The Weimar era was a politically turbulent, economically uncertain but culturally dazzling age, which began with the end of the First World War in 1918 and ended abruptly when the National-Socialists came to power. The documentary photographs in this book take the reader on an extraordinary journey through time, as it was in Berlin during the 1920s that the age of the visual mass media began. In addition to recording the great events of the age, journalists began to take a keener interest in people's daily lives, capturing them in superb photo essays. This new approach found expression in the high circulation illustrated magazines of the Weimar Republic, which helped fore the bond between photographs and the press reports that has shaped modern journalism. THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC showcases the society of the 1920s in all its kaleidoscopic variety. The work of photojournalists is further brought to lie by the voices of contempoary people -- through extract from diaries, songs, memoirs and political speeches. Each chapter is introduced by a commentary that sets the historical scene. No other city was as typical of the Weimar Republic as its political and cultural center: Berlin. Teh journalistic focus of the age is therfore also the focus of this book, which devotes a whole chapter to Berliners and a portrait of their city. Together with the photojournalists of the 1920s and 1930s, the reader can stroll through Berlin's streets from its boulevards to its red-light districts. In the richly illustrated glossary the reader will find biographical sketches of the people who each left their individual mark on the Weimar epoch. This book is an extremely valuable reference work on the history of the Weimar era.

When the Nazi power was broken, I asked myself what was the best advice I could give to my fellow citizens here in this island and across the channel in our ravaged continent. There was no difficulty in answering the question. My counsel to Europe can be given in a single word: Unite! - Sir Winston Churchill in 1947 After the Second World War, with Europe in ruins, the victorious Winston Churchill swore to build a peace that would last. Together with a group of thinkers and politicians, Churchill began to build the institutions and the political will that would eventually lead to what we now know as the European Union. He believed in a united Europe, and wanted Britain to play a leading role. This book, based in part on new evidence, reveals his vision: Britain as a leading member of the European family. On the 23rd June this book asks us all to think carefully: what would Churchill have done?

Depuis le milieu des années 1980, dans de nombreux pays d'Europe, des mouvements politiques caractérisés comme populistes, nationaux-populistes ou populistes de droite radicale se sont imposés sur la scène politique, portés par la crise de confiance à l'égard des institutions et des élites gouvernantes. Ces nouveaux partis, tous fortement personnalisés, exploitent les sentiments " anti-politiques " des citoyens et traduisent dans leur discours démagogique le rejet de l'immigration, le sentiment d'insécurité, l'hostilité à l'Europe et à la globalisation. Dans ces mobilisations constituant à la fois une menace et un défi pour les démocraties libérales, l'appel au peuple va de pair avec la défense de l'identité nationale supposée menacée. S'agit-il d'une simple résurgence de l'extrême droite ? D'un retour de la démagogie nationaliste ? De l'apparition d'une nouvelle droite extrême ou radicale ? Ou bien de l'émergence d'un nouveau type de contestation de la démocratie représentative ?

The National Book League was a precursor to the current Booktrust, and was set up in 1924 by the Society of Bookmen in order to promote reading, particularly among the young. To that end, the NBL issued Reader's Guides on a variety of subjects, each written by an author with expertise in that field and containing an annotated bibliography of recommended titles on the subject. First published in 1955, this guide by British actor Alec Clunes, father of Martin, includes a bibliography not only of British theatre in general, but also histories of individual theatres in Britain, biographies of theatrical figures and books on acting technique.

Since 1989 Romania has gone from communist isolation under the megalomaniac Nicolae Ceauescu to being a key player in America's war against terrorism. Because of this strategic location it has become a front-line state for nervous Western governments keen to secure oil routes from the Middle East. It joined NATO in 2004 and is due to enter the European Union in 2007-08 despite its economy being unprepared to meet the competition challenges from established members. Tom Gallagher analyses how the country is seeking to recover from a disastrous period in its history while many of the key legacies of dictatorship remain. Having lynched the discredited Ceauescu in 1989, former acolytes have spent the past fifteen years trying to retain a monopoly of control behind the facade of a Western-style democracy. They combined their political ambitions with acquiring the control of vast amounts of private property denied to them by Ceauescu. Political institutions were given a facelift, as in the case of the intelligence services which became a crucial power-base for the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD). The state continued to be used to serve narrow private interests. Replacing the communist dynasty of the Ceauescus, there is now an oligarchy drawn from the PSD and its satellites in the bureaucracy, major industries, and the intelligence world which grew wealthy through insider privatisation and the looting of the country's banks. Romania is now at a crucial turning-point. In 2004 the mobilisation of civil society contributed to the narrow victory of Traian B sescu in presidential elections. It is unclear whether he can win control over the key levers of state necessary to stem the corruption and abuse of power which have blighted Romania's hopes of breaking free from its communist-era legacy. The PSD is now led by Mircea Geoana, the son of a general in Ceauescu's Securitate. He has recruited a string of Western politicians to block pressure for meaningful change from Brussels and to ensure that accession to the EU occurs without serious reform.

A key theme of Gayatri Spivak's work is agency: the ability of the individual to make their own decisions. While Spivak's main aim is to consider ways in which "subalterns" – her term for the indigenous dispossessed in colonial societies – were able to achieve agency, this paper concentrates specifically on describing the ways in which western scholars inadvertently reproduce hegemonic structures in their work. Spivak is herself a scholar, and she remains acutely aware of the difficulty and dangers of presuming to "speak" for the subalterns she writes about. As such, her work can be seen as predominantly a delicate exercise in the critical thinking skill of interpretation; she looks in detail at issues of meaning, specifically at the real meaning of the available evidence, and her paper is an attempt not only to highlight problems of definition, but to clarify them. What makes this one of the key works of interpretation in the Macat library is, of course, the underlying significance of this work. Interpretation, in this case, is a matter of the difference between allowing subalterns to speak for themselves, and of imposing a mode of "speaking" on them that – however well-intentioned – can be as damaging in the postcolonial world as the agency-stifling political structures of the colonial world itself. By clearing away the detritus of scholarly attempts at interpretation, Spivak takes a stand against a specifically intellectual form of oppression and marginalization.

American scholar Jared Diamond deploys his powers of interpretation to great effect in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, which seeks to understand the meaning behind the available evidence describing societies that have survived and those that have withered and died. Why, for example, did the Norsemen of Scandinavia who colonized Greenland in the early tenth century not survive, while the inhabitants of Highland New Guinea did? With the evidence to hand, Diamond notes that a society’s collapse tends to be preceded by a severe reduction in population and considerable decreases in political, economic and social complexity. Delving even deeper, Diamond isolates five major factors determine the success or failure of human societies in all periods of history: environmental degradation, which occurs when an ecosystem deteriorates as its resources are exhausted; climate change (natural or man-made); hostile neighbors; weakened trading partners; and access or otherwise to the resources that enable the society to adapt its challenges. The breadth of Diamond’s research provides the springboard from which to reach these definitions, but it inevitably also introduces complications; how can evidence produced by specialists in so many different disciplines be compared? Diamond’s ability to understand the meaning of the evidence at hand – and his readiness to seek and supply clarifications of meaning where necessary – underpin his achievement, and comprise a textbook example of how interpretative skills can provide a framework for strong critical thinking.

Franz Boas’s 1940 Race, Language and Culture is a monumentally important text in the history of its discipline, collecting the articles and essays that helped make Boas known as the ‘father of American anthropology.’ An encapsulation of a career dedicated to fighting against the false theories of so-called ‘scientific racism’ that abounded in the first half of the 20th-century, Race, Language and Culture is one of the most historically significant texts in its field – and central to its arguments and impact are Boas’s formidable interpretative skills. It could be said, indeed, that Race, Language and Culture is all about the centrality of interpretation in questioning our assumptions about the world. In critical thinking, interpretation is the ability to clarify and posit definitions for the terms and ideas that make up an argument. Boas’s work demonstrates the importance of another vital element: context. For Boas, who argued passionately for ‘cultural relativism,’ it was vital to interpret individual cultures by their own standards and context – not by ours. Only through comparing and contrasting the two can we reach, he suggested, a better understanding of humankind. Though our own questions might be smaller, it is always worth considering the crucial element Boas brought to interpretation: how does context change definition?

