Showing titles in 21st Century

Brought to you by Penguin. **THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER** Sapiens showed us where we came from. In our increasingly uncertain times, Homo Deus shows us where we're going. The world-renowned historian and intellectual Yuval Noah Harari envisions a near future in which we face a new set of...

Ahmed Rashid, called “Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter” by Christopher Hitchens, brings the shadowy world of the Taliban and its impact on Afghanistan and the Middle East and Central Asia into sharp focus in this modern classic. Rashid offers an authoritative account of the Taliban’s rise to power, its role in oil and gas company decisions, and the effects of changing American attitudes toward the Taliban. He also describes the new face of Islamic fundamentalism and explains why Afghanistan has become the world center for international terrorism.

Brought to you by Penguin. Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred and irrationality. Yet, as Steven Pinker shows, if you follow...

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Nominated for the National Book Award for Nonfiction From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to...

The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule, and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination?

Brought to you by Penguin. These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the promise that "you can make it if you try". And the...

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories.

The Exile joins Osama bin Laden as he escapes into Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, bringing to vivid life the years leading up to his death spent on the run and in exile. It tells the human story, and illuminates the global political workings. It is a tale of evasion, collusion, betrayal and the deep pain of isolation.

From the critically acclaimed author of The Establishment, an excoriating take-down of Western hubris – and the book that reveals why we’re really in the state we’re in. Almost everywhere we turn these days, there’s talk of a West in decline. Our jobs, our values, our past are all under...

Usama Bin Laden’s greatest fear was not capture or death, but the exposure of al-Qaeda’s secrets. At great risk to themselves and the entire mission, the US Special Operations Forces, who carried out the Abbottabad raid that killed Bin Laden, took an additional eighteen minutes to collect Bin Laden’s hard drives and thereby expose al-Qaeda’s secrets. In this ground-breaking book, Nelly Lahoud dives into Bin Laden’s files and meticulously distills the nearly six thousand pages of Arabic private communications.

What leads to political turbulence and social breakdown? How do elites maintain their dominant position? And why do ruling classes sometimes suddenly lose their grip on power? For decades, complexity scientist Peter Turchin has been studying world history like no one else. Assembling vast databases mined from 10,000 years of human activity, and then developing new models, he has transformed the way we learn from the past. End Times is the result: a ground-breaking account of how society works.

A major new investigation into the Bhutto family, examining their influence in Pakistan from the colonial era to the present day. 

Brought to you by Penguin. No sex. No kids. No future? When Tom Feiling moved to Tokyo as a student in the early nineties, Japan was a beacon of the future: a rising superpower, a technology giant, and a global symbol of prosperity, civility and success. When he returned twenty-four years later...

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008 'A tremendous novel' -Literary Review 'Profoundly moving' - The Times 'Utterly involving and piles on tension until the very last page' -Sunday Times At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, the Ibis. Its...

'All roads used to lead to Rome. Today, they lead to Beijing.' When The Silk Roads was published in 2015, it became an instant classic. A major reassessment of world history, it compelled us to look at the past from a different perspective. The New Silk Roads brings this story up to date, addressing the present and future of a world that is changing dramatically. Following the Silk Roads eastwards, from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected.

Ahnenforschung: Möchten Sie Ihren Stammbaum Schritt für Schritt entschlüsseln, bevor wertvolle Familienspuren für immer verloren gehen? Ahnenforschung ist weit mehr als das Sammeln von Namen und Daten: Sie ist eine faszinierende Reise zu Ihren Wurzeln. Doch viele beginnen voller Neugier – und verlieren sich schnell in unübersichtlichen Online-Portalen, unleserlichen Kirchenbüchern, fehlenden Quellen oder widersprüchlichen Angaben.

The second Nagorno-Karabakh war—fought between Armenia and Azerbaijan between September 24 and November 10, 2020—was the first war in history won primarily by unmanned systems. This forty-four-day war resulted in a decisive military victory for Azerbaijan. Armenia was outfought, outnumbered, and outspent and lost even though they controlled the high ground in a mountainous region. The fact that Azerbaijan won the war is not extraordinary. What is exceptional is that this was the first modern war primarily decided by unmanned weapons.

New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR A New York Times technology and business reporter charts the dramatic rise of Bitcoin and the fascinating personalities who are striving to create a new global money for...

Brought to you by Penguin. Boeing's story is the corporate scandal that's transfixed the world like none since the bankruptcy of Enron and the BP oil spill. In examining the history of the 737, a highly-regarded plane that Boeing's new management degraded with cost-focused mandates, Flying Blind...

'Incredibly well sourced . . . One of the most plugged-in voices in modern warfare' TELEGRAPH 'Blends vivid reporting with shrewd analysis' ECONOMIST 'Truly excellent . . . a gripping tour de force. Every politician and military expert needs to read this book' IAIN DALE 'Reads like a real-life...