History & Archaeology Books

This book addresses the most important question in geopolitics today - the future of relations between the US and China. Concerned that the rise of China will challenge the its hegemony in world affairs, the US has decided to reassert its influence in...

The story of the women, financiers, and other unsung figures who helped to shape the post-Napoleonic global orderIn 1814, after decades of continental conflict, an alliance of European empires captured Paris and exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, defeating...

By the time of Japan's surrender in 1945, an entire generation had grown up knowing nothing but conflict; but the transformation of Japan into a militarist power began decades earlier, with the toppling of the old samurai regime, and the rush of...

"Presented alongside Hiroshige's prints, with descriptions and context, Delord's work offers an absorbing contemplation of Japan's past and present via one legendary travel route, and shows how thoroughly upended our surroundings have been in what was,...

Japanese Legends and Folklore invites English speakers into the intriguing world of Japanese folktales, ghost stories and historical eyewitness accounts. With a fascinating selection of stories about Japanese culture and people, A.B. Mitford - who lived...

Japan is home to some of the world's most interesting alcoholic beverages - from  traditional Sak and Shochu to Japanese whisky, beer, wine and cocktails that are winning global acclaim and awards. In this comprehensive survey of...

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is a timeless work that has defined much of our present understanding of Japan. "How and why does Japanese culture differ from our own?" and "Why is it seemingly so self-contradictory?" are just some of the questions...

Bushido: The Samurai Code of Japan is one of the most influential books ever written on "the way of the warrior." A classic study of Japanese culture, the book outlines the moral code of the Samurai way of living and the virtues every Samurai warrior...

Based on the author's study with instructors at the Tokyo police academy, this book presents all the traditional techniques of Jujitsu, also known as Jiu-jitsu. These techniques teach you valuable restraining techniques forcing...

An award-winning historian onthe transformative year in the sixties that continues to reverberate in our lives and politics-for readers of Heather Cox Richardson.If 1968 marked a turning point in a pivotal decade, 1964-or rather, the long 1964, from...

'Bob Batchelor writes with great eloquence and insight about the Doors, the greatest hard-rock band we have ever had, and through this book, we plunge deeply into the mystery that surrounds Jim Morrison. It is Batchelor's warmth and...

A documentary-style collection of stories, poems, essays, and interviews by Southeastern Native American women.Upon Her Shouldersis a collection of stories, poems, and prose by Southeastern Native American women whose narratives attest to the hard work...

A secular feminist army courageously challenges the Islamic StateIn wartorn Syria, a Kurdish democratic society-based on secularism, ethnic inclusiveness, and gender equality with women on the front lines as fierce warriors and...

A timely story of a forgotten emotionCheerfulness: A Literary and Cultural History tells a new story about the cultural imagination of the West wherein cheerfulness - a momentary uptick in emotional energy, a temporary lightening of spirit - functions as...

England's Lionesses are on the front and back pages; their stars feature on prime-time television; they are named in the national honours lists for their contribution to their sport and to society. The names of Lucy Bronze, Steph Houghton and...

This is the first facsimile publication of 'Martha Lloyd's Household Book', the manuscript cookbook of Jane Austen's closest friend. Martha's notebook is reproduced in a colour facsimile section with complete...

To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians built fortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice that generated staggering quantities of artefacts over the course of many millennia, but one which has also drawn thieves and...

Renowned historian Joanna Bourke explores the modern history of bestialitySex with animals is one of the last taboos but, for a practice that is generally regarded as abhorrent, it is remarkable how many books, films, plays, paintings, and photographs...

**Selected as one of the 'Biggest Non-Fiction Books of 2019' by The Times**As one of theearliestArabs to join the Afghan Jihad, theAlgerian IslamistAbdullah Anas counted as brothers-in-arms the future icons of al-Qaeda's global war, from Abdullah Azzam...

Responding to a diplomatic stalemate and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, Yemen's civil actors work every day to build peace in fragmented local communities across the country. This book shows how their efforts relate to longstanding justice...

Communism was destroyed not from without, but from within - by a persistent failure to make its economic theories work in practice. But what exactly did go wrong with its central planning? Until the last moment, top western economists claimed that...

How does the Taliban wage war? How has its war changed over time? Firstly, the movement's extraordinary military operation relies on financial backing. This volume analyses such funding. The Taliban's external sources of support include foreign...

This book presents rare evidence about the lives of three African women in the sixteenth century--the very period from which we can trace the origins of global empires, slavery, capitalism, modern religious dogma and anti-Black violence. These features...

A Bittersweet Heritage unearths the slavery-tainted history of Britain's manors, ports, roads and countryside, and powerfully explains what this legacy means today.The 2020 toppling of slave-trader Edward Colston's statue by Black Lives...

Between South and Central Asia, in the high mountains and cold deserts, India, Pakistan and China have fought brutal wars over barren, uninhabited territory in a bid for control over their national peripheries, including Xinjiang and Tibet in China, and...

This is a comprehensive history of a legendarily proud and passionate but lonely people. Much of Europe once knew them as 'child-devouring cannibals' and 'bloodthirsty Huns', but it was not long before the Hungarians became steadfast defenders of...

When Taliban forces took Kabul on 15 August 2021, it marked the end of the Western intervention that had begun nearly twenty years earlier with the US-led invasion. The fall of Afghanistan triggered a seismic shock in the West, where US President Joe...

The revolutionary Wilhelm Steinitz(1836-1900) considered himself to be in the vanguard of an emerging, late-19thcentury 'Modern' school, which embraced a new, essentially scientific vitalityin its methods of research, analysis, evaluation, planning,...

The ultimate visual guide to Samurai history and culture! The Samurai are continuously celebrated as the greatest warriors the world has ever seen. They ruled Japan for centuries, finally uniting the nation after a prolonged period of brutal war and...

This new edition contains a new introduction by the translator, and has been thoroughly updated to reflect developments that shed new light on the original Japanese text. True Path of the Ninja is the first authoritative...

This fascinating book tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion...

Treasured for centuries by karate's top masters, the Bubishi is a classic Chinese work on philosophy, strategy, medicine, and technique as they relate to the martial arts.Referred to as the "bible of karate" by famous master Chojun...

"Enthralling ... A great read."-Philippe de Montebello, former director, Metropolitan Museum of ArtOctober 16, 1943, inside the Vatican as darkness descends upon Rome. Having been alerted to the Nazi plan to round up the city's Jewish population the next...

A Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book of 2022 A USBBY 2023 Outstanding International BookA 2022 Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner (Graphic Novels & Comics Category)Honorable mention, 2023 Children's Africana Book Awards2022 VLA Graphic Novel Diversity...

'Compelling, inspiring, and radiant.' -FOREWORD "Excels in showing the camaraderie of the 'Ghost Girls.'-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Will keep readers engaged in these women's stories from the first...

*Finalist for the US National Book Award for Poetry 2020*A powerful work of cultural memory that recovers voices from Korea's heartbreakingly violent postcolonial history.Woven from poems, prose, photographs, and drawings, Don Mee Choi's DMZ...

There are many books published in English on Chinese gardens, but the majority are primarily picture books with little informative content. With a large number of illustrations of Chinese gardens, ancient paintings, block prints, and other artefacts,...

This book is the first documentation of the entire journey of Pakistan's women's international cricket team, serving to fill that void in the story of Pakistan cricket and in so doing adding a vital tome to the history of women's sport...

The Tudor Book of Days is a beautifully designed perpetual diary for keeping important dates, events and seasonal notes in a personal day book. The diary pages have a week in a double page spread and list important Tudor events by month and by day. Space...

Every individual book has a history which can help us to understand what difference it may have made in the world. Within these pages you will find books damaged by bullets or graffiti, recovered from fire or water, or even disguised as completely...

This richly illustrated book tells the story of cultural exchange between the people of the Low Countries and England in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, and reveals how Anglo-Dutch connections changed the literary landscape on both sides of...

In this deeply researched chronology, Colin Burgess describes the Soviet Union's extraordinary success in the pioneering years of space exploration. Within a decade the Soviets not only launched the world's first satellite, but were the...

The French Revolution facilitated the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, but after gaining power he knew that his first task was to end it. In this book William Doyle describes how he did so, beginning with the three large issues that had destabilized...

Disgrace is the first truly global history of sexual violence. The book explores how sexual violence varies widely across time and place, from nineteenth-century peasant women in Ireland who were abducted as a way of forcing marriage, to date-raped...

At the heart of traditional song rest the concerns of ordinary people. And folk throughout the centuries have found themselves entangled with the law: abiding by it, breaking it, and being caught and punished by it. Who Killed Cock Robin? is an anthology...

A fascinating, forgotten story of the six brilliant women who launched modern computing.As the Cold War began, America's race for tech supremacy was taking off. Experts rushed to complete the top-secret computing research started during World War II,...

Strawberry daiquiris. Skinny martinis. Vodka sodas with lime. These are the cocktails that come in sleek-stemmed glasses, bright colours and fruity flavours - these are the Girly Drinks.From the earliest days of civilization, alcohol has been at the...

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...