History & Archaeology Books

Spanning 65,000 years, this book provides a history of food in Australia from its beginnings, with the arrival of the first peoples and their stewardship of the land, to a present where the production and consumption of food is fraught with anxieties and...

The history of Tibet has long intrigued the world, as well as the dilemma of its future - will it ever return to independence or will it always remain part of China? Is a 'Tibet outside of Tibet' a viable expression of...

Virginia Woolf's novel famously begins - 'Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.' Of course she would: why would anyone surrender the best part of the day to someone else? Flowers grace our lives at moments of celebration and despair. 'We...

The midlife crisis has become a cliche in modern society. Since the mid-twentieth century, the term has been used to explain infidelity in middle-aged men, disillusionment with personal achievements, the pain and sadness associated with separation and...

An Inky Business is a book about the making and printing of news. It is a history of ink, paper, printing press and type, and of those who made and read newspapers in Britain, continental Europe and America from the British Civil Wars to the Battle of...

Satan is not God's enemy in the Bible, and he's not always bad - much less evil. Through the lens of the Old and New Testaments, Erik Butler explores the Devil through literature, theology, visual art, and music from antiquity up to the...

A trenchant expose of the effects of automation on worker's livesIn recent decades digital devices have reshaped daily life, while tech companies' stock prices have thrust them to the forefront of the business world. In this rapid, global development,...

People have been fascinated by merpeople since ancient times. From the sirens of Homer's Odyssey to Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid to the 1984 film Splash, myths, stories and legends of half-human half-fish creatures...

A highly original overview of Russia's tumultuous historyCovering more than one thousand years, Russia as Empire shows how the medieval empire of Kyivan Rus' metamorphosed into today's Russian Federation. Kees Boterbloem vividly and lucidly describes...

A new interpretation of Tycho Brahe's pivotal role in the emergence of empirical science.The Danish aristocrat and astronomer Tycho Brahe personified the inventive vitality of Renaissance life in the sixteenth century. Brahe lost his nose in a student...

This book provides a remarkable overview of significant themes in Russian history and culture, in each case starting well before the eighteenth century, while frequently following them up into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Robin...

Heroes and Marvels of the Middle Ages is a history like no other: it is a history of the imagination, presented through two celebrated groups of the period. One group consists of heroes: Charlemagne, El Cid, King Arthur, Orlando, Pope Joan, Melusine,...

A beautifully illustrated monograph on the innovative and at times controversial sculptor Donatello.The Italian sculptor known as Donatello helped to forge a new kind of art - one that defines the Renaissance. His work was progressive, innovative,...

Fat. Such a little word evokes big responses. While 'fat' describes the size and shape of bodies - their appearance - our negative reactions to corpulence also depend on something tangible and tactile. As this book argues, there is more to fat than meets...

Eyewitnessing evaluates the place and potency of images among other kinds of historical evidence. By reviewing the many varieties of images across region, period, and medium, and by looking at the pragmatic uses of images (from the Bayeux Tapestry to an...

Thirty years ago Prague was a closed book to most Westerners. Today it is the continent's fifth most-visited city, surpassed only by London, Paris, Istanbul and Rome. With a stunning natural location on the Vltava river and a spectacular potpourri of...

All aboard for a delicious ride on nine legendary railway journeys! Meals associated with train travel have been an important aspect of railway history for more than a century - from dinners in dining cars to lunches at station buffets to foods purchased...

Dr Bhimrao R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was one of India's greatest intellectuals and social reformers; his political ideas continue to inspire and mobilise some of the world's poorest and most socially disadvantaged, in India and the global...

'Empire Building' is a new account of the East India Company's impact on India, focussing on how it changed the sub-continent's built environment in the context of defence, urbanisation, and infrastructural development...

The Tyne Bridge, opened in 1928 by King George V, is one of Britain's most iconic structures, a Grade II* listed building. Linking Newcastle and Gateshead, this symbol of Tyneside and the region is also a monument to the Tyne's industrial past. Paul...

The epic story of a man born into Caribbean slavery, who defeated Napoleon's armies and crowned himself a free black king.How did a Caribbean child, born into plantation slavery, come to defeat Napoleon's armies in battle and crown himself king of the...

A set of highly renowned experts offer diverse new research and a analysis of today's proxy wars, focusing on the Middle East and its neighbours.Proxy warfare will shape the conflicts of the twenty-first century for the foreseeable future. Yet the...

South Korea has a remarkable history. Born from the ashes of imperial domination, partition and a devastating war, back in the 1950s there were real doubts about its survival as an independent state. Yet South Korea endures: today it is a boisterous...

The imposition of Communist ideology was a misfortune for millions in Eastern Europe, but never for Dennis Deletant. Instead, it drew him to Romania. The renowned historian's association with the country and its people dates back to 1965, when...