John Locke’s 1689 Two Treatises of Government is a key text in the history of political theory – one whose influence remains marked on modern politics, the American Constitution and beyond. Two Treatises is more than a seminal work on the nature and legitimacy of government. It is also a masterclass in two key critical thinking skills: evaluation and reasoning. Evaluation is all about judging and assessing arguments – asking how relevant, adequate and convincing they are. And, at its heart, the first of Locke’s two treatises is pure evaluation: a long and incisive dissection of a treatise on the arguments in Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha. Filmer’s book had defended the doctrine that kings were absolute rulers whose legitimacy came directly from God (the so-called “divine right of kings”), basing his arguments on Biblical explanations and evidence. Locke carefully rebutted Filmer’s arguments, on their own terms, by reference to both the Bible and to recorded history. Finding Filmer’s evidence either to be insufficient or unacceptable, Locke concluded that his argument for patriarchy was weak to the point of invalidity. In the second of Locke’s treatises, the author goes on to construct his own argument concerning the sources of legitimate power, and the nature of that power. Carefully building his own argument from a logical consideration of man in “the state of nature”, Locke creates a convincing argument that civilised society should be based on natural human rights and the social contract.

On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump won the American presidential election, to the surprise of many across the globe. Now that Trump is Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful country on earth, Americans and non-Americans alike have been left wondering what this will mean for the world. It has been claimed that Trump's foreign policy views are impulsive, inconsistent and that they were improvised on the campaign trail. However, drawing on interviews from as far back as 1980, Charlie Laderman and Brendan Simms show that this assumption is dangerously false. They reveal that Trump has had a consistent position on international trade and America's alliances since he first considered running for president in the late 1980s. Furthermore, his foreign policy views have deep roots in American history. For the new President, almost every international problem that has confronted the United States can be explained by the mistakes of its leaders. Yet, after decades of dismissing America's leaders as fools and denouncing their diplomacy, Trump must now prove that he can do better.Over the past three decades, he has been laying out in interviews, articles, books and tweets what amounts to a foreign policy philosophy. This book reveals the world view that Trump brings to the Oval Office. It shows how that world view was formed, what might result if it is applied in policy terms and the potential consequences for the rest of the world.

The Anti-Politics Machine (1990) examines how international development projects are conceived, researched, and put into practice. It also looks at what these projects actually achieve. Ferguson criticizes the idea of externally-directed ‘development’ and argues that the process doesn’t take proper account of the daily realities of the communities it is intended to benefit. Instead, they often prioritize technical solutions for addressing poverty and ignoring its social and political dimensions, so the structures that these projects put in place often have unintended consequences. Ferguson suggests that until the process becomes more reflective, development projects will continue to fail.

Charles Darwin called on a broad and unusually powerful combination of critical thinking skills to create his wide-ranging explanation for biological change, On the Origin of Species. It’s one of those rare books that takes a huge problem – the enormous diversity of different species – and seeks to use a vast range of evidence to solve it. But it was perhaps Darwin’s towering creative prowess that made the most telling contribution to this masterpiece, for it was this that enabled him to make the necessary fresh connections between so much disparate evidence from such a diversity of fields. All of Darwin’s critical thinking skills were required, however, in the course of the decades of work that went into this volume. Taken as a whole, Darwin’s solution to the problem that he set himself is carefully researched, considers multiple explanations, and justifies its conclusions with well-organised reasoning. At the time of the publication, in 1859, there were various explanations for the changes that Darwin – and others – observed; what separated Darwin from so many of his contemporaries is that he deployed critical thinking to arrive at a significantly new way of fitting explanation to evidence; one that remains elegant, complete and predictive to this day.

Joan Scott's work has influenced several generations of historians and helped make the topic of gender central to the way in which the discipline is taught and studied today. At root a new way of conceptualizing capitalist societies, Scott's theories suggest that gender is better understood as a social construct than as a biological fact. Scott’s original contribution to the debate, however, stems in her use of the critical thinking skill of analysis to understand how the arguments of earlier generations of historians were built in order to fully grasp both their structure and the assumptions that underpinned them. From there, Scott was able to use problem-solving to resolve the issues that emerged from her analysis, asking productive questions focused on better ways to build a model capable of explaining the historical phenomenon of gender difference. Scott answered these questions by introducing models created by deconstructionist scholars – notably Jacques Derrida, who challenged the idea that any term or concept has a stable or dependable meaning rooted in material reality. She was able, in consequence, to refute that idea that gender inequality is the natural (hence justifiable) consequence of biological sexual differences, and issue a fundamental challenge to the capitalist system itself.

Few historians can claim to have undertaken historical analysis on as grand a scale as Geoffrey Parker in his 2013 work Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. It is a doorstop of a book that surveys the ‘general crisis of the 17th century,’ shows that it was experienced practically throughout the world, and was not merely a European phenomenon, and links it to the impact of climate change in the form of the advent of a cold period known as the ‘Little Ice Age.’ Parker’s triumph is made possible by the deployment of formidable critical thinking skills – reasoning, to construct an engaging overall argument from very disparate material, and analysis, to re-examine and understand the plethora of complex secondary sources on which his book is built. In critical thinking, analysis is all about understanding the features and structures of argument: how given reasons lead to conclusions, and what kinds of implicit reasons and assumptions are being used. Historical analysis applies the same skills to the fabric of history, asking how given chains of events occur, how different reasons and factors interact, and so on. Parker, though, takes things further than most in his quest to understand the meaning of a century’s-worth of turbulence spread across the whole globe. Beginning by breaking down the evidence for significant climatic cooling in the 17th-century (due to decreased solar activity), he moves on to detailed study of the effects the cooling had on societies and regimes across the world. From this detailed spadework, he constructs a persuasive argument that accounts for the different ways in which the effects of climate change played out across the century – an argument with profound implications for a future likely to see serious climate change of its own.

To the dismay of many commentators – who had hoped the world was evolving into a more tolerant and multicultural community of nations united under the umbrellas of supranational movements like the European Union – the nationalism that was such a potent force in the history of the 20th-century has made a comeback in recent years. Now, more than ever, it seems important to understand what it is, how it works, and why it is so attractive to so many people. A fine place to start any such exploration is with Ernest Gellner's seminal Nations and Nationalism, a ground-breaking study that was the first to flesh out the counter-intuitive – but enormously influential – thesis that modern nationalism has little if anything in common with old-fashioned patriotism or loyalty to one's homeland. Gellner's intensely creative thesis is that the nationalism we know today is actually the product of the 19th-century industrial revolution, which radically reshaped ancient communities, encouraging emigration to cities at the same time as it improved literacy rates and introduced mass education. Gellner connected these three elements in an entirely new way, contrasting developments to the structures of pre-industrial agrarian economies to show why the new nationalism could not have been born in such communities. He was also successful in generating a typology of nationalisms in an attempt to explain why some forms flourished while others fizzled out. His remarkable ability to produce novel explanations for existing evidence marks out Nations and Nationalism as one of the most radical, stimulating – and enduringly influential – works of its day.

Henry Kissinger’s 2014 book World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History not only offers a summary of thinking developed throughout a long and highly influential career–it is also an intervention in international relations theory by one of the most famous statesmen of the twentieth century. Kissinger initially trained as a university professor before becoming Secretary of State to President Richard Nixon in 1973 – a position in which he both won the Nobel Peace Prize and was accused of war crimes by protesters against American military actions in Vietnam. While a controversial figure, Kissinger is widely agreed to have a unique level of practical and theoretical expertise in politics and international relations – and World Order is the culmination of a lifetime’s experience of work in those fields. The product of a master of the critical thinking skill of interpretation, World Order takes on the challenge of defining the worldviews at play in global politics today. Clarifying precisely what is meant by the different notions of ‘order’ imagined by nations across the world, as Kissinger does, highlights the challenges of world politics, and sharpens the focus on efforts to make surmounting these divisions possible. While Kissinger’s own reputation will likely remain equivocal, there is no doubting the interpretative skills he displays in this engaging and illuminating text.

