The Northmen’s Fury tells the Viking story, from the first pinprick raids of the eighth century to the great armies that left their Scandinavian homelands to conquer larger parts of France, Britain and Ireland. It recounts the epic voyages that took them across the Atlantic to the icy fjords of Greenland and to North America over four centuries before Columbus and east to the great rivers of Russia and the riches of the Byzantine empire.One summer’s day in 793, death arrived from the sea. The raiders who sacked the island monastery of Lindisfarne were the first Vikings, sea-borne attackers who brought two centuries of terror to northern Europe. Before long the sight of their dragon-prowed longships and the very name of Viking gave rise to fear and dread, so much so that monks were reputed to pray each night for delivery from ‘the Northmen’s Fury’. Yet for all their reputation as bloodthirsty warriors, the Vikings possessed a sophisticated culture that produced art of great beauty, literature of abiding power and kingdoms of surprising endurance. The Northmen’s Fury describes how and why a region at the edge of Europe came to dominate and to terrorise much of the rest of the continent for nearly three centuries and how, in the end, the coming of Christianity and the growing power of kings tempered the Viking ferocity and stemmed the tide of raids. It relates the astonishing achievement of the Vikings in forging far-flung empires whose sinews were the sea and whose arteries were not roads but maritime trading routes. The blood of the Vikings runs in millions of veins in Europe and the Americas and the tale of their conquests, explorations and achievements continues to inspire people around the world. Read more

The Danes are the happiest people in the world, and pay the highest taxes.'Neutral' Sweden is one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world.Finns have the largest per capita gun ownership after the US and Yemen.54 per cent of Icelanders believe in elves.Norway is the richest country on earth.5 per cent of Danish men have had sex with an animal.Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians, on and off, for over ten years, perplexed by their many strange paradoxes and character traits and equally bemused by the unquestioning enthusiasm for all things Nordic and hygge that has engulfed the rest of the world. He leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success and, most intriguing of all, what they think of each other. Along the way a more nuanced, often darker picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterised by suffocating parochialism and populated by extremists of various shades.'The next Bill Bryson.’ New York TimesWinner of the Best Narrative Travel Book Award from the British Guild of Travel Writers Read more

Written in AD 731, Bede's work opens with a background sketch of Roman Britain's geography and history. It goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop Anglo-Saxon government and religion during the crucial formative years of the English people. Leo Sherley-Price's translation brings us an accurate and readable version, in modern English, of a unique historical document. This edition now includes Bede's Letter to Egbert concerning pastoral care in early Anglo-Saxon England, at the heart of which lay Bede's denunciation of the false monasteries; and The Death of Bede, an admirable eye-witness account by Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, both translated by D. H. Farmer. Read more

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November ... With a narrative that grips the reader like a detective story, Antonia Fraser brings the characters and events of the Gunpowder Plot to life. Dramatically recreating the conditions and motives that surrounded the fateful night of 5 November 1605, she unravels the tangled web of religion and politics that spawned the plot.'An excellent book which unravels the whole story of the plot' Literary Review'Told with impressive scholarship and panache ... with a sense of pace and tension worthy of a John le Carré novel' Sunday Telegraph Read more

"I cannot recommend this enough... Brooks mixes historical fact with fiction like a batter mixes singles with boundaries in a well crafted innings to create an equally well crafted novel... Gripping and beautiful." --Deep Extra CoverThe Batmaker of Copenhagen is the inspiring story of a cricketing hero who defied the German occupation to keep cricket alive throughout the Nazi occupation of Denmark during the Second World War.With Copenhagen under the iron grip of the Gestapo, and German U-boats preventing any supplies coming in from England, a humble cricket scorer sets out on an improbable and dangerous quest to find willow and produce his own cricket bats.Scouring the length and breadth of the country, hounded by Gestapo spies, and risking everything for the game he loves, the 'Batmaker' undertakes his mission under the very noses of the city's oppressors.His nemesis, a Gestapo chief by the name of 'Lucifer', begins a quest of his own to crush the resistance in a battle of wills that shapes the course of the war. Based on a true story, this uplifting tale of passion and patriotism brings cricket and espionage together in a unique and gripping thriller. Read more

THE DEFINITIVE, CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BOOK ABOUT FOOTBALL 'Football conquered the world with its capacity to astonish, and this is its definitive history' The IndependentThere may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final. In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of football's rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world's most popular sport. The Ball Is Round illuminates football's role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game. ___________________________________'Goldblatt writes with authority, humour, and passion, not least in the accounts of famous or significant matches scattered throughout the book' Times Literary Supplement'Since it became a worldwide phenomenon, nobody has attempted to write an overall history of the game. Now David Goldblatt's stunning book will be the measure against which all other such volumes are judged' The Guardian 'Goldblatt's magnum opus . . . Anyone with a brain and an interest in football will enjoy this book' The Daily Telegraph (London) Read more