The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and one of the continent's principal arteries of movement, migration, conquest and commerce. In this book, historian Malyn Newitt quotes rarely used Portuguese sources that throw vivid light on...

The untold story of a great English county and its people, from The Vikings to Brexit.Lincolnshire is England's second-largest county - and one of the least well-known. Yet its understated chronicles, unfashionable towns and undervalued...

The giving of gifts has been associated with diplomacy from ancient times to the present. Press coverage tends to focus on examples which highlight cultural differences between giver; where a gift is perceived as excessive, sometimes with connotations of...

Winner of The High Plains Book Award for Non-FictionA vivid biography of an African Edwardian chronicler of London, in a time of social upheaval.In a world dominated by the British Empire, and at a time when many Europeans considered black people...

Karoline Kan was born in 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre: her generation has always been caught between China's authoritarian politics and its hyper-modern technology and economic boom. In her quest to understand the shifting sands of...

From Spain to Syria, the thrilling, untold history of Nazi fugitives turned postwar agents for America, the Soviets, the Third World, or themselves.After the Second World War, the Allies vowed to hunt Nazi war criminals 'to the ends of the...

In a 1965 letter to 'Newsweek', French writer and academic Bernard Fall (1926-67) staked a claim as the 'Number One Realist' on the Vietnam War. This is the first book to study the thought of this overlooked figure, one of the most important experts on...

How can we explain Britain's long rule in India beyond the clichs of 'imperial' versus 'nationalist' interpretations? In this new history, Roderick Matthews tells a more nuanced story of 'oblige and rule', the foundation of common purpose between...

In early summer 1982--winter in the South Atlantic--Argentina's military junta invades the Falklands. Within days, a Royal Navy Task Force is assembled and dispatched. This is the story of D Squadron, 22 SAS, commanded by Cedric Delves. The relentless...

With only 1.3 million inhabitants, Estonia is one of Europe's least populous nations -- yet it boasts one of the continent's fastest growing economies. In the first serious English-language history of this small Baltic state, Neil Taylor charts Estonia's...

When Stephen Ellis died in July 2015, African Studies lost one of its most prolific, provocative and celebrated scholars. Given the scale and uniqueness of his contribution, it is perhaps surprising that a collection of his writings did not appear during...

For many in Israel and elsewhere, Benjamin Netanyahu is anathema, an embarrassment; yet he continues to dominate Israeli public life. How can we explain his rise, his hold on Israeli politics, and his outsized role on the world's stage?In Bibi, Anshel...

India's caravan trade with central Asia was at the heart of the complex web of routes making up the Silk Roads. But what was the fate of these overland connections in the ages of sail and steam? Jagjeet Lally sets out to answer this question by bringing...

Why is the Middle East a crisis factory, and how can it be fixed? What does the future look like for its 500 million people? And what role should the West play?Iyad El-Baghdadi and Ahmed Gatnash tell the story of the modern Middle East as a series of...

The most secretive, repressive state in Africa is haemorrhaging its citizens. In some months as many Eritreans as Syrians arrive on European shores, yet the country is not convulsed by civil war. Young men and women risk all to escape. Many do not...

The rediscovery of Assyria in the 1840s transformed Western views on the origins of civilisation. The excavation of Nineveh proved that even the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians together did not constitute the ancient world. These peoples had nothing to do...

Marseille is a thoroughly ambiguous place. France's second city and its major sea-port, its impact on the national imagination is unparalleled. Yet it is also a frontier city, arguably capital of the Mediterranean, and with a traditionally suspect...

How did a venerable Indian spiritual discipline turn into a 20 billion-a-year mainstay of the wellness industry? What happened along yoga's winding path from the caves and forests of the sages to the gyms, hospitals and village halls of the modern...

As early as the third century, St Maurice-an Egyptian-became leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion. Ever since, there have been richly varied encounters between those defined as 'Africans' and those called 'Europeans'. Yet Africans and African...

The emotion and trauma of the Partition are buried deep, but Aanchal Malhotra has found a way to recover them. Through the possessions saved by her own great-grandparents as they fled their homes, she discovers the unique power of such objects: to unlock...

Henrik Meinander paints a brisk and bold picture of the history of Finland from integrated part of the Swedish kingdom to autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian empire, gradually transformed and maturing into a conscious nation, independent state and...

For more than 200 years the younger members of the British royal family - including future monarchs - have lived at Kensington Palace, alongside royal aunts and uncles, distant cousins and assorted aristocratic eccentrics. Kensington Palace has...

The highly eccentric Alfred Dillwyn Knox, known simply as 'Dilly', was one of the leading figures in the British codebreaking successes of the two world wars. During the first, he was the chief codebreaker in the Admiralty, breaking the German navy's...

Invented History, Fabricated Powerbegins with an examination of prehistoric beliefs (in spirits, souls,mana,orenda) that provided personal explanation and power through ritual and shamanism among tribal peoples. On this foundation, spiritual power...