Showing titles in Western

Far from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsy to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict.

The first panoramic history of the Western world from the 1970s to the present day: Empire of Democracy is the story for those asking how we got to where we are. Half a century ago, at the height of the Cold War and amidst a world economic crisis, the Western democracies were forced to undergo a...

When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador's residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture. From that discovery unspooled the captivating, twisting tale of the remarkable people who lived in the house before Eisen. Their story is Europe's, telling the dramatic and surprisingly cyclical tale of the endurance of liberal democracy.

‘Napoleon is an out-and-out masterpiece and a joy to read’ Sir Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad A landmark new biography that presents the man behind the many myths. The first writer in English to go back to the original European sources, Adam Zamoyski’s portrait of Napoleon is...

David Starkey's ‘Monarchy’ charts the rise of the British monarchy from the War of the Roses, the English Civil War and the Georgians, right up until the present day monarchs of the 20th Century. With both authority and verve, David Starkey unmasks the personalities and achievements, the...

Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of Spinoza in just one hour. Spinoza’s brilliant metaphysical system was derived neither from reality nor experience. Starting from basic axioms (assumptions), by means of a series of geometric proofs he built a universe...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. The Reformation was a long struggle of ideas between the established Catholic Church and the questioning of faith brought about by the Renaissance in Western Europe. Started by Martin Luther in 1517, religious dissidence spread across Europe...

Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of MI14(d) and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. ‘This is an amazing story’ Simon Mayo, BBC Radio 2 Between 1941 and 1944, sixteen thousand plucky homing pigeons were dropped in an arc...

From the New York Times bestselling author comes the definitive, illustrated history of one of the greatest battles ever fought—a riveting nonfiction chronicle published to commemorate the two-hundreth anniversary of Napoleon's last stand. On June 18, 1815, the armies of France, Britain, and...

New York Times Bestseller The epic true story of Dunkirk—now a major motion picture, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, and Mark Rylance In 1940, the Allies had been beaten back by the Nazis across France to the northern port of Dunkirk. In the...

For five years, Ben Coates lived alongside a major channel of the river in Rotterdam, crossing it daily, swimming and sailing in its tributaries. In The Rhine, he sets out by bicycle from the Netherlands where it enters the North Sea, following it through Germany, France and Liechtenstein, to its source in the icy Alps. He explores the impact that the Rhine has had on European culture and history and finds out how influences have flowed along and across the river, shaping the people who live alongside it. 

Through the discovery of a precious friendship album which belonged to 12-year-old Alie, a Jewish schoolgirl in Amsterdam, Claudia Carli has traced and preserved the lives of an entire class of girls, most of whom did not survive the war. Alie and her friends are brought touchingly and vividly to life, along with their writings, in this extraordinary book. Their everyday hopes, pleasures and longings are offset by the constant fear of a knock on the door, a missing friend from class, a family member taken away. 

This audiobook includes archived recordings from interviews taken with Second World War soldiers, as well as an Introduction and Epilogue read by the author. 'Enthralling and enlightening . . . A wonderful look into the personal experiences, that heart and soul, of the fighting soldier towards...

"GRIPPING. ... One of the greatest polar rescue efforts ever mounted." —Wall Street Journal The riveting true story of the largest polar rescue mission in history: the desperate race to find the survivors of the glamorous Arctic airship Italia, which crashed near the North Pole in 1928...

Based on new research conducted across Europe and in the United States, The Celts reveals when and how we came to call much of Europe "Celtic," why this idea mattered in the past, and why it still matters today, as the tide of nationalism is once again on the rise.

This audiobook includes archived recordings from interviews taken with Second World War soldiers, as well as an Introduction and Epilogue read by the author. A powerful, immersive account published for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and battle for Normandy, and tied into the...

Brought to you by Penguin. How the modern world has understood the ancient Greeks and why they matter today The study of ancient Greek history has been central to the western conception of history since the Renaissance. The Muse of History traces the shifting patterns of this preoccupation in...

Accusés d’être à l’origine de la Révolution française, d’avoir noyauté les États-Unis d’Amérique dès leur naissance ou encore d’avoir précipité l’effondrement de l’Union soviétique, les Illuminati font les beaux jours des théories complotistes les plus extravagantes depuis plus de deux siècles.Derrière ces affabulations, une société secrète, les Illuminaten, a bel et bien existé, en Bavière. Fondé à la fin du XVIIIe siècle par Adam Weishaupt, alias Spartacus, ce club très sélect inspiré de la franc-maçonnerie a attiré parmi les plus radicaux tenants des Lumières et a très vite été interdit.

The eighteenth century was a time of cultural friction: individuals began to assert greater independence and there was a new emphasis on social equality. In this surprising history, Lynn Hunt examines women's expanding societal roles, such as using tea to facilitate conversation between the sexes in Britain. In France, women also pushed boundaries by becoming artists, and printmakers' satiric takes on the elite gave the lower classes a chance to laugh at the upper classes and imagine the potential of political upheaval.