'From the Fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord.'Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Vikings surged from their Scandinavian homeland to trade, raid and invade along the coasts of Europe. Their influence and expeditions extended from Newfoundland to Baghdad, their battles were as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. But were they great seafarers or desperate outcasts, noble heathens or oafish pirates, the last pagans or the first of the modern Europeans? This concise study puts medieval chronicles, Norse sagas and Muslim accounts alongside more recent research into ritual magic, genetic profiling and climatology. It includes biographical sketches of some of the most famous Vikings, from Erik Bloodaxe to Saint Olaf, and King Canute to Leif the Lucky. It explains why the Danish king Harald Bluetooth lent his name to a twenty-first century wireless technology; which future saint laughed as she buried foreign ambassadors alive; why so many Icelandic settlers had Irish names; and how the last Viking colony was destroyed by English raiders. Extending beyond the traditional 'Viking age' of most books, A Brief History of the Vikings places sudden Scandinavian population movement in a wider historical context. It presents a balanced appraisal of these infamous sea kings, explaining both their swift expansion and its supposed halt. Supposed because, ultimately, the Vikings didn't disappear: they turned into us. Read more

With a narrative that grips the reader like a detective story, Antonia Fraser brings the characters and events of the Gunpowder Plot to life. Dramatically recreating the conditions and motives that surrounded the fateful night of 5 November 1605, she unravels the tangled web of religion and politics that spawned the plot. 'Told with impressive scholarship and panache¿The result is a narrative that is clear, balanced, and builds to its denouement with a sense of pace and tension worthy of a John le Carré novel' John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph Read more

1848 was a turbulent but momentous time in Europe. Within this context, the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were caught between the rising nationalism and desire for unification of the Prussian/German nation states and the traditional alliances with the Danish Kingdom. The Schleswig Holsteiners decided that allegiance with the German Federation, including possessing their own constitution, was the best way forward. They rebelled against the Danish and looked to the Prussians with their greater military prowess for help. In Denmark, as in other European countries, the call for a democratic constitution caused social disturbance, triggered initially by the February riots in Paris. The Danish monarchy, in crisis, both constitutionally and in terms of monarchical succession continued to lay claim on their southernmost duchies and sent their armed forces to destroy the Schleswig-Holstein insurgents. The author describes the battles and battlefields upon which this crisis was played out: from the first major action at Bov (9 April, 1848) to the last major battles of the war. This is a well-researched and well-illustrated study, including four pages of colour uniform plates. About the Author Nick Svendsen is a well-respected military historian with a specialist interest in the 19th Century Danish Wars. This is his first book. Read more

The Danes are the happiest people in the world, and pay the highest taxes.'Neutral' Sweden is one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world.Finns have the largest per capita gun ownership after the US and Yemen.54 per cent of Icelanders believe in elves.Norway is the richest country on earth.5 per cent of Danish men have had sex with an animal.Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians, on and off, for over ten years, perplexed by their many strange paradoxes and character traits and equally bemused by the unquestioning enthusiasm for all things Nordic and hygge that has engulfed the rest of the world.He leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success and, most intriguing of all, what they think of each other. Along the way a more nuanced, often darker picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterised by suffocating parochialism and populated by extremists of various shades.'The next Bill Bryson.’ New York Times'Beautifully observed and very funny' Rory StewartWinner of the Best Narrative Travel Book Award from the British Guild of Travel Writers Read more

The Viking Conquest of England in 1016 – a far tougher and more brutal campaign than the Norman Conquest exactly half a century later – saw two great warriors, the Danish prince Cnut and his equally ruthless English opponent King Edmund Ironside, fight an epic campaign. Cnut sailed in two hundred longboats, landing first in September 1015 on the Wessex coast with 10,000 soldiers. The two forces fought each other to the point of exhaustion for the next fourteen months. It was a war of terrifying violence that scarred much of England, from the Humber to Cornwall. It saw an epic siege of the great walls of London and bruising set-piece battles at Penselwood, Otford, and the conclusive Danish victory at Assandun on 18 October 1016. Edmund’s death soon afterwards finally resolved a brutal, bloody conf lict and ended with Cnut becoming the undisputed king of England. This book tells the extraordinary story of Cnut the Great’s life. Cnut was far removed from the archetypal pagan Viking, being a staunch protector of the Christian Church and a man who would also become Emperor of the North as king of Denmark and Norway. His wife, Emma of Normandy, was a remarkable woman who would outlive the two kings of England that she married. Their son Harthacnut would be the second and last Danish king of England, but the greatness of his dynasty did not long survive his death. This saga also features the incompetent Æthelred the Unready, the ferocious Sweyn Forkbeard and the treacherous Eadric Streona, recreating one of the great stories of Dark Age England. Read more