Few can say they’ve seen some of the most significant moments of the twentieth century unravel before their eyes. Marita Lorenz is one of them.

Born in Germany at the outbreak of WWII, Marita was incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. In 1959, she travelled to Cuba where she met and fell in love with Fidel Castro. Yet upon fleeing to America, she was recruited by the CIA to assassinate the Fidel. Torn by love and loyalty, she failed to slip him the lethal pills.

Her life would take many more twists and turns ― including having a child with ex-dictator of Venezuela, Marcos Pérez Jiménez; testifying about the John G Kennedy assassination; and becoming a party girl for the New York Mafia, as well as a police informant.

Caught up in Cold War intrigue, espionage and conspiracy ― this is Marita’s incredible true story of a young girl, turned spy.

This deftly written single volume reference will tell you everything you need to know about American History. From Abington to Zimmerman, from Jamestown to Enron, this concise accessible volume spans American history from its beginnings through to 2002. Its 1,500 entries include articles on every presidential election through to 2000, on every presidential administration through to Clinton's, on the U.S. Supreme Court and its landmark cases and on all the key events and concepts that have shaped American History.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten' Observer

History does not repeat, but it does instruct.

In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances.

History can familiarise, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperilled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny.

Now is a good time to do so.

'An enthralling adventure story, honest and powerful. The Wars of the Roses are imagined here with energy, with ferocity, with hunger to engage the reader.' Hilary Mantel

Lent, 1469

The recent wars between the House of York and the House of Lancaster seem over. The Yorkist King Edward sits on his throne in Westminster, while the Lancastrian claimants are in exile or under lock and key in the Tower.

But within the family of York there is discord. The Earl of Warwick conspires against his King, and while to one another's faces they are all smiles, their household men speak in lies and whispers.

No man comes to court unarmed.

Thomas and Katherine have returned to Marton Hall, the only home they know.

But what lies buried in the past cannot remain so for long, and soon they are forced to take up arms once more in one of the most savage wars in history.

The Wars of the Roses . . .

'POWERFUL AND SOMETIMES SHOCKING ...' SUNDAY TIMES

In this powerful book, Dr Shirin Ebadi, Iranian human rights lawyer and activist, tells of her fight for reform inside Iran, and the devastating backlash she faced after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Having fought tirelessly for democracy, equality before the law and freedom of speech, Ebadi became a global voice of inspiration. Yet, inside her own country, her life has been plagued by surveillance, intimidation and violence.

Until We Are Free tells shocking stories of how the Iranian authorities eventually forced her into exile. Her sister and daughter were detained, her husband was enmeshed in an espionage plot with another woman, her Nobel medal was stolen from her safety deposit box, and her offices in Tehran were ransacked.

An illuminating depiction of life in Iran today as well as the account of Ebadi's personal struggle to uphold her work and keep her family together, Until We Are Free is ultimately a work of hope and perseverance under circumstances of exceptional difficulty.

'I cannot think of a better biography of a spy chief'
Richard Davenport-Hines, The Spectator

Sir Maurice Oldfield was one of the most important British spies of the Cold War era. A farmer’s son from a provincial grammar school who found himself accidentally plunged into the world of espionage, Sir Maurice was the first Chief of MI6 who didn’t come to the role via the traditional public school and Oxbridge route.

Oldfield was the voice of British Intelligence in Washington at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of JFK, and was largely responsible for keeping the UK out of the Vietnam War. Working his way to the top of the secret service, he took on the job of rebuilding confidence in the British Secret Service in the wake of the Philby, Burgess and Maclean spy scandals.

This is the fascinating life story, told in detail for the first time, of a complex, likable character as well as a formidable intelligence chief.

In August 2014, Farida Khalaf was just a normal Yazidi girl, living in a village high in the mountains of northern Iraq. Then her village was attacked and swiftly taken by ISIS fighters, and her whole world changed. The jihadists murdered the men and the boys of her village, including her father and brothers, before taking Farida prisoner along with the rest of the women.

This is the story of what happened to Farida after she was captured: the beatings, the rapes, the markets where ISIS sold their female prisoners like cattle, and Farida's realisation that the more difficult and resistant she became, the harder it was for her captors to continue their atrocities against her. So she struggled, she bit, she kicked, she accused her captors of going against their religion, and then, one day, the door to her room was left unlocked. She took her chance along with 5 other women, and set out across the Syrian desert ...

This is a story of incredible courage in the face of unthinkable atrocity. As the battle against ISIS continues to ravage the Middle East, The Girl Who Escaped Isis provides an astonishing perspective on this very terrifying global threat.

Peter Wilding offers an arresting answer, plotting out a new course for Britain's troubled relationship with Europe. He channels the pride Britain draws from its heritage through the prejudice Britain has historically had against Europe, and proposes a new popular-based platform for British influence in Europe: 'smart power'. Wilding identifies how British leaders from Pitt to Cameron have attempted to use exactly this 'smart power' in their approach to Europe. He tells the story of their shared experiences in forging Churchill's strategy - a long-term plan which put Britain at the heart of Europe and the Commonwealth and alongside the United States - and applies it to Britain today. Outlining a new approach for Britain's leaders, Wilding proposes a new, positive vision to position Britain in a fast-changing and fractured world. His book will provide valuable new perspectives on the debate about what Britain does next after the EU referendum.

Born into slavery in 1818, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom and became a passionate advocate for abolition and social change and the foremost spokesperson for the nation's enslaved African American population in the years preceding the Civil War. "My Bondage and My Freedom" is Douglass' masterful recounting of his remarkable life and a fiery condemnation of a political and social system that would reduce people to property and keep an entire race in chains. This classic is revisited with a new introduction and annotations by celebrated Douglass scholar David W. Blight. Blight situates the book within the politics of the 1850s and illuminates how "My Bondage" represents Douglass as a mature, confident, powerful writer who crafted some of the most unforgettable metaphors of slavery and freedom – indeed of basic human universal aspirations for freedom – anywhere in the English language.

Originally published in 1875, this book contains the Latin text of the speeches delivered by the public orator at an honorary degree ceremony for the University of Cambridge on June 16, 1874. The sixteen honorees included George Bentham, Sir Alexander Cockburn and George Salmon, and each was commended to the Chancellor of the University in a personalized speech on their achievements. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in nineteenth-century political, scientific and artistic achievement or the history of Cambridge University.

Originally published in 1952, this book contains the text of a lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge that year by prominent Classical historian Arnold Jones on the Athenian audience to the orations of Demosthenes. Demosthenes famously castigated his fellow Athenians at many points in his career, and Jones examines the evidence provided by Demosthenes and his fellow orators for clues as to the real disposition of their listeners and how they could have been persuaded by the politicians of the day. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in ancient history or ancient oratory.

First published in 1946, and originally delivered in 1944 as a lecture to students of Bedford College, London, who had been evacuated to Cambridge, this book provides 'a historical sketch of the intermingling of the peoples in the making of the American Nation'. Benians examines what role played by race in the history of America, a country not based on racial foundations but upon the liberal notion of freedom. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the impact of race on the development of the United States.

‘A bold and imaginative page-turner that challenges ideas about the world of antiquity.’ Peter Frankopan (The Silk Roads)

‘This vivid and engaging book brings to life some of the most important moments in ancient history, moments that have shaped not only the politics and culture of bygone eras, but the institutions, thoughts and fantasies of our time.’ Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens)

‘As panoramic as it is learned, this is ancient history for our globalised world.' Tom Holland (Dynasty, Rubicon)

Acclaimed historian and TV presenter Michael Scott guides us through an epic story spanning ten centuries to create a bold new reading of the classical era for our globalised world.

