'This century's most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism' Angela DavisWritten at the height of the Algerian war for independence from French colonial rule and first published in 1961, Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth has provided inspiration for anti-colonial movements ever since, analysing the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for freedom. With power and anger, Fanon makes clear the economic and psychological degradation inflicted by imperialism. It was Fanon, himself a psychotherapist, who exposed the connection between colonial war and mental disease, who showed how the fight for freedom must be combined with building a national culture, and who showed the way ahead, through revolutionary violence, to socialism.'In clear language, in words that can only have been written in the cool heat of rage, he showed us the internal theatre of racism' Deborah Levy Read more

'A fresh and funny book that wears its learning lightly' IndependentDiscover the era of William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I through the sharp, informative and hilarious eyes of Ian Mortimer. We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? In this book Ian Mortimer reveals a country in which life expectancy is in the early thirties, people still starve to death and Catholics are persecuted for their faith. Yet it produces some of the finest writing in the English language, some of the most magnificent architecture, and sees Elizabeth's subjects settle in America and circumnavigate the globe. Welcome to a country that is, in all its contradictions, the very crucible of the modern world.'Vivid trip back to the 16th century...highly entertaining book' Guardian Read more

'This is a wonderful book, exhaustively researched, vigorously argued and teeming with the furious joy of seventeenth-century life' THE TIMES'A brilliant, bloody account of England's most dramatic century . . . Thrilling' TELEGRAPH'The most entertaining general history of seventeenth-century England I have read' TOM HOLLANDThe seventeenth century began as the English found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and ended in the shadow of a Dutch invasion. Midway through, society collapsed into a civil war, followed by army coup and regicide. For a short time - for the only time in history - England was a republic. In coffee shops and alehouses, ordinary people fizzed with ideas that were angry, populist and almost impossible to control.Despite these radical changes, few today fully understand the story of this revolutionary age. Leaders like Oliver Cromwell, Charles II and William of Orange have been reduced to caricatures, while major turning points like the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution are shrouded in myth. Yet, as Jonathan Healey argues, the period has never been more relevant. From raw politics to religious divisions, civil wars to witch trials, plague to press freedoms, The Blazing World tells the story of this strange but fascinating century in exuberant, panoramic detail. Read more

Join the nation's favourite puzzle brand as we take a journey through landscape and history. In this brand new puzzle book in the bestselling Ordnance Survery series, take a trip through time - from the earliest recorded footsteps of humans in Britain, to the spot where Caesar first surveyed Britannia, to the beaches where the battle of 1066 took place, and on through some of the most iconic moments in British history (as well as plenty of less well-known historical treasures!). Including 40 new regional maps and hundreds of puzzles, mind-boggling brainteasers, navigational tests, word games, code-crackers, anagrams and mathematical conundrums, there will be plenty to keep you occupied as you go!With maps covering the whole of the UK and puzzles ranging across four levels of difficulty, The Ordnance Survey Journey Through Time is an adventure for all the family. Read more

Travel back through time this Christmas on a tour of a completely different world: England in the Middle Ages.Imagine you could travel back to the fourteenth century. What would you see, and hear, and smell? Where would you stay? What are you going to eat? And how are you going to test to see if you are going down with the plague?In The Time Traveller's Guide Ian Mortimer's radical new approach turns our entire understanding of history upside down. History is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived, whether that's the life of a peasant or a lord. The result is perhaps the most astonishing history book you are ever likely to read; as revolutionary as it is informative, as entertaining as it is startling.'Ian Mortimer is the most remarkable medieval historian of our time' The Times'After The Canterbury Tales this has to be the most entertaining book ever written about the middle ages' Guardian Read more

In the late 1970s, aggressive, young bands are forming across Britain. Independent labels are springing up to release their music. But this isn't the story of punk. Forget punk. Punk was a flash in the pan compared to this. This is the story of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, a musical movement that changed the world. From this movement - given the unwieldy acronym NWOBHM - sprang streams that would flow through metal's subsequent development. Without NWOBHM there is no thrash metal, no death metal, no black metal. Without the rise of Iron Maiden, NWOBHM's standard bearers, leading the charge to South America and to South Asia, metal's global spread is slower. Without the NWOBHM bands - who included Def Leppard, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Diamond Head and many others - the international uniform of heavy metal - the 'battle jacket' of a denim jacket with sleeves ripped off, and covered with patches (usually sewn on by the wearer's mum), worn over a leather biker jacket - does not exist: 'Denim and leather brought us all together,' as Saxon put it. No book has ever gathered together all the principals of British heavy rock's most fertile period: Jimmy Page, Rick Allen, Michael Schenker, Robert John 'Mutt' Lange, Ritchie Blackmore, Rick Savage, Phil Collen, David Coverdale, Cronos, Biff Byford, Joe Elliott, Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, Phil Mogg, Robert Plant, Tony Wilson, Lars Ulrich, Pete Waterman to name a few. In Denim and Leather, these stars tell their own stories - their brilliant, funny tales of hubris and disaster, of ambition and success - and chart how, over a handful of years from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, a group of unlikely looking blokes from the provinces wearing spandex trousers changed heavy music forever. This is the definitive story about the greatest days of British heavy rock. Read more

