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

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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...

A thrilling, epic and original history of humanity from a dazzlingly fresh and global perspective, from the prize-winning, bestselling historian

'Superb' Sunday Times

'Revolutionary' Alice Roberts

'Hugely important' Jim Al-Khalili

A radical retelling of the history of science that foregrounds the scientists erased from history

In this major retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day, James Poskett explodes the myth that science began in Europe.

The blinkered Western gaze focusing on individual 'genius' - Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein - was only one part of the story. The reality was an utterly global, non-...

A lively and immersive global history of witchcraft which shows its evolution from the Middle Ages to the present day and shines a light on the stories of the victims, told in thirteen trials.

In this spellbinding account of three World War Two collaborators, prize-winning historian Ian Buruma examines questions of truth as he investigates their complex and tangled lives.

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 ...

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...