When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, he was startled to find how the lives of the 19th century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising at all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history was swept up in the story.

Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, memo...

The international best-selling author explores the revolutions―past and present―that define the chaotic, polarized and unstable age in which we live

Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, geopolitical dangers and an international system studded with catastrophic risk ― the early decades of the 21st century may be one of the most revolutionary periods in modern history. But they are not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one grea...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK | AN INSTANT #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history' Financial Times

'Vast, learned and timely work' Sunday Times

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From the international bestselling author of The Silk Roads comes a major history of how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development-and demise-of civilisations across time.

When we think about history, we rarely pay much attention to the most destructive...

A fascinating and surprising history of the world told through the lines people have drawn on maps, by the 'charming and outstandingly nerdish' author of The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything.

People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or the decisions of a handful of tired Europeans had gone a different way....

From the bestselling author of Chums comes an explorer's tale of a naïf getting to understand a complex, glittering, beautiful and often cruel city.

Simon Kuper has experienced Paris both as a human being and as a journalist. He has grown middle-aged there, eaten the croissants, taken his children to countless football matches on freezing Saturday mornings in the city's notorious banlieues, and in 2015 lived through two terrorist attacks on his family's neighbourhood. Over two decades of bec...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

A TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR

A SUNDAY TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Powerfully argued... Fascinating and pacy' Sunday Times, Book of the Week

'Superbly written... sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman' The Times

'Full of amazing facts' Observer

'The book shines when it brings cutting-edge science to bear' Financial Times

'A dizzying range of material' The Economist

'A humbling story for humankind' Spectator

Challenges some of the gr...

'This vital history shatters many myths about the Nazi genocide . . . . surprising . . . provocative . . . fizzes with ideas. Even if you think you know the subject, you'll probably find something here to make you think' Sunday Times

'Erudite...remarkable' The Observer

'Outstanding' The Telegraph

An authoritative, revelatory new history of the Holocaust, from one of the leading scholars of his generation

The Holocaust is much-discussed, much-memorialized and much-portrayed. But there are majo...