Scott challenges our traditionally western-focused perception of the past, connecting Greco-Roman civilisation to the great rulers and empires that swept across Central Asia to India and China – resulting in a truly global vision of ancient history.

With stunning range and richness Ancient Worlds illustrates how the great powers and characters of antiquity shared ambitions and crises, ways of thinking and forms of governing: connections that only grew stronger over the centuries as political systems evolved, mighty armies clashed, universal religions were born and our modern world was foreshadowed.

Scott focuses on three epochal ‘moments’ across the ancient globe, and their profound wider significance: from 509-8 BCE (birth of Athenian democracy and Rome’s republic, also the age of Confucius’s teachings in China); to 218 BCE (when Hannibal of Carthage challenged Rome and China saw its first emperor); to 312 CE, when Constantine sought to impose Christianity on the Roman world even as Buddhism was pervading China via the vast trading routes we now know as the ‘Silk Roads.’

A major work of global history, Michael Scott’s enthralling journey challenges the way we think about our past, re-draws the map of the classical age to reveal its hidden connections, and shows us how ancient history has lessons for our own times.

Originally published in 1929, this book presents the content of the Rede Lecture for that year, which was delivered by John Buchan at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in historical scholarship and historiography.

The National Book League was a precursor to the current Booktrust, and was set up in 1924 by the Society of Bookmen in order to promote reading, particularly among the young. To that end, the NBL issued Reader's Guides on a variety of subjects, each written by an author with expertise in that field and containing an annotated bibliography of recommended titles on the subject. This bibliography by H. Stanley Hyland, Senior Library Clerk in the House of Commons Library, first published in 1951, is in three sections: Section One lists books on the history of the monarchy, as well as on court procedure and information on the royal palaces. Section Two deals mostly with the history of Parliament in the various jurisdictions of the British Isles, and Section Three concerns the meeting of the monarchy and Parliament throughout history.

Originally published in 1944, this book presents the content of Sir George Norman Clark's inaugural lecture upon taking up the position of Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the nature of historical scholarship and historiography.

The UK's Brexit vote on 23rd June 2016 provided perhaps the most dramatic proof that the era of political and economic globalization has ended. Populism, nationalism and xenophobia are surging across Europe and Brexit adds to the problems facing the established political order. This book shows how we reached this stage and what needs to be done now. As a former MP and Europe minister under Tony Blair, and latterly as a commentator and writer on European issues, Denis MacShane has a unique insider perspective on the events that led to Brexit and the behind-the-scenes discussions that followed. He argues that Brexit will not mean full rupture with Europe and that British capitalism will overcome the ultra-right-wing forces of the Conservative back-bench and UKIP. Although the path to Article 50 and beyond will be fraught and tensely-negotiated, Britain cannot and will not divorce itself from the continent of Europe and the European question will continue to be a defning feature of politics into the future.

'Remarkable . . . rare, intimate . . . Samer is an understated hero of our time.' Anthony Loyd, The Times

'A clarion call to all of us that we should not give up. Somewhere there is a voice in the wreckage.' Michael Palin

'This is brutal non-fiction, plainly and urgently told.' Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian

'The simple act of bearing witness is one of the most powerful human responses available . . . The Raqqa Diaries is so important.' Evening Standard

‘Everyone should spend a couple of hours of their life reading it, to remind themselves that, even in the darkest depth of human misery, the bravest souls still exist.’ Sunday Times

Since ISIS occupied Raqqa in eastern Syria, it has become one of the most isolated and fear-ridden cities on earth.

The sale of televisions has been banned, wearing trousers the wrong length is a punishable offence, and using a mobile phone is considered an unforgivable crime.

No journalists are allowed in and the penalty for speaking to the western media is death by beheading.

Despite this, after several months of nervy and often interrupted conversations, the BBC was able to make contact with a small activist group, Al-Sharqiya 24. Finally, courageously, one of their members agreed to write a personal diary about his experiences.

Having seen friends and relatives butchered, his community's life shattered and the local economy ruined by these hate-fuelled extremists, Samer is fighting back in the only way he can: by telling the world what is happening to his beloved city.

This is Samer's story.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY and THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY

'A thrilling account' The Times

'As heroic as Digby himself, Moshenska has defied the tyranny of genre and made his own absorbing account' Observer

'A master storyteller. Full of exquisite details, but with the grandest themes... this is a gripping adventure story' Zia Haider Rahman

'A brilliant account of one of the seventeenth century's most dashing lives' Ruth Scurr

'Gripping and extraordinary' Ann Wroe

On the 16th of August 1628, five battle-scarred English ships sailed into the harbour of the Greek island of Milos. Dropping anchor, the 25-year-old captain banqueted with the local lord before sitting down to write an account of his journey – an account that would transform him entirely.

Sir Kenelm Digby was one of the most remarkable Englishmen who ever lived: a trusted advisor to the King, but the sworn enemy of the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham; a pioneering philosopher and scientist, but committed to the occult arts of alchemy and astrology; a friend not only of Ben Jonson, Thomas Hobbes and van Dyck, but even Oliver Cromwell. He was also widely known as the ‘son of a traytor and husband of a whore’: a man who witnessed his father’s gruesome execution for high treason as a Gunpowder Plotter, and the lover of the most celebrated beauty of the age, Venetia Stanley.

In an attempt to clear his name, and on a quest for personal glory, Digby assembled a fleet and set sail for the Mediterranean: a world of pirate cities and ancient ruins where people, ideas and exotic goods moved freely between languages and nations. His journey – encompassing fevers, mutiny, piracy, daring rescues and heroic sea battles – is a great and terribly overlooked adventure, and a prism through which to view England, and all of Europe, during one of the most pivotal periods in its history.

A Stain in the Blood is the story of an extraordinary life, and of a journey that helped to shape a nation. It is a revelatory first work of non-fiction by one of the brightest young writers and thinkers of today.

The first day of the Somme has had more of a widespread emotional impact on the psyche of the British public than any other battle in history. Now, 100 years later, Robert Kershaw attempts to understand the carnage, using the voices of the British and German soldiers who lived through that awful day.
In the early hours of 1 July 1916, the British General staff placed its faith in patriotism and guts, believing that one ‘Big Push’ would bring on the end of the Great War. By sunset, there were 57,470 men – more than half the size of the present-day British Army – who lay dead, missing or wounded. On that day hope died.
Juxtaposing the British trench view against that from the German parapet, Kershaw draws on eyewitness accounts, memories and letters to expose the true horror of that day. Amongst the mud, gore and stench of death, there are also stories of humanity and resilience, of all-embracing comradeship and gritty patriotic British spirit. However it was this very emotion which ultimately caused thousands of young men to sacrifice themselves on the Somme.

'A thrilling blow-by-blow account' The Times

In February 1944, a rag-tag collection of clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers, and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews managed to hold out against some of the finest infantry in the Japanese Army, and then defeat them in what was one of the most astonishing battles of the Second World War.

What became know as The Defence of the Admin Box, fought amongst the paddy fields and jungle of Northern Arakan over a fifteen-day period, turned the battle for Burma. Not only was it the first decisive victory for British troops against the Japanese, more significantly, it demonstrated how the Japanese could be defeated. The lessons learned in this tiny and otherwise insignificant corner of the Far East, set up the campaign in Burma that would follow, as General Slim’s Fourteenth Army finally turned defeat into victory.

Burma '44 is a tale of incredible drama. As gripping as the story of Rorke's drift, as momentous as the battle for the Ardennes, the Admin Box was a triumph of human grit and heroism and remains one of the most significant yet undervalued conflicts of World War Two.

