Tom Wolfe's debut collection of essays - a brilliant, form-bending dive into the future of America as it careenedthrough the 1960s In 1965, Tom Wolfe dropped like a bomb onto the American literary scene with his first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, an incandescent panorama of American counter-culture, its dances, bouffant hairdos, customised cars and rock concerts. Capturing the...

What is history and how should it be written? This important new anthology, translated and edited by Professor John Marincola, contains all the seminal texts that relate to the writing of history in the ancient world. The study of history was invented in the classical world. Treading uncharted waters, writers such as Plutarch and Lucian grappled with big questions such...

‘One of the greatest escape stories I’ve ever read’ Mail on Sunday An ordinary man’s extraordinary escape from Mao’s brutal labour camps Xu Hongci was an ordinary medical student when he was incarcerated under Mao’s regime and forced to spend years of his youth in China’s most brutal labour camps. Three times he tried to escape. And three times he...

Part of the ALL-NEW Ladybird Expert series. Learn about Timbuktu, in this clear and authoritative introduction to the place considered to be one of the most important trading cities of the medieval world. Written by curator and cultural historian Gus Casely-Hayford, this book delves into the rise of the largest empire in West Africa and what made Timbuktu the most...

THE THIRD EDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, REVISED AND UPDATED 'A rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world...outstanding, gripping and exuberant...full of flamboyant character sketches, witty asides and magisterial scholarship, that explains much of what we need to know about the world today' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a grudge against...

David Reynolds’ major BBC Radio 4 series explores the origins of contemporary USA from its beginnings to the present day This epic narrative tells America’s story through the voices of those who lived it - presidents and farmers, mothers and children, settlers and soldiers, slaves and Indians. The series celebrates the country’s achievements but also examines its paradoxes by investigating...

The Cold War is one of the furthest-reaching and longest-lasting conflicts in modern history. It spanned the globe - from Greece to China, Hungary to Cuba - and lasted for almost half a century. It has shaped political relations to this day, drawing new physical and ideological boundaries between East and West. In this meticulously researched account, Bridget Kendall explores...

***The subject of the new major film by Mike Leigh*** Unity of the oppressed can make a difference in politically uncertain times A peaceful protest turned tragedy; this is the true story of the working class fight for the vote. On August 16 1819, in St Peter’s Field, Manchester, a large non-violent gathering demanding parliamentary reform turned into a massacre,...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2018 NEW STATESMAN AND EVENING STANDARD BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017 'Brilliant ... a staggering story' Robert Fox, Evening Standard, Books of the Year 'Fascinating, vast and rich ... a dramatic family memoir' Guardian Uncovering his family's remarkable and moving stories, Mark Mazower recounts the sacrifices and silences that marked a generation and their descendants....

'This is a miracle of a book' George Lamming 'Compelling. Stuart Hall's story is the story of an age' Owen Jones 'Sometimes I feel I was the last colonial' This is the story, in his own words, of the extraordinary life of Stuart Hall: writer, thinker and one of the leading intellectual lights of his age. Growing up in a...

'Masterly ... a book of resounding importance for appraising our global future as well as understanding our past' Richard Davenport-Hines, The Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year 'A masterful survey that will set the standard for Cold War scholarship for years to come' Jonathan Steele, London Review of Books As Germany and then Japan surrendered in 1945 there was...

'A scintillating, encyclopaedic history, rich in detail from the arcane to the familiar... a veritable tour de force' Richard Overy, New Statesman 'Transnational history at its finest ... .. social, political and cultural themes swirl together in one great canvas of immense detail and beauty' Gerard DeGroot, The Times 'Dazzlingly erudite and entertaining' Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times A masterpiece...

Do you know where you came from? Who Do You Think You Are? has been a BBC hit since its first series in 2004, which ignited an extraordinary boom in researching family history in the UK. Since then, the world of genealogy has transformed and while our sources of information remain the same, our ways of accessing them have multiplied...

What is history and how should it be written? This important new anthology, translated and edited by Professor John Marincola, contains all the seminal texts that relate to the writing of history in the ancient world. The study of history was invented in the classical world. Treading uncharted waters, writers such as Plutarch and Lucian grappled with big questions such...

On a hot June morning in 1975, a shoot-out between FBI agents and American Indians erupted on a reservation near Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Two FBI agents and one Indian died. Eventually four Indians, all members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were indicted on murder charges, Twenty-two years late, one of them, Leonard Peltier, is still serving two...