An enthralling 2,000-year journey through the history of books and reading. An international bestseller.

10 June 1907, Peking. Five cars set off in a desperate race across two continents on the verge of revolution.

An Italian prince and his chauffeur, a French racing driver, a conman and various journalists battle over steep mountain ranges and across the arid vastness of the Gobi Desert. The contestants need teams of helpers to drag their primitive cars up narrow gorges, lift them over rough terrain and float them across rivers. Petrol is almost impossible to find, there are barely any roads, a...

A compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from 'the most brilliant British historian of his generation' (The Times)

Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?

While populist rulers cert...

BEST BOOKS 2023: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * TLS

Do you know what is at stake in Ukraine? Urgent, compelling reading from the author of Chernobyl on the defining conflict of our times

On 24 February 2022, Russia stunned the world by launching an invasion of Ukraine. In the midst of checking on the family and friends who were now on the front lines of Europe's largest conflict since the outbreak of the Second World War, acclaimed Ukrainian-American historian Serhii Plo...

A major international bestseller. The little-known true story of a Nazi plot to kill Winston Churchill, President Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the height of World War II, and how it was averted.

From the #1 bestselling author Hugh Sebag Montefiore, a spellbinding and fiercely told history of one of the most extreme episodes of the Second World War.

'Awe-inspiring' Dr Janina Ramirez

'A book to savour' Sir Lawrence Freedman

___________________

A radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating lives.

We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread, leading through the centuries from classical antiquity to the countries of the modern West - a cultural genealogy that connects Plato to NATO. It is an idea often invoked in the speeches of politicians and the rh...

A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: Sunday Times * Irish Times * Spectator * Financial Times * Telegraph * Aspects of History

'The history book you need if you want to understand modern Russia' ANNE APPLEBAUM

'A magnificent, magisterial thousand year history of Russia . . . by one of the masters of Russian scholarship' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

'A great historian at the peak of his powers' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

'[An] excellent short study' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

'If you really want to understand Putin'...

'Impeccably researched and superbly written' Observer

'Holland has something new to say.... Filled with insight and detail' Neil Oliver

'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians' Sebastian Faulks

With the invasion of France the following year taking shape, and hot on the heels of victory in Sicily, the Allies crossed into Southern Italy in September 1943. They expected to drive the Axis forces north and be in Rome by Christmas. And although Italy surrendered, the Germ...