A “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August *Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street Journal   The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight—in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.”   Praise for A Distant Mirror   “Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.”—The New York Review of Books   “A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.”—The Wall Street Journal   “Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.”—CommentaryNOTE: This edition does not include color images. Read more

The fourteenth century was a time of fabled crusades and chivalry, glittering cathedrals and grand castles. It was also a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.Here, Barbara Tuchman masterfully reveals the two contradictory images of the age, examining the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes and war dominated the lives of serf, noble and clergy alike.Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights. The result is an astonishing reflection of medieval Europe, a historical tour de force. Read more

Misha Glenny's acclaimed account of the war in former Yugoslavia contains substantial new material that discusses the end of the five-year conflict and looks ahead to an uneasy future in this turbulent region. Writing in the Evening Standard, Fitzroy Maclean said ‘Misha Glenny’s deeply disturbing book is, to my mind, essential reading for anyone trying to understand, or even just follow, events in what was once Yugoslavia’. Read more

This is a fascinating, three-dimensional picture of the politics, society and religion of medieval Europe, the age that had as its great theme the unity of Christendom. Maurice Keen examines tribal wars, the Crusades, the growth of trade and the shifting patterns of community life as villages grew into towns and towns into sizeable cities. He explores how Papal victories, by blurring the distinction between temporal and spiritual matters, eventually undermined the spiritual authority of the Church. And he discusses how the Hundred Years War escalated from a feudal dispute into a full-scale national conflict, until, by the mid-fifteenth century, changing economic and social conditions had transformed the unity of Christendom into merely a pious phrase. Read more

A WATERSTONES, TELEGRAPH, ECONOMIST AND NEW YORKER BOOK OF THE YEARA major new history of England's turbulent seventeenth century and how it marked the birth of a new world'This is a wonderful book, exhaustively researched, vigorously argued and teeming with the furious joy of seventeenth-century life' The Times'A brilliant, bloody account of England's most dramatic century . . . Thrilling' TelegraphThe seventeenth century began as the English suddenly found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and ended in the shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, the country suffered terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide. For a short time - for the only time in history - England was a republic. There were bitter struggles over faith and no boundaries to politics. In the coffee shops and alehouses of plague-ridden London, new ideas were forged that were angry, populist and almost impossible for monarchs to control.Despite the radical changes that transformed England, few today understand the story of this revolutionary age. Leaders like Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, and William of Orange have been reduced to caricatures, while major turning points like the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution have become shrouded in myth and misunderstanding. Yet the seventeenth century has never been more relevant. The British constitution is once again being contested, and we face a culture war reminiscent of when the Roundheads fought the Cavaliers. From raw politics to religious divisions, civil wars to witch trials, plague to press freedoms, The Blazing World is the story of a strange but fascinating century, told in sparkling detail. Drawing on vast archives, Jonathan Healey refreshes our understanding of public figures while simultaneously taking us into the lives of ordinary people to illuminate a revolutionary society that forged a new world. Read more

"A must read for all Damien Lewis fans" Compass ---------------------------------------------------------The most explosive true war story of the 21st Century It is the winter of 2001. A terror ship is bound for Britain carrying a horrifying weapon. The British military sends a crack unit of SAS and SBS to assault the vessel before she reaches London. So begins a true story of explosive action as this band of elite warriors pursues the merchants of death from the high seas to the harsh wildlands of Afghanistan. The hunt culminates in the single greatest battle of the Afghan war, the brutal and bloody siege of an ancient mud-walled fortress crammed full of hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Fighting against impossible odds and bitter betrayal, our handful of crack fighters battle to rescue their fellow soldiers trapped by a murderous, fanatical enemy. ---------------------------------------------------------"The most dramatic story of a secret wartime mission you will ever read" News of the World "The author has been given unprecedented access" Zoo "Gripping" Eye Spy Read more

Never before has there been a book devoted entirely to Anne Boleyn's fall. Now, Alison Weir's richly researched and impressively detailed portrait gives us the compelling story of the last days of history's most charismatic, controversial and tragic heroines.On 2 May, 1536, in an act unprecedented in English history, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, was imprisoned in the Tower of London. On 15 May, she was tried and found guilty of high treason and executed just four days later. Mystery surrounds the circumstances leading up to her arrest - did Henry VIII instruct Thomas Cromwell to fabricate evidence to get rid of her so that he could marry Jane Seymour? Did Cromwell, for reasons of his own, construct a case against Anne and her faction, and then present compelling evidence before the King? Or was Anne, in fact, as guilty as charged?In The Lady in the Tower, Weir has constructed a gripping tale of betrayal and treason, wrought with her trademark forensic research and penchant for an enthralling narrative.'The perfect examination of Anne's downfall' Independent Read more