The year 1066: a battlefield in England, a mighty king lies prone on the ground, his lifeblood ebbing out of him. As he draws his last breath, the world of which he is the greatest figurehead also moves towards its end, its existence about to pass from history into legend and later into myth. This is not Hastings; it is Stamford Bridge, and the dying king is Harald Hardrada, one of the greatest figures of the Viking age. It was a bolt from the blue when Viking raiders descended on the defenceless monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 and left it a heap of burning rubble. In succeeding years, other monasteries fell too: Jarrow, Monkwearmouth, Iona. Britain and Ireland suffered extensively as did France, Spain, Italy and even the mighty Byzantine Empire. But this was not just a period of conquest and violence – it was also an age of exploration. Viking ships crossed the Atlantic, through Shetland and Orkney to the Faroes and from there to Iceland, Greenland and North America. They sailed east and their traders moved across the steppes and rivers of Russia down to Constantinople, then the greatest city in Christendom. This is the story of the Vikings, those men and women who raided and traded their way into history whilst at the same time helping to build new nations in Scandinavia and beyond. Their history begins a long time before the Lindisfarne raid. It is also the tale of evocatively named great men: Sweyn Forkbeard, Harald Bluetooth, Ragnar Lodbrok, Erik the Red, Ivarr the Boneless, Cnut the Great. Read more

In The Story of Scandinavia, political scholar Stein Ringen chronicles more than 1,200 years of drama, economic rise and fall, crises, kings and queens, war, peace, language and culture. Scandinavian history has been one of dramatic discontinuities of collapse and restarts, from the Viking Age to the Age of Perpetual War to the modern age today. For a thousand years, the Scandinavian countries were kingdoms of repression where monarchs played at the game of being European powers, at the expense of their own populations.The brand we now know as "Scandinavia" is a recent invention. During most of its history, Denmark and Sweden, and to some degree Norway, were bloody enemies. These sentiments of enmity have not been fully settled. Under the surface of collaboration remain undercurrents of hatred, envy, contempt and pity. What does it mean today to be Scandinavian? For the author, whose identity is Scandinavian but his life European, this masterly history is a personal exploration as well as a narrative of compelling scope. Read more

The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the First World War. For years the myriad factors contributing to the loss of many of the ships remained a mystery, subject only to speculation and theory. In this book, marine archaeologist and historian Dr Innes McCartney reveals for the first time what became of the warships that vanished on the night of 31st May 1916, examining the circumstances behind the loss of each ship and reconciling what was known in 1916 to what the archaeology is revealing today.The knowledge of what was present was transformed in 2015 by a ground-breaking survey using the modern technology of multi-beam. This greatly assisted in unravelling the details behind several Jutland enigmas, not least the devastating explosions which claimed five major British warships, the details of the wrecks of the 13 destroyers lost in the battle and the German warships scuttled during the night phase.This is the first book to identify the locations of many of the wrecks, and - scandalously - how more than half of these sites have been illegally plundered for salvage, despite their status as war graves. An essential and revelatory read for anyone interested in naval history and marine archaeology. Read more

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“An excellent account . . . A suspenseful narrative that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.” —WWII History Magazine   In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy’s pursuit and subsequent destruction of Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare.   In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of the Second World War, Iain Ballantyne draws extensively on the graphic eyewitness testimony of veterans, to construct a thrilling story, mainly from the point of view of the British battleships, cruisers, and destroyers involved. He describes the tense atmosphere as cruisers play a lethal cat and mouse game, shadowing Bismarck in the icy Denmark Strait. We witness the shocking destruction of the British battle cruiser Hood, in which all but three of her ship’s complement were killed—an event that filled pursuing Royal Navy warships, including the battered battleship Prince of Wales, with a thirst for revenge. While Swordfish torpedo-bombers try desperately to cripple the Bismarck, we sail in destroyers on their own daring torpedo attacks, battling mountainous seas.   Finally, the author takes us into the final showdown, as battleships Rodney and King George V, supported by cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire, destroy the pride of Hitler’s fleet. This vivid, superbly researched account portrays this epic saga through the eyes of so-called “ordinary sailors” caught up in extraordinary events—conveying the horror and majesty of war at sea in all its cold brutality and awesome power. Read more

Winner of the Longman's History Today Book of the Year Award and the inaugural Westminster Medal for Military Literature More than a century had gone by since the Battle of Trafalgar. Generation after generation of British naval captains had been dreaming ever since of a 'new' Trafalgar - a cataclysmic encounter which would decisively change a war's outcome. At last, in the summer of 1916, they thought their moment had come...Andrew Gordon's extraordinary, gripping book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of the British navy in the years leading up to Jutland and gives a superb account of the battle itself and its bitterly acrimonious aftermath. Read more

At some time in the late 9th century, a Norwegian seafarer by the name of Ohthere [Oht-her-e] told the West Saxon king Alfred of his voyages along the coasts of Norway and Denmark. Ohthere's report made such an impression at the court of King Alfred that it was recorded and subsequently inserted into the Old English version of the late Roman world history by Orosius, accompanied by Wulfstan's account of a voyage across the Baltic Sea. Ohthere's account is the earliest known description of the North by a Scandinavian and gives a fascinating and highly trustworthy glimpse of the early Viking Age. Since the 16th century, Ohthere's voyages have been debated by an ever growing number of scholars, such as linguists, historians and archaeologists. In this book, a panel of experts presents the original source in its geographical, cultural, nautical and economic context. Read more