A New Statesman, Financial Times and Economist Book of the Year

'Brilliant' NEW STATESMAN, BOOKS OF THE YEAR

'Enlightening and a good read' SPECTATOR

'Moving and perceptive' NEW STATESMAN

Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Ceausescu, Mengistu of Ethiopia and Duvalier of Haiti.

No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. A tyrant who can compel his own people to acclaim him will...

Published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the moment that Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon broke open Tutankhamun’s tomb, a riveting account of the treasures they found, by one of Britain’s leading Egyptologists.

4.6 billion years of the story of life on Earth, in 52,000 words. Brief, brilliant and entirely gripping.

IT'S A CONTINENT is the illuminating history book that aims to unravel misconceptions and celebrate Africa's rich and diverse history, one country at a time.

As seen on Channel 4's WWII Great Escapes: The Freedom Trails, this is the incredible story of four escape routes out of Nazi occupied Europe, of the Allied servicemen who used them, and of the men and women of the Resistance who risked their lives to create and run them.

This is the story of Palestine told from the inside.

and been inspired by them for our music, art and poetry. In Ten Birds that Changed the World, naturalist and author Stephen Moss tells the gripping story of this long and eventful relationship through ten key species from all seven of the world's continents.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD FLANAGANIn this fascinating journey Claudio Magris, whose knowledge is encyclopaedic and whose curiosity limitless, guides his reader from the source of the Danube in the Bavarian hills through Austro-Hungary and the Balkans to the Black Sea.

It was believed that in 1491, the year before Columbus landed, the Americas were a near-pristine wilderness inhabited by small roaming bands of indigenous people. Here, Charles Mann provides a new, fascinating and iconoclastic account of the Americas before Columbus.

In a fascinating journey of rediscovery, Max Adams brings to life the forgotten experiences – and voices – of some of the most extraordinary women in history.