What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena? This book explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects.

A Times History Book of the Year 2022 From the #1 bestselling historian Max Hastings ‘the heart-stopping story of the missile crisis’ Daily Telegraph

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR What is the nature of things? Must I think my own way through the world? What is justice? How can I be me? How should we treat each other?

National Bestseller

The true story of one family, caught between America's two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over the business. In the days following the storm he travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and hel...

An intelligent, comprehensive and authoritate history of the Holocaust from one of our finest historians.

Under Hitler and Stalin the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered fourteen million people in the bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow. The killing fields extended from central Polads to western Russia.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZESELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 BY THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, MAIL ON SUNDAY AND OBSERVERBelonging is a magnificent cultural history abundantly alive with energy, character and colour.