Originally published in 1937, this volume contains the text of the Rede Lecture for that year, delivered by Vita Sackville-West's ex-husband Harold Nicolson. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of British diplomacy and British nationalism.

Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 by the Financial Times, Guardian, New Statesman, Observer, The Millions and Emerald Street

'Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.

That is an imaginary definition.'

If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?

In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities.

From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

Winner of the Saltire Society First Book Award 2016
An Economist Book of the Year 2016
A Spectator Book of the Year 2016

In 2011, Isabel Buchanan, a twenty-three-year-old Scottish lawyer, moved to Pakistan to work in a new legal chambers in Lahore. The chambers was run by a determined thirty-three-year-old Pakistani lawyer, Sarah Belal, who had finally found her calling in defending inmates on Pakistan’s death row.

Belal and Buchanan struck up an unlikely friendship, forged through working in a system that was instinctively hostile to newcomers – and doubly so if they were female. At Sarah’s side, and with the help of Nasar, the firm’s legendary clerk, Buchanan plunged into the strange and complex world of Pakistan’s justice system. The work was arduous, underfunded, and dangerous. But for a young Scottish lawyer like Buchanan it was an unparalleled education, offering a window onto a much-misunderstood country and culture. Filled with beautifully drawn characters, she creates a narrative brimming with ideas and bursting with humanity. It is a story of Pakistan, but it is also a universal story of the pursuit of justice in an uncertain world.

Originally published in 1949, this book contains the text of an inaugural lecture delivered by Roy Franklin Nichols, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History in the same year. Nichols praises Transatlantic historical scholarship as rewarding for both American and British audiences, and suggests that an increase in mutual study would widen the historian's field of vision and prevent historians from becoming too narrow-minded and exclusive. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of scholarship and the historical connection between the United States and Great Britain.

Originally published in 1929, this book contains the text of D. S. Robertson's inaugural lecture upon taking up the Regius Professorship of Greek in the University of Cambridge on 6 May of that year, and will be of value to anyone with an interest in the state of Classics, particularly the study of Greek, in interwar Britain.

Selected as a Book of the Year in the Telegraph and Evening Standard

'A gripping, vivid, deeply researched chronicle of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes of a surprising, flamboyant cast of foreigners in Petrograd, superbly narrated by Helen Rappaport.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs

'Next year's centenary will prompt a raft of books on the Russian Revolution. They will be hard pushed to better this highly original, exhaustively researched and superbly constructed account.' Saul David, Daily Telegraph

Caught in the Revolution is Helen Rappaport’s masterful telling of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold.

Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil – felt nowhere more keenly than on the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt where the foreign visitors and diplomats who filled hotels, clubs, bars and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps and beneath their windows.

Among this disparate group were journalists, businessmen, bankers, governesses, volunteer nurses and expatriate socialites. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women’s Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareva.

Helen Rappaport draws upon this rich trove of material, much of it previously unpublished, to carry us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened to a diverse group of individuals who suddenly felt themselves trapped in a ‘red madhouse.’

Originally published in 1937, this volume contains the text of an inaugural lecture delivered by celebrated medieval historian C. W. Previté-Orton upon his accession to the Professorship of Medieval History in the University of Cambridge. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in medieval historiography and the study of medieval Europe.

‘War is too important to be left to the generals’ snapped future French prime minister Georges Clemenceau on learning of yet another bloody and futile offensive on the Western Front.
One of the great questions in the ongoing discussions and debate about the First World War is why did winning take so long and exact so appalling a human cost? After all this was a fight that, we were told, would be over by Christmas.
Now, in his major new history, Allan Mallinson, former professional soldier and author of the acclaimed 1914: Fight the Good Fight, provides answers that are disturbing as well as controversial, and have a contemporary resonance. He disputes the growing consensus among historians that British generals were not to blame for the losses and setbacks in the ‘war to end all wars’ – that, given the magnitude of their task, they did as well anyone could have. He takes issue with the popular view that the ‘amateur’ opinions on strategy of politicians such as Lloyd George and, especially, Winston Churchill, prolonged the war and increased the death toll. On the contrary, he argues, even before the war began Churchill had a far more realistic, intelligent and humane grasp of strategy than any of the admirals or generals, while very few senior officers – including Sir Douglas Haig – were up to the intellectual challenge of waging war on this scale. And he repudiates the received notion that Churchill’s stature as a wartime prime minister after 1940 owes much to the lessons he learned from his First World War ‘mistakes’ – notably the Dardanelles campaign – maintaining that in fact Churchill’s achievement in the Second World War owes much to the thwarting of his better strategic judgement by the ‘professionals’ in the First – and his determination that this would not be repeated.

Mallinson argues that from day one of the war Britain was wrong-footed by absurdly faulty French military doctrine and paid, as a result, an unnecessarily high price in casualties. He shows that Lloyd George understood only too well the catastrophically dysfunctional condition of military policy-making and struggled against the weight of military opposition to fix it. And he asserts that both the British and the French failed to appreciate what the Americans’ contribution to victory could be – and, after the war, to acknowledge fully what it had actually been.

Originally published in 1944, this book presents the content of Zachary Nugent Brooke's inaugural lecture upon taking up the position of Professor of Medieval History at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in medieval history and European history.

Originally published in 1918, this book presents the content of the Rede Lecture for that year, which was delivered by George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Royal Navy and military history.

The 37th Parallel tells the true story of a computer programmer whose investigations into alien activity lead him deep into a vast conspiracy stretching 3000 miles across America.

Chuck Zukowski is obsessed with tracking down UFO reports, but this innocent hobby takes on a sinister urgency when he makes a horrifying discovery. As he traces a series of incidents across Utah, Colorado and Kansas, a pattern emerges: a horizontal line of unexplained activity stretching right across America, a line some are calling the ‘UFO Highway’ or the ‘37th Parallel’.

His extraordinary journey takes him from El Paso to the Pentagon, into secret underground military caverns and Indian sacred sites. This terrifying account will keep you awake at night, pondering some of the biggest and most inescapable questions humanity faces: are we really alone in this vast universe? And if not, who are our neighbours?

Tony Blair's decision to back George W. Bush in his attack on Iraq will go down as a defining moment for Britain. First as Ambassador to the UN, and then as Special Envoy for Iraq, the UK’s highest authority on the ground, Sir Jeremy Greenstock was centre stage in the tumultuous days leading up to the Iraq war and witnessed first-hand its tremendous impact. This extraordinary book is a record of what he saw.

Greenstock writes openly about US―UK relations, taking his readers behind closed doors and revealing the actions of key players in New York, Washington, London, Paris and the Middle East. To what extent was the Bush administration determined to attack Iraq come what may? What promise did Blair extract in exchange for backing Bush? Was the war legal? What effect is it continuing to have on Britain’s long-term relations with America and Europe?

Held back from publication when originally written in 2005, and now revised with a new foreword and epilogue following the publication of the Chilcot Report, Iraq: The Cost of War is a groundbreaking blow-by-blow account of one of the most pivotal and controversial conflicts in recent world history.

This new historical atlas - richly illustrated with photographs, artwork recreations and full-colour maps - explores the Middle Ages from the coming of the barbarian invasions in the fourth century to the first voyages to the New World in the sixteenth. C

This new historical atlas - richly illustrated with photographs, artwork recreations and full-colour maps - explores the world's earliest civilisations from the first farming settlements of Mesopotamia, via Egypt, Greece and Rome, to the civilisations of

From Kaliningrad on the Baltic to the Russian Far East, journalist Ben Judah has travelled throughout Russia and the former Soviet republics, conducting extensive interviews with President Vladimir Putin's friends, foes, and colleagues, government officials, business tycoons, mobsters, and ordinary Russian citizens. "Fragile Empire" is the fruit of Judah's thorough research: a probing assessment of Putin's rise to power and what it has meant for Russia and her people. Despite a propaganda programme intent on maintaining the cliche of stability, Putin's regime was suddenly confronted in December 2011 by a highly public protest movement that told a different side of the story. Judah argues that Putinism has brought economic growth to Russia but also weaker institutions, and this contradiction leads to instability. The author explores both Putin's successes and failed promises, taking into account the impact of a new middle class and a new generation, the Internet, social activism and globalization, on the president's impending leadership crisis. Can Russia avoid the crisis of Putinism? Judah offers original and up-to-the-minute answers.

