History & Historical Biography

James Shapiro / Oberammergau (Hardback)

According to local legend, in 1632 the Bavarian village of Oberammergau was threatened by an outbreak of plague and desperate villagers vowed to perform a Passion Play every ten years if God would spare them. From that day on, plague claimed no more...

Mariana Mazzucato / The Value of Everything (Hardback)

Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today's financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight. In modern capitalism, value-extraction is rewarded more highly than...

Mary Laven / Virgins of Venice (Hardback)

Renaissance Venice had a convent on almost every corner, and nuns loomed large in the city's daily life. Far from being places of religious devotion, the convents were often little more than dumping-grounds for unmarried women from the upper ranks...

A. N. Wilson / Dante in Love (Hardback)

In Dante In Love, A N Wilson brings to life one of the western canon's most enigmatic figures. With a biographer's eye for detail and a novelist's comprehension of the creative process, A. N. Wilson paints a masterful portrait of Dante Alighieri and...

Noel Malcolm / Agents of Empire (Hardback)

In the second half of the sixteenth century, most of the Christian states of Western Europe were on the defensive against a Muslim superpower - the Empire of the Ottoman sultans. There was violent conflict, from raiding and corsairing to large-scale...

Susan Goodman / Children of War (Hardback)

'Were you a child, toddler or teenager during the War? If so, please share your memories and anecdotes: the blackout, bombing, evacuation, shortages, absent fathers...and the fun. Need Your help. It's important, for those of us still around -...

Peter Thorold / The London Rich - The Creation of a Great City from 1666 to the Present (Hardback)

A detailed tracing of the growth of modern London after the devastating fire of 1666 shows how the wealthy classes incorporated former villages into the city as, for example, the nobility took St. James, colonials settled in Marylebone...

Lee Jackson / Victorian London (Hardback)

Like her previous books, this book is the product of the author's passionate interest in the realities of everyday life - and the conditions in which most people lived - so often left out of history books. This period of mid Victorian London covers...

Edwin Mullins / In Search of Cluny (Hardback)

A thousand years ago the French abbey of Cluny was the hub of one of the most powerful empires of the Middle Ages, and the spiritual heart of Europe. Nearly 1,500 religious houses were subject to its authority, and it was the seat of immense political...