Showing titles in 19th Century

Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just 20 years, from October 1795, when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'état, he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the revolution had descended.

Delve into the profound insights of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in Pakistan or the Partition of India. This seminal work offers an in-depth analysis of the factors leading to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. Ambedkar's scholarly approach and compelling arguments shed light on the political, social, and religious dynamics that shaped one of the most significant events in South Asian history. A must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the historical context and enduring impact of partition.

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lords of Finance comes a brilliant account of the earliest truly global financial calamity. On Friday, 9 May 1873 the Vienna stock market collapsed. Four months later Wall Street was in trouble. Elsewhere, as panic selling spread across financial...

In this, his best-known work, the controversial American economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen appropriates Darwin's theory of evolution to analyze the modern industrial system. For Veblen, the shallowness and superficiality observed in society results from the tendency to believe that true accomplishment lies in arriving at a condition of ostentatious wealth and status.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025 A Washington Post and New York Times Notable Book Named a Best Book of 2025 by TIME, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, and Kirkus Reviews “Comprehensive, enthralling . . . Mark Twain...

One of NPR's "Books We Love" New York Times Book Review's "The Best True Crime of 2022" "Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last.”—Wall Street Journal A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light...

The splendid finale to Eric Hobsbawm's study of the 19th century, The Age of Empire covers the area of Western Imperialism and examines the forces that swept the world to the outbreak of World War One - and shaped modern society. 

The Pursuit of Power draws on a lifetime of thinking about 19th-century Europe to create an extraordinarily rich, surprising and entertaining panorama of a continent undergoing drastic change. The aim of this audiobook is to reignite the sense of wonder that permeated this remarkable era, as rulers and ruled navigated overwhelming cultural, political and technological changes.

Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil.

Gunter K. Koschorrek was a machine-gunner on the Russian front in WWII. He wrote his illicit diary on any scraps of paper he could lay his hands on. As keeping a diary was strictly forbidden, he sewed the pages into the lining of his thick winter coat and deposited them with his mother on infrequent trips home on leave. The diary went missing, and it was when he was reunited with his daughter in America some 40 years later that it came to light and became Blood Red Snow. 

Joss Ackland, Roger Allam and Leslie Phillips star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel. When poverty drives Jean Valjean to steal a loaf of bread from a baker’s window, it is an action that will haunt him for the rest of his life. A citizen of...

The thrilling story of the nineteenth century's moonshot: An Atlantic-spanning telegraph cable that created the global village and changed the world. In 1854, the American entrepreneur Cyrus Field set out to lay a 2,000-mile telegraph cable across the Atlantic. Nothing like it had ever been...

There can be few more exciting or frightening moments in European history than the spring of 1848. Almost as if by magic, in city after city, from Palermo to Paris to Venice, huge crowds gathered, sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent, and the political order that had held sway since the defeat of Napoleon simply collapsed. Christopher Clark's spectacular new book recreates with verve, wit and insight this extraordinary period.

The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and translated into English by Samuel Moore in 1888 under Engels’ supervision, is one of the most influential political texts in modern history. Originally published in 1848, this concise manifesto lays out the principles of communism, the theory of historical materialism, and the role of class struggle as the driving force of history. Marx and Engels call for the working class to unite against capitalist oppression and envision a future society free from class divisions.

The Napoleonic Wars saw fighting on an unprecedented scale in Europe and the Americas. It took the wealth of the British Empire, combined with the might of the continental armies, almost two decades to bring down one of the world's greatest military leaders and the empire that he had created. Napoleon's ultimate defeat was to determine the history of Europe for almost 100 years. From the frozen wastelands of Russia, through the brutal fighting in the Peninsula to the blood-soaked battlefield of Waterloo, this book tells the story of the dramatic rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire.

'I relished every page … This is the best book on Jane Austen I have ever read’ Spectator 'Compelling … a delightful and engrossing book … Byrne’s passion is nothing if not persuasive’ Sunday Times Was Jane Austen a woman of prim manners and genteel calm? Or someone who behaved...

In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: 'capitalism'. The global triumph of capitalism is the major theme of history in the decades after 1848. It was the triumph of a society which believed that economic growth rests on competitive private enterprise, on success in buying everything in the cheapest market (including labour) and selling it in the dearest. 

This selection of essays by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) demonstrate the varied power of his genius. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these writings show that beneath his trademark wit and love of paradox, Oscar Wilde was an original and remarkably modern writer.

From a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and New York Times bestselling author, the essential history of Russian imperialism. “A singularly fascinating account of Russian nationalism through the ages.” —Financial Times In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion...

In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires were engaged in bitter rivalry for the acquisition of Southern Asian. Although India was the ultimate prize, most of the intrigue and action took place along its northern frontier in Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Tibet. Mapping the region and gaining knowledge of the enemy were crucial to the interests of both sides.