A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2017

After the Second World War, the Nuremberg Tribunal became a symbol of justice in the face of tyranny, aggression and atrocity. But it was only a fragment of retribution as, with their Allies, the British embarked on the largest programme of war crimes investigations and trials in history.

This book exposes the deeper truth of this endeavour, moving from the scripted trial of Goering, Hess and von Ribbentrop to the makeshift courtrooms where the SS officers, guards and executioners were prosecuted. It tells the story of the investigators, lawyers and perpetrators and asks the question: was justice done?

For most of the second half of the twentieth century, the United States and its allies competed with a hostile Soviet Union in almost every way imaginable except open military engagement. The Cold War placed two opposite conceptions of the good society before the uncommitted world and history itself, and science figured prominently in the picture. "Competing with the Soviets" offers a short, accessible introduction to the special role that science and technology played in maintaining state power during the Cold War, from the atomic bomb to the Human Genome Project. The high-tech machinery of nuclear physics and the space race are at the center of this story, but Audra J. Wolfe also examines the surrogate battlefield of scientific achievement in such diverse fields as urban planning, biology, and economics; explains how defense-driven federal investments created vast laboratories and research programs; and shows how unfamiliar worries about national security and corrosive questions of loyalty crept into the supposedly objective scholarly enterprise. Based on the assumption that scientists are participants in the culture in which they live, "Competing with the Soviets" looks beyond the debate about whether military influence distorted science in the Cold War. Scientists' choices and opportunities have always been shaped by the ideological assumptions, political mandates, and social mores of their times. The idea that American science ever operated in a free zone outside of politics is, Wolfe argues, itself a legacy of the ideological Cold War that held up American science, and scientists, as beacons of freedom in contrast to their peers in the Soviet Union. Arranged chronologically and thematically, the book highlights how ideas about the appropriate relationships among science, scientists, and the state changed over time.

In the last decade, the EU has been hit by a series of crises, most recently the UK s decision to leave the union following the Brexit referendum. In light of this, questions have been raised about the need to reform the whole model of European integration, with the aim of making the union more flexible and more accountable. In this book, Richard Youngs proposes an alternative vision of European co-operation and shows how the EU must re-invent itself if it is to survive. He argues that citizens should play a greater role in European decision-making, that there should be radically more flexibility in the process of integration and that Europe needs to take a new, more coherent, approach to questions of defence and security. In proposing this model for a 'reset' version of Europe, Youngs reinvigorates the debate around the future of Europe and puts forward a new agenda for the future of the EU.

Hitler had a dream to rule the world, not only with the gun but also with his mind. He saw himself as a "philosopher-leader", and astonishingly gained the support of many intellectuals of his time. In this compelling book, Yvonne Sherratt explores Hitler's relationship with philosophers and uncovers cruelty, ambition, violence and betrayal where least expected – at the heart of Germany's ivory tower. Sherratt investigates international archives, discovering even in the 1920s evidence of Hitler's vulgarization of noble thinkers of the past, including Kant, Nietzsche, and Darwin. She reveals how philosophers of the 1930s eagerly collaborated to lend the Nazi regime a cloak of respectability: Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and a host of others. And while these eminent men sanctioned slaughter, Semitic thinkers like Walter Benjamin and opponents like Kurt Huber were hunted down or murdered. Many others, such as Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, were forced to flee as refugees. The book portrays their fates, dispersed across the world as the historic edifice of Jewish-German culture was destroyed. Sherratt not only confronts a past; she also tracks down chilling evidence of continuing Nazi sympathy in Western Universities today.

During the Gilded Age, which saw the dawn of America's enduring culture wars, Robert Green Ingersoll was known as "the Great Agnostic". The nation's most famous orator, he raised his voice on behalf of Enlightenment reason, secularism, and the separation of church and state with a vigour unmatched since America's revolutionary generation. When he died in 1899, even his religious enemies acknowledged that he might have aspired to the U.S. presidency had he been willing to mask his opposition to religion. To the question that retains its controversial power today – was the United States founded as a Christian nation? Ingersoll answered an emphatic no. In this provocative biography, Susan Jacoby, the author of "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism", restores Ingersoll to his rightful place in an American intellectual tradition extending from Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine to the current generation of "new atheists". Jacoby illuminates the ways in which America's often-denigrated and forgotten secular history encompasses issues, ranging from women's rights to evolution, as potent and divisive today as they were in Ingersoll's time. Ingersoll emerges in this portrait as one of the indispensible public figures who keep an alternative version of history alive. He devoted his life to that greatest secular idea of all – liberty of conscience belonging to the religious and nonreligious alike.

The battle of Budapest in the bleak winter of 1944-45 was one of the longest and bloodiest city sieges of World War II. In terms of human trauma, it comes second only to Stalingrad, comparisons to which were even being made by soldiers, both German and So

A search for a radio-tagged Indiana bat roosting in the woods behind her house in New York's Hudson Valley led Akiko Busch to assorted other encounters with the natural world – local ecological monitoring projects, community-organized cleanup efforts, and data-driven citizen science research. Whether pulling up water chestnuts in the Hudson River, measuring beds of submerged aquatic vegetation, or searching out vernal pools, all illuminated the role of ordinary citizens as stewards of place. In this elegantly written book, Busch highlights factors that distinguish twenty-first-century citizen scientists from traditional amateur naturalists: a greater sense of urgency, helpful new technologies, and the expanded possibilities of crowdsourcing. The observations here look both to precisely recorded data sheets and to the impressionistic marginalia, scribbled asides, and side roads that often attend such unpredictable outings. While not a primer on the prescribed protocols of citizen science, the book combines vivid natural history, a deep sense of place, and reflection about our changing world. Musing on the expanding potential of citizen science, the author celebrates today's renewed volunteerism and the opportunities it offers for regaining a deep sense of connection to place.

Forget everything you think you know about global warming. It's not about carbon - it's about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better. Once a decade, Naomi Klein writes a book that redefines its era. No Logo did so for globalization. The Shock Doctrine changed the way we think about austerity. In This Changes Everything, her most provocative and optimistic book yet, Naomi Klein has upended the debate about the stormy era already upon us, exposing the myths that are clouding the climate debate. You have been told the market will save us, when in fact the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day. You have been told it's impossible to get off fossil fuels when in fact we know exactly how to do it - it just requires breaking every rule in the "free-market" playbook. You have also been told that humanity is too greedy and selfish to rise to this challenge. In fact, all around the world, the fight back is already succeeding in ways both surprising and inspiring. It's about changing the world, before the world changes so drastically that no one is safe. Either we leap - or we sink. This Changes Everything is a book that will redefine our era.

Originally published in 1945, this book presents the content of the Rede Lecture for that year, which was delivered by Sir Norman Birkett at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in rural life and the development of national parks in Britain.

The rapid expansion of ISIS and its swathe of territorial gains across the Middle East have been headline news since 2013. Yet much media attention and analysis has been focussed upon the military exploits, brutal tactics and radicalisation methods employed by the group. While ISIS remains a relatively new phenomenon, it is important to consider the historical and local dynamics that have shaped the emergence of the group in the past decade. In this book Simon Mabon and Stephen Royle provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of the roots, tactics and ideology of the group, exploring the interactions of the various participants involved in the formative stages of ISIS. Based on original scholarly sources and first-hand research in the region, this book provides an authoritative and closely-analysed look at the emergence of one of the defining forces of the early twenty-first century.

