The geopolitcal relations between the West and Eurasia are going to change drastically the coming years. From Shanghai to Rotterdam a modern infrastructure is being developed by China in a rapid pace. China will connect 2/3 of the world's population on the biggest landmass. It is expected that China will surpass the US in an economical sense and this can lead to economic and serious militairy conflicts because the US doesn't want to play a second fiddle on the worldstage after being a hegemon...

The dramatic defence of the Netherlands in May 1940 against the German invasion lasted only five days. It started with a massive German airborne landing in the capital west of the country and ended with a, for those days impressive, German air bombardment of the harbour-city of Rotterdam, devastating the city centre and shocking the Dutch supreme command. When hours later another major Dutch community was threatened with destruction from the air the Dutch supreme command decided to surrender....

The definitive history of Rome's golden age - antiquity's ultimate superpower at the pinnacle of its greatness

The Pax Romana has long been revered as a golden age. At its peak, the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland to Arabia, and contained perhaps a quarter of humanity. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state the world had yet seen.

Beginning in 69AD, a year that saw four Caesars in succession rule the empire, and ending some seven decades later with the death ...

When the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands began in 1942, the occupying forces used the refugee camp near Westerbork in the east as a transit camp, without modifications. The Westerbork camp was established and paid for by the Dutch-Jewish community in the 1930s to house the increasing number of Jewish refugees from Germany.

In two years, more than 100,000 Jews were deported from this camp, also known as the “Dutch gateway to hell”.

Because a well-functioning camp organization was al...

At the edge of the world, The First Turn of the Wheel…

The Battle of Khalkin Gol (also called Nomonhan), sent shockwaves through world history. It was a testbed for future Soviet doctrine and a catalyst for the Japanese political upheaval that brought the United States into every theater of World War II.

A rebuilding Russian army (still reeling from Stalin’s purges) and its combined-arms doctrine faced off against Japan’s modern bushido; the Soviet tactics used successfully here would p...

From the international bestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth.

On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s ship The Wager, a British vessel that had le...

Steeped in honey, Juventius,

your golden eyes, and as sweet too

when I press my lips to them -

three hundred thousand kisses

is not close to enough

For centuries, evidence of queer love in the ancient world was ignored or suppressed. Even today, only a few, famous narratives are widely known - yet there's a rich literary tradition of Greek and Roman love that extends far beyond this handful of stories. Here, the poet Seán Hewitt and painter Luke Edward Hall collect together, for the first ti...

At the end of 1941, after the invasion of the Soviet Union, an idea of collaboration with the Islamic peoples of the Soviet Union arose among the Germans. Although Hitler and high command were sceptic about a partnership with ‘Soviet citizens’ in order to defeat Moscow, eveyone did agree that the Islamic peoples of the Caucasus and the Krim were reasonably trustworthy allies. Especially the Turkmen were considered reliable. This led to a large-scale military and political collaboration....

In this book, reality always trumps fiction, truth always trumps myth. Get ready for a personal encounter with police inspectors and filles à la cuisse légère, Impressionists and art thieves, collaborators and résistants, Cubists and anarchists, artists’ models and terrorists, criminals and executioners.

In fascinating and often unknown stories, such as ‘The Chanel-Wertheimer Case’, ‘Lenin’s Yellow Jersey’ and ‘Selling the Eiffel Tower’, hundreds of Parisian souls are brou...

One of the great historians of our age asks: how far can a single leader alter the course of history?

The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were re-shaped and wars fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities had somehow given them the ability to do whatever they wished.

Ian Kershaw's new book ...