Showing titles in 20th Century

In Arguments with Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha uses the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi to present a moral and political history of the modern world. The Gandhi of this book is a compelling as well as controversial figure, whose ideas on non-violence, social justice, religious harmony and economic policy...

In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.

As relevant today as it was when it was first published, Man’s Search for Meaning is a book for finding strength and purpose in times of great despair. “This is a book I reread a lot … it gives me hope … it gives me a sense of strength.”—Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper 360/CNN...

A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia--India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait--were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Postwar by Tony Judt, read by Ralph Cosham. Tracing the story of post-war Europe and its changing role in the world, Judt's magnificent history of the continent of our times investigates the political, social and cultural history of Europe from the...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From the multi-million copy bestselling historian, the remarkable, unknown Cold War story of how one spy saved the world from nuclear war The year is 1981. Tehran is in violent turmoil in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. The Soviets are planning to overthrow the...

Finally, here is a history of democratic India that is every bit as sweeping as the country itself … [A] magisterial work’ Financial Times ‘Guha has given democratic India the rich, well-paced history it deserves’ Washington Post ‘An insightful, spirited and elegantly crafted account...

Bloomsbury presents A Spy Among Friends written and read by Ben Macintyre. THE SUNDAY TIMES No. 1 BESTSELLER WITH AN AFTERWORD BY JOHN LE CARRÉ 'Riveting, astounding . . . An unputdownable postwar thriller' Observer 'Irresistibly readable' Sunday Times 'Worthy of John le Carré at his best'...

P. V. Narasimha Rao (or PV, as he was popularly known) has been widely praised for enabling the economic reforms that transformed the country in 1991. From the vantage point of his long personal and professional association with the former prime minister, best-selling author Sanjaya Baru shows how PV's impact on the nation's fortunes went way beyond the economy.

Brought to you by Penguin. The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power and geopolitics that led to America's disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America's fundamental miscalculations during its ruinous, decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein...

In this explosive book, best-selling author Shashi Tharoor reveals with acuity, impeccable research, and trademark wit, just how disastrous British rule was for India. Besides examining the many ways in which the colonizers exploited India, he demolishes the arguments of Western and Indian apologists for Empire on the supposed benefits of British rule.

The history of India's struggle for freedom is usually told from the perspective of the non-violent movement. Yet, the story of armed resistance to colonial occupation is just as important. Names such as Vinayak Savarkar, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose, Bagha Jatin, Sachindra Nath Sanyal...

Once described by Mao Zedong as a "needle inside a ball of cotton", Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China's radical transformation in the late 20th century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao's cult of personality, and loosened the policies that had stunted China's growth. Obsessed with modernization, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Yet he also answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.

In this gripping memoir by the chief American interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, Richard Sonnenfeldt recounts a remarkable life. By age 22 he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.

During his service, he spent pretrial time with Hermann Göering as well as other top Nazi leaders.

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?

A magisterial, single-volume history of the greatest conflict the world has ever known by our foremost military historian. The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe...

Brought to you by Penguin. The dramatic untold story of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, based on original reporting and new archival research. Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history’s worst...

#1 New York Times bestseller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, Barbarians at the Gate is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco at the hands of a buyout from investment firm KKR. A book that stormed both the bestseller list and the public imagination, a book that...

Narrated by 2026 Audio Publishers Association Hall of Fame inductee George Guidall! A new translation from the French by Marion Wiesel. Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This...

BEN MACINTYRE'S NEXT AUDIOBOOK, REDWOOD, IS AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER An exciting Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians and the ultimate gift for anyone who loves a good spy thriller! On a warm July evening in 1985, a...