The attacks in Paris in January and November 2015 heralded the beginning of a new wave of terrorism one rooted in the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq. As ISIS seeks to expand its reach in the Middle East, its territory serves as a base for training and operations for a new generation of jihadis. Thousands of young people from the West, primarily from Europe, have travelled to join ISIS, re-emerging as hardened fighters with military training and a network of international contacts. Many of these have now returned to their homelands, where it is feared they are planning a new series of brutal attacks. Peter R. Neumann here explains the phenomenon of the 'new jihadis', and shows why the threat of terrorism in the West is greater than ever before. Based on interviews and previously-unseen material, Neumann provides an essential introduction to one of the greatest crises of our time."

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? In The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Above all, it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic, near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe.

The debates that began at St Mary's Church, Putney on 28 October 1647 pioneered the liberal, democratic settlement in England: a written constitution, universal suffrage, freedom of conscience and equality before the law. Four centuries later, the 2016 Brexit referendum raised fundamental questions concerning the constitution of the United Kingdom. Following the High Court ruling that the government, under a centuries-old Royal Prerogative, does not have the power to trigger Article 50 to leave the EU, MPs have claimed that we are entering a full-blown constitutional crisis. The parallels between 1647 and 2017 are striking. Government has been toppled, a new leadership has emerged, and the two main parties are in a state of internecine warfare. Parliamentarians do not understand how to reconcile their duty to act for the common good and the result of the referendum. The people are divided and the four nations comprising the United Kingdom are at odds. This volume brings together some of the greatest public intellectuals of their generation to debate the constitutional crisis at the heart of today's politics. Featuring contributions from A.C. Grayling, Joshua Rozenberg, Onora O'Neill, Will Hutton, Timothy Garton Ash and Michael Mansfield, this book provides important new perspectives on the most important political debate of the twenty-first century.

Food is essential to our sense of place and our sense of self, but today--as fast food nation meets the slow food movement and eating locally collides with on-demand arugula--our food habits are shifting. Food examines and imagines these changes, with projects by writers and artists that explore the cultural and emotional resonance of food, from the "everyday Dada" of mashed potatoes and Jell-O to the rocket science of food eaten by astronauts in space. In Food, an artist photographs everything he ate in 2006 (and some things he didn't eat, including "Food I Left in the Fridge Too Long") and finds the results both "seductive and repulsive"; a writer describes the global agro-assembly line that produces an organic bento box for Japanese commuters containing rice and vegetables from California, pork from Mexico, and salmon from Alaska; a short story writer offers an eight-page graphic novel, Eating in

Many of the traditions which we think of as very ancient in their origins were not in fact sanctioned by long usage over the centuries, but were invented comparatively recently. This book explores examples of this process of invention – the creation of Welsh and Scottish 'national culture'; the elaboration of British royal rituals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the origins of imperial rituals in British India and Africa; and the attempts by radical movements to develop counter-traditions of their own. It addresses the complex interaction of past and present, bringing together historians and anthropologists in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism which poses new questions for the understanding of our history.

It is hard to overestimate the importance of the contribution made by Dame Frances Yates to the serious study of esotericism and the occult sciences. To her work can be attributed the contemporary understanding of the occult origins of much of Western scientific thinking, indeed of Western civilization itself. The Occult Philosophy of the Elizabethan Age was her last book, and in it she condensed many aspects of her wide learning to present a clear, penetrating, and, above all, accessible survey of the occult movements of the Renaissance, highlighting the work of John Dee, Giordano Bruno, and other key esoteric figures. The book is invaluable in illuminating the relationship between occultism and Renaissance thought, which in turn had a profound impact on the rise of science in the seventeenth century. Stunningly written and highly engaging, Yates' masterpiece is a must-read for anyone interested in the occult tradition.

Marc Ferro's most famous work, The Great War looks at the realities faced by those men and their families at home. Mapping tensions old and new, he offers an overview to the Great War that is unrivalled in vision or in scope.

From detailing the meteoric rise of the bureaucratic classes prior to 1914, to charting the horrors of trench warfare, Ferro travels well beyond the remit of 'historian'. In particular he documents the reactions of the warring countries' socialist and labour organisations to the conflict.

Cold War is the story of the half-century since the end of the Second World War - the story of our lives. Its framework is the confrontation, military and ideological, between two great powers that dominated the world during these years. It is a story of

Internationally renowned as the greatest authority on the French Revolution, Georges Lefebvre combined impeccable scholarship with a lively writing style. His masterly overview of the history of the French Revolution has taken its rightful place as the definitive account. A vivid narrative of events in France and across Europe is combined with acute insights into the underlying forces that created the dynamics of the revolution, as well as the personalities responsible for day-to-day decisions during this momentous period.

This history of moral philosophy from the Greeks to the present day has over the past thirty years become a key philosophical contribution to studies on morality and ethics. This second edition includes a new preface by the author, in which he looks at the book 'thirty years on' and considers its impact.

One of A.J.P. Taylor's best-known books, The Course of German History is a notoriously idiosyncratic work. Composed in his famously witty style, yet succinct to the point of sharpness, this is one of the great historian's finest, if more controversial, ac

Nearly forty years after its first publication in French, this collection of Sartre’s writings on colonialism remains a supremely powerful, and relevant, polemical work. Over a series of thirteen essays Sartre brings the full force of his remarkable intellect relentlessly to bear on his own country’s conduct in Algeria, and by extension, the West’s conduct in the Third World in general. Whether one agrees with his every conclusion or not, Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism shows a philosopher passionately engaged in using philosophy as a force for change in the world. An important influence on postcolonial thought ever since, this book takes on added resonance in the light of the West’s most recent bout of interference in the non-Western world.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam - the three scriptural monotheisms, still often studied separately - are here intertwined within a historical frame. The approach outlined in this lecture pivots around the Qur'an as it emerged in seventh-century Arabia on the peripheries of the two world-empires of Iran and Rome, and variously refracts rabbinic Judaism and patristic - especially Syriac - Christianity. The formation and exegesis of scriptural canons helps define the major religious communities and identities both before and after Muhammad. The latter part of the lecture concentrates on the interaction of these communities, and especially their scholars, in the Abbasid Baghdad of the ninth and tenth centuries, and on the theological and philosophical debates that flourished there. The lecture interrogates the newly fashionable concept of 'Abrahamic' religion and proposes a fresh historical periodization inclusive of both late antiquity and Islam, namely the First Millennium.

Wahhabism has been generating controversy since it first emerged in Arabia in the 18th century. In the wake of September 11th instant theories have emerged that try to root Osama Bin Laden's attacks on Wahhabism. Muslim critics have dismissed this conservative interpretation of Islam that is the official creed of Saudi Arabia as an unorthodox innovation that manipulated a suggestible people to gain political influence. David Commins' book questions this assumption. He examines the debate on the nature of Wahhabism, and offers original findings on its ascendance in Saudi Arabia and spread throughout other parts of the Muslim world such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. He also assesses the challenge that radical militants within Saudi Arabia pose to the region, and draws conclusions which will concern all those who follow events in the Kingdom. The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia is essential reading for anyone interested in the Middle East and Islamic radicalism today.

This remarkable book looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class. "The Industrial Revolution" brought not simply misery and poverty. On the contrary, Griffin shows how it raised incomes, improved literacy and offered exciting opportunities for political action.

