Linda Polman's We Did Nothing: Why the truth doesn't always come out with the UN goes in is an eye-opening account of peace-keeping operations across the globe. In recent years our newspapers and televisions have brought us stories of the failure of the UN to keep the peace in the modern world. How often have our journalists, our politicians and charity workers turned around and accused the UN of weakness in the face of violence? During the 1990s Polman visited UN peacekeeping missions in Som...

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution.

They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

In The War with Hannibal, Livy (59 BC-AD 17) chronicles the events of the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, until the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. He vividly recreates the immense armies of Hannibal, complete with elephants, crossing the Alps; the panic as they approached the gates of Rome; and the decimation of the Roman army at the Battle of Lake Trasimene. Yet it is also the clash of personalities that fascinates Livy, from great debates in the Senate to the historic meeting between...