In 1741 a VOC ship from India arrives in the Netherlands, with a miraculous animal on board that no one in Europe has ever seen before: a young rhino named Clara. For no less than seventeen years she travelled with her owner Douwe Mout through almost every country in Europe. Wherever she is exhibited, she is a sensation; she grows into the most famous rhino in European history.

She is a star, a wonder for science and a muse for artists who immortalise her in paintings, drawings, sculptures an...

In 2007 Dutch royal historian Arnout van Cruyningen first published a short guide to the House of Orange-Nassau and the Monarchy in the Netherlands in the English language.

This illustrated, revised and updated edition, packed with biographical, historical, genealogical and constitutional information, marks the abdication of Queen Beatrix and accession of King Willem-Alexander in 2013. It celebrates the two centuries old Kingdom of the Netherlands and much older Orange Dynasty.

A must-have ...

On September 22, 1914 between 06.20 am and 07.55 am three British cruisers went down o the Dutch coast, HMS Aboukir,Hogue and Cressy. Of the combined crew of 2296 no less than 1459 men perished on their ships or in the sea. ere were 837survivors. e perpetrator was a simple German submarine, U-9. is event in the early days of the First World War came as a big boost to the Germans. But for the British it was a dire blow, the biggest loss ever in icted on the Royal Navy, hitherto deemed invinc...

The focus on the 1944 Ardennes offensive is always on the initial dash of Kampfgruppe Peiper and the battles around Bastogne. The tanks steal the show. Most German forces involved were however infantry divisions with little means of transport. They are often regarded as the weak link: the footsloggers who could not catch up with the tanks.

There was however an often overlooked German infantry success in the Schneiffel sector. The German 18th Volksgrenadierdivision almost singlehanded defeated...

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ‘A rigorous and thoughtful study of what has happened on battlefields over the past eight decades’ THE TIMES ‘A hugely important book … elegantly written and persuasively argued’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

A groundbreaking new perspective on catastrophes throughout human history, with vital lessons for our future