Social and cultural history Books

As a world heritage site and one of the most visited cities in the world, Edinburgh boasts a huge range of buildings from all periods and in many different styles. In this book, architectural writer Robin Ward introduces 200 of the city's most...

Music was an integral part of statecraft and identity formation in the Third Reich. Structured thematically and semiotically around the Wagnerian tetralogy of the Ring cycle, Hitler's Twilight of the Gods provides a sonic read of the Second World War and...

An art historical epic for dangerous timesWhat do artworks look like in extreme cases of collective experience? What signals do artists send when enemies are at the city walls and the rule of law breaks down, or when a tyrant suspends the law to attack...

A beautifully illustrated celebration of the biology, culture, art, and taste of oysters-a perfect gift for the foodie or the artist in your life.Everyone recalls eating their first oyster, just like they remember their first kiss ...Portrait of an...

The epic story of how one ancient language went global, and the scientists on a quest through deep time to uncover it, from the author of international bestseller Pale Rider As the planet emerged from the last ice age, a language was born between Europe...

A timely groundbreaking book in the vein of Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well, one of the country's foremost voices on reparations, offers a radical and vital new framework going beyond the current debate over this controversial issue...

*Now a major movie starring Seth Rogen, Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Shailene Woodley, Sebastian Stan and Nick Offerman*The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders that Brought Wall Street to its Knees. Bestselling author Ben Mezrich...

The Illustrated Histories of Everyday Behavior tells the extraordinary true stories of the 64 biggest social graces and faux pas—using hilarious and informative illustrations!From the time we’re born, we’re taught to mind our manners: don’t put your...

A breathtaking collection of 200 photographs expertly colourised by Aotearoa New Zealand's premier colourist, Brendan Graham, with commentary from award-winning historian Jock Phillips ONZM Our Land in Colour celebrates the rich story of Aotearoa...

From rebels to writers, athletes to astronauts, join Kate Fox takes on an entertaining and eye-opening journey through the lives of these extraordinary women whose lives and achievements have too long been hidden. From Cartimandua, the forgotten Iron...

From rebels to writers, athletes to astronauts, join Kate Fox takes on an entertaining and eye-opening journey through the lives of these extraordinary women whose lives and achievements have too long been hidden. From Cartimandua, the forgotten Iron...

‘Effervescent’ New Yorker Best Books Of 2022 So Far‘Bursts with colour and incident’ FT Best Books of Summer Read this prize-winning historian’s “immersive” ( New York Times) account of the famous writers who, in the run-up to World War II, took on...

A rare, documented account of the life of a Crow medicine woman, drawn from interviews conducted by legendary writer and ethnographer Frank Bird Linderman and told in her own words.In the spring of 1931, Pretty-shield, a grandmother and medicine healer...

‘An astonishingly readable and informative history of the greatest mathematical bestseller of all time … The writing is vivid and the stories are gripping. Highly recommended ’ IAN STEWART, AUTHOR OF SIGNIFICANT FIGURES Euclid’s Elements of Geometry was...

When I Were a Lad… looks at the glorious-yet-risky childhoods of yesteryear before the Health and Safety officers told us we couldn’t do everything because it was too dangerous. The sleeper hit of Christmas 2009 – more than 4,000 copies sold through...

Rachelle Bergstein brings readers along on a unique and delightful romp through the history of shoes, the women who wear them, and the profound impact they have on our lives.Women from the Ankle Down includes interviews and cameos with influential...

In this fascinating history, Jeffrey Rothfeder tells how, from a simple idea—the outgrowth of a handful of peppers planted on an isolated island on the Gulf of Mexico—a secretive family business emerged that would produce one of the best-known products...

The contested creation of free movement-for people and goods-in the Schengen area of EuropeEurope is a place of free movement among nations-or is it? The Schengen area, established in 1985 and today encompassing twenty-nine European countries, allows...

Have you ever wondered what happened on your birthday hundreds of years ago This Day in History is perfect for history buffs and trivia fans alike. This fascinating book covers the most important, unknown, and bizarre events in history, including: the...

A Waterstones Travel Book of the Year 2023A funny, warm and timely meditation on identity and belonging, following the scenic route along the England–Wales border: Britain’s deepest faultline. There is a line on the map: to one side Wales, small, rugged...

“A timeless and powerful novel of a daring woman who must decide if she will risk everything to follow her passion and find her voice.” —Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling authorFrom the moment she was born, the transforming beauty of her...

