after WWII

Arturo DiMartino’s Italy is in ruins at the end of WWI. Its politics splintered. Its economy tattered. Its social fabric shredded. Italians blame their weak leaders and demand their overthrow. Mussolini steps...

Edward II is famously one of England’s most unsuccessful kings, as utterly different from his war-like father Edward I as any man possibly could be, and the first English king to suffer the fate of deposition. Highly unconventional, even eccentric, he was an intriguing personality, and his reign of nineteen and a half years from 1307 to 1327 was a turbulent...

The stage was already set for the astonishing reign of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

After the discovery of previously unfound letters and journals in Germany, Hector Bolitho here continues his series of royal biographies to expand on and re-frame the extraordinary lives of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Bolitho expertly navigates the unparalleled rule...

An engaging introduction to the workings of church buildings and churchyards, explaining the integral elements of a working church and how they have changed over time.

The parish church is a symbol of continuity, a cornerstone of the urban and rural landscape, and a treasure trove often as rich in cultural history as any museum. This compact and accessible...

A highly illustrated study of the wars of Central and South America from 1900 through to 1970, featuring many rare and never-before-seen images.

Fully illustrated with a wealth of rare photographs, this fascinating story sheds light on seven decades of a continent in conflict that is rarely covered in English.

From the Banana Wars of the early 20th century...

Lire Magazine Best Travel Book

Take four friends, put them on two Ural motorcycles (complete with sidecars), send them off on a 2,500-mile odyssey retracing history’s most famous retreat, add what some might consider an excessive amount of Vodka, and you’ve got Sylvain Tesson’sBerezina, a riotous and erudite book that combines travel, history, comradery, and...

A fresh and revealing history of one of the most seminal events in American history as seen through fourteen diverse and dynamic figures.

Leading into the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock examines the lives of the “saints” (members of the Separatist puritan congregations) and “strangers” (economic migrants) on the original...

Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely in history have scientific secrets been as vital as they were during World War II. In the midst of planning the Manhattan Project, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services created a secret offshoot - the Alsos Mission - meant to gather intelligence on and sabotage if necessary, scientific research by the Axis...

Between 1939 and 1945, many deeply mysterious events took place in the fog of war.

In this fascinating book, the topics covered include the Battle of Los Angeles, when US aircrews believed they had sighted hostile Japanese aircraft; the mysterious death of band leader Glenn Miller; The Man Who Never Was - a corpse dressed in military uniform and kitted out...

Throughout the course of World War II, the Allies engaged in elaborate deceptions to help ensure the success of their troops in battle. From tanks made out of rubber to entire divisions consisting of nothing more than a few wireless operators, these heroic individuals made armies appear out of thin air and kept the German armed forces unsure where the real...

The Battle of the Bulge was the largest land engagement of World War II. The German counter-attack, spearheaded by three Panzer armies, found the Allies unprepared and ill-equipped. As the fighting raged across the Ardennes, it was left to a few untested US Infantry divisions to hold the Allied lines.

Written by one of the world's leading experts on the...

The debonair Special Operations Executive agent Richard "Dick" Mallaby was the first Briton to be sent to Italy as an SOE operative, parachuted unceremoniously into Lake Como in August 1943. Arrested and initially tortured by the Italian authorities, he managed to sweet-talk his way out of trouble and helped Marshal Pietro Badoglio and King Victor Emmanuel...

In the last few decades, steampunk has blossomed from being a rather obscure and little-known subgenre of science fiction into a striking and distinctive style of fashion, art, design and even music. It is in the written word however that steampunk has its roots and in this book Simon Webb explores and examines the real inventions which underpin the...

‘A formidable, brave and important book’ Robert Macfarlane

Who owns England?

Behind this simple question lies this country’s oldest and best-kept secret. This is the history of how England’s elite came to own our land, and an inspiring manifesto for how to open up our countryside once more. ...

We’ve all been taught about kings and queens, great battles and the rise and fall of empires. The term historians have coined for this is ‘history from above’. But what about the ordinary folk? What about almost everybody who ever existed? What about the places where no earth-shattering events have ever occurred?

This book is comprised of fascinating...

This authentic manual quickly trained personnel in building and maintaining furniture for use on military bases. The instructions remain very relevant today, including timeless information on using woodworking machinery and tools, joinery and basic furniture construction and maintenance. Published right after World War II ended, this historical time capsule...

The Stories of Classical Mythology Have Endured for 2500 Years.

The ancient Greeks, bedeviled by nearly unbearable adversities, struggled for 2500 years to define their cultural identity. In the end they prevailed, emerging from savage tribalism to become the world's first democracy and one of the greatest civilizations ever known.To help scale those...

The Boy from Rod Alley is an account of a 1930s childhood. This depiction of one boy’s experience blends into a story of a decade, in the aftermath of the Great War, as ex-soldiers ride their old army bikes, ‘widow-women’ are familiar figures and ‘Umbrella Joe’ paces in shell-shock aimlessness.

John guides readers past the deep pond in front of the...

Lorcan Travis yearns for adventure, away from his quiet life on the family farm in rural Ireland. He joins the British Army, and after a traumatic voyage to North America, he finds all the action and adventure he could ever imagine, as he faces the cruelty and savagery of the Native Americans and the clash of armies in the rugged and wild country he has to...

During the 1990s, as New York was transformed from a crumbling city into a vibrant metropolis, the New York Mets were anything but vibrant. Beginning in 1999, the team waged a battle to recapture the hearts of New York baseball fans from their crosstown rivals, and they came closer to succeeding than anyone dared dream. At the same time, mayor Rudy...

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...

From activist, Pussy Riot member and freedom fighter Maria Alyokhina, a raw, hallucinatory, passionate account of her arrest, trial and imprisonment in a penal colony in the Urals for standing up for what she believed in. 'One of the most brilliant and inspiring things I've read in years. Couldn't put it down. This book is freedom' Chris Kraus, author...

Meet Zuri, our sophisticated pagan ancestor as she lives her life in Christchurch in 2200 BC. It is the Neolithic period and the first civilisation in Britain along the mystical River Avon, an area called 'Avonlands'. Her rituals and mythology embrace nature to a degree that we no longer understand. Her tribe is contrasted with the wealthy pensioners, the...

The remarkable untold story of a miracle drug, the forgotten pioneer who discovered it, and the fight to bring lithium to the masses.

From insulin comas and lobotomy to incarceration and exile, those who suffer bipolar disorder endured dangerous, ineffective treatments for centuries until a momentous breakthrough in the 1950s offered salvation. Lithium’s...

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...