*Shortlisted for the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History*

'An enthralling account of a pivotal moment in modern history. . . replete with startling revelations about the deception and mutual suspicion that brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of Armageddon in October 1962' Martin Chilton, Independent

The definitive new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize

For more than four weeks in the au...

BEST BOOKS 2023: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * TLS

Do you know what is at stake in Ukraine? Urgent, compelling reading from the author of Chernobyl on the defining conflict of our times

On 24 February 2022, Russia stunned the world by launching an invasion of Ukraine. In the midst of checking on the family and friends who were now on the front lines of Europe's largest conflict since the outbreak of the Second World War, acclaimed Ukrainian-American historian Serhii Plo...

'Awe-inspiring' Dr Janina Ramirez

'A book to savour' Sir Lawrence Freedman

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A radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating lives.

We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread, leading through the centuries from classical antiquity to the countries of the modern West - a cultural genealogy that connects Plato to NATO. It is an idea often invoked in the speeches of politicians and the rh...

A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: Sunday Times * Irish Times * Spectator * Financial Times * Telegraph * Aspects of History

'The history book you need if you want to understand modern Russia' ANNE APPLEBAUM

'A magnificent, magisterial thousand year history of