Includes 3,500 years of bloody battles, glorious empires, revolting revolutions, monstrous monarchs, and more. This book offers a journey into the good bits, the really amazing bits, the gory, exciting, bizarre and jaw-droppingly incredible bits of histor

In this original examination of alcohol production in early America, Sarah Hand Meacham uncovers the crucial role women played in cidering and distilling in the colonial Chesapeake. Her fascinating story is one defined by gender, class, technology, and changing patterns of production. Alcohol was essential to colonial life; the region's water was foul, milk was generally unavailable, and tea and coffee were far too expensive for all but the very wealthy. Colonists used alcohol to drink, in cooking, as a cleaning agent, in beauty products, and as medicine. Meacham finds that the distillation and brewing of alcohol for these purposes traditionally fell to women. Advice and recipes in such guidebooks as The Accomplisht Ladys Delight demonstrate that women were the main producers of alcohol until the middle of the 18th century. Men, mostly small planters, then supplanted women, using new and cheaper technologies to make the region's cider, ale, and whiskey. Meacham compares alcohol production in the Chesapeake with that in New England, the middle colonies, and Europe, finding the Chesapeake to be far more isolated than even the other American colonies. She explains how home brewers used new technologies, such as small alembic stills and inexpensive cider pressing machines, in their alcoholic enterprises. She links the importation of coffee and tea in America to the temperance movement, showing how the wealthy became concerned with alcohol consumption only after they found something less inebriating to drink. Taking a few pages from contemporary guidebooks, "Every Home a Distillery" includes samples of historic recipes and instructions on how to make alcoholic beverages. American historians will find this study both enlightening and surprising.

It is 1988 and Florida-based FBI agent Joe Navarro divides his time between SWAT assignments, flying air reconnaissance, and working counter-intelligence. A body-language expert with an uncanny ability to “read” those he interrogates, Navarro is known as super-intense – an agent whose work ethic quickly burns out partners. He craves an assignment that will get him noticed by the FBI top brass but then again, as he’ll come to learn: be careful what you wish for . . .
It was while on a routine assignment – interviewing a ‘person of interest’, a former US soldier named Rod Ramsay with links to another soldier, Clyde Conrad, recently arrested in Germany as a traitor – that Navarro thought he smelled a rat. He noticed a tic in Ramsay's hand when Conrad’s name was mentioned. Not a lot to go on, but enough for Navarro to insist that an investigation be opened.
What followed was extraordinary – and unique in the annals of espionage detection - a game of cat-and-mouse played at the highest level: on one side, an FBI agent who must not reveal that he suspects his target; on the other, a traitor, a seller of his country’s secrets, whose weakness is the thrill he gets from sparring with his inquisitor.
To prise from Ramsay the full extent of the damage he had wrought, Navarro had to pre-choreograph every interview because Ramsay was exceptionally intelligent, with the second highest IQ ever recorded by the U.S. Army. It would become an interrogation that literally pitted genius against genius – a battle of wits fought against one of the most turbulent periods of the 20th century – the demise and eventual collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union - and the very real possibility that Russia's leaders, in a last desperate bid to alter history’s trajectory, might engage in all-out war. As Navarro was to learn over the course of nearly fifty exhausting and mind-bending interviews and interrogations, Ramsay had handed the Soviets the knowledge needed to destroy America and its western allies…

In Three Minutes to Doomsday, Joe Navarro tells this extraordinary story for the first time - a story of the exposure and breaking of one of the most damaging espionage rings in US history whose treachery threatened the entire world.

If you’re thinking, ‘Jess, who?’ then I’m glad that there was something about ‘Everywoman’ and ‘truth’ that caught your eye.

Or you might already know me as that gobby MP who has a tendency to shout about the stuff I care about. Because I’m a woman with a cause, I have been called a feminazi witch, a murderer and threatened with rape. The internet attracts a classy crowd.

So, speaking the truth isn’t always easy but I believe it’s worth it. And I want you to believe it too. The truth can be empowering, the truth can lead to greater equality, and the world would be incredibly boring if we let all of those people who allegedly know everything, say everything.

By demanding to be heard, by dealing with our imposter syndrome, by being cheerleaders, doers not sayers, creating our own networks and by daring to believe that we can make a difference, we can.

We’re women and we’re kick-ass. And that’s the truth.

Nearly a century has passed since the assassination of Austria-Hungary's Archduke Ferdinand, yet the repercussions of the devastating global conflict that followed echo still. In this provocative book, historian Ian Beckett turns the spotlight on twelve particular events of the First World War that continue to shape the world today. Focusing on episodes both well known and scarcely remembered, Beckett tells the story of the Great War from a new perspective, stressing accident as much as strategy, the small as well as the great, the social as well as the military, and the long term as much as the short term. "The Making of the First World War" is global in scope. The book travels from the deliberately flooded fields of Belgium to the picture palaces of Britain's cinema, from the idealism of Wilson's Washington to the catastrophic German Lys offensive of 1918. While war is itself an agent of change, Beckett shows, the most significant developments occur not only on the battlefields or in the corridors of power, but also in hearts and minds. Nor may the decisive turning points during years of conflict be those that were thought to be so at the time. With its wide reach and unexpected conclusions, this book revises – and expands – our understanding of the legacy of the First World War.

As financial turmoil in Europe preoccupies political leaders and global markets, it becomes more important than ever to understand the forces that underpin the European Union, hold it together and drive it forward. This timely book provides a gripping account of the realities of power politics among European states and between their leaders. Drawing on long experience working behind the scenes, Luuk van Middelaar captures the dynamics and tensions shaping the European Union from its origins until today. It is a story of unexpected events and twists of fate, bold vision and sheer necessity, told from the perspective of the key players – from De Gaulle to Havel, Thatcher to Merkel. Van Middelaar cuts through the institutional complexity by exploring the unforeseen outcome of decisive moments and focusing on the quest for public legitimacy. As a first-hand witness to the day-to-day actions and decisions of Europe's leaders, the author provides a vivid narrative of the crises and compromises that united a continent. By revisiting the past, he sheds fresh light on the present state of European unification and offers insights into what the future may hold.

Within weeks of the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States had captured hundreds of suspected al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, and by the following January the first of these prisoners arrived at the U.S. Navy's detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "Wall Street Journal" correspondent Jess Bravin was there the day the prison camp opened, and he has continued ever since to cover the story of the detainees and the efforts of the Bush and Obama administrations to bring them to trial. A maze of legal, political, and moral issues have stood in the way of justice, Bravin explains. In this riveting book, he recounts a chapter in the War on Terror that has never been told before. Focusing on the military commission established by the Bush Administration to try Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Bravin describes prosecutions hampered by inadmissible evidence obtained through torture, procedures stalled by disagreements between military prosecutors and political appointees, and closed door dealings that led several prosecutors to resign. In a concluding chapter, the author discusses how George W. Bush's illegal experiment at Guantanamo undermined the rule of law and how its legacy continues to haunt the Obama administration.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks we have been fascinated by accounts of the Amazons, an elusive tribe of hard-fighting, horse-riding female warriors. Equal to men in battle, legends claimed they cut off their right breasts to improve their archery skills and routinely killed their male children to purify their ranks.

For centuries people believed in their existence and attempted to trace their origins. Artists and poets celebrated their battles and wrote of Amazonia. Spanish explorers, carrying these tales to South America, thought they lived in the forests of the world’s greatest river, and named it after them.

In the absence of evidence, we eventually reasoned away their existence, concluding that these powerful, sexually liberated female soldiers must have been the fantastical invention of Greek myth and storytelling. Until now.

Following decades of new research and a series of groundbreaking archeological discoveries, we now know these powerful warrior queens did indeed exist. In Amazons, John Man travels to the grasslands of Central Asia, from the edge of the ancient Greek world to the borderlands of China, to discover the truth about the warrior women mythologized as Amazons.

In this deeply researched, sweeping historical epic, Man redefines our understanding of the Amazons and their culture, tracking the ancient legend into the modern world and examining its significance today.

The creation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory in the 1920s saw the birth of some of the most exciting and challenging writings of the twentieth century. It is out of this background that the great critic Theodor Adorno emerged. His finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture. He argued that the culture industry commodified and standardized all art. In turn this suffocated individuality and destroyed critical thinking. At the time, Adorno was accused of everything from overreaction to deranged hysteria by his many detractors. In today's world, where even the least cynical of consumers is aware of the influence of the media, Adorno's work takes on a more immediate significance. The Culture Industry is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture.