Conflict is an inevitable part of life, according to this ancient Chinese classic of strategy, but everything necessary to deal with conflict wisely, honorably, victoriously, is already present within us. Compiled more than two thousand years ago by a mysterious warrior-philosopher, The Art of War is still perhaps the most prestigious and influential book of strategy in the world, as eagerly studied in Asia by modern politicians and executives as it has been by military leaders since ancient...

'Wry, readable and often astonishing... A provocative and absorbing history of the United States' New York TimesThe United States denies having dreams of empire. We know America has spread its money, language and culture across the world, but we still think of it as a contained territory, framed by Canada above, Mexico below, and oceans either side.

Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the story of the United States outside the United States – from nineteenth-century conquests l...

A brilliant and insightful history of the special relationship between the UK and the USA, which Ian Buruma argues is now under threat with the election of Donald Trump and Brexit.

An ambitious, authoritative history of the Roman Catholic Church in the modern age.

The untold story of the writers and philosophers who took on the United States government for its war in Vietnam

A timely and controversial examination of thirty years of diplomatic misunderstandings, roads not taken and mutual suspicion that resulted in the terrible tragedy of Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.

Richly illustrated throughout, this book provides a fascinating history of the development of bookbindings from Roman times to the present day.

"The reader is requested to observe, that, though the plan of this work is entirely his own, the compiler of it does not put it forth as in any way original in respect to language or description. It is, in fact, a much better book, than if it had been what is strictly called original, (which, indeed, must have involved an utter impossibility:) for it is a selection of some of the best materials the British Museum could furnish; sometimes worked up in his own language; and sometimes—and, ind...