'A surprising page-turner, full of humour and startling details' THE TIMES'If I read a better history this year, I will be lucky' TOM HOLLAND'An astonishing tour de force’ SPECTATOR From Peter Marshall, winner of the Wolfson Prize 2018, Storm’s Edge is...

"Magnificently researched, brilliantly written, Lethal Tides is immensely entertaining and reads like an action novel. Catherine Musemeche has brought to life the incredible work of the scientists and researchers who made such a remarkable...

Gastronomy of Italy – the seminal work on Italian food, first published in the 1990s – is revised and updated and illustrated with new photography. This classic book leaves no stone unturned in its exploration of Italian gastronomy. Anna Del Conte,...

"A memoir that takes us through many worlds, through heartache and noble hopes, through the mysteries of family love. . . . Read Bending Toward the Sun and enrich your life."—#8212;Rabbi David Wolpe, author of Why Faith MattersA miraculous lesson in...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER‘A lasting work of social history’ THE TIMES‘A genuinely new history of our nation’ DAN JONES‘This celebration of women is a triumph of popular history’ SPECTATOR FROM THE MULTI-MILLION BESTSELLING HISTORICAL NOVELIST COMES...

Discover tantalizing recipes, spine-tingling stories, and historic photos from the most notoriously haunted locations across America in this fun and fascinating cookbook. Paranormal investigator and Kindred Spirits co-host Amy Bruni leads you through...

Five hundred years ago, Thomas Wolsey endowed in Oxford a foundation he called Cardinal‘s College. Henry VIII, the monarch who dismissed and ruined him, re-established it as Christ Church later in his reign as an institution rich, spacious and imposing...

Trawling through a vast family archive and arcane sources in half a dozen languages, Adam Zamoyski has revealed the dramatic life of his great-great-great grandmother, an uneducated, vulnerable girl cast into a man’s world. Her aristocratic position...

*Shortlisted for the 2024 Wolfson History Prize*‘Gripping and profoundly moving’ DAMON GALGUT‘Deft and operatic’ OBSERVER From one of South Africa’s foremost nonfiction writers, a deeply researched, shattering new account of Nelson Mandela’s...

‘A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter’ New York Times‘An ebullient, irrepressible spirit invests this book. It is erudite and sprightly’Sunday Times From the creation of the first...

‘Monumental and eye-opening’ Reza Aslan'A revelation […and…] an intellectual triumph' Irish Independent'[A] massive achievement' Spectator‘Refreshingly readable' Guardian For the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture...

In 1881, a writer in the Saturday Review called tattooing ‘an art without a history’. ‘No-one’, it went on, ‘has made it the business of his life to study the development of tattooing.’ Until now. Painted People is a beguiling and intimate look at an...

The Sunday Times bestseller‘An utterly engrossing book’ Nigella Lawson‘Remarkable and gripping’ Edmund de Waal'A near-perfect study of Jewish identity in the 20th century … I don’t hesitate to call it a masterpiece’ Telegraph After her grandmother died,...

‘Impossible to summarise and delightfully absorbing, Hadley’s book is comfortably the most unexpected history book of the year’ Sunday TimesA luminous journey through a thousand years of folklore and English history. Once upon a time in a...

An enlightening narrative history—an entertaining fusion of Tom Wolfe and Michael Pollan—that traces the colorful origins of once unconventional foods and the diverse fringe movements, charismatic gurus, and counterculture elements that brought them to...

Edited and introduced by Bill Bryson, with contributions from Richard Dawkins, Margaret Atwood, Richard Holmes, Martin Rees, Richard Fortey, Steve Jones, James Gleick and Neal Stephenson amongst others, this beautiful, lavishly illustrated book tells the...

From some of the most remarkable people who have called the city home, come fifty-six candid accounts of long nights out and wild nights in, of first dates and lost loves, of memorable meals and miserable jobs, of slow walks up Broadway and fast subway...

Before Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, or Michael Jordan––before Magic Johnson and Showtime––the Harlem Globetrotters revolutionized basketball and spread the game around the world. In Spinning the Globe, author Ben Green tells the story...

“Not Just Jane restores seven of England’s most fascinating and subversive literary voices to their rightful places in history. Shelley DeWees tells each woman writer’s story with wit, passion, and an astute understanding of the society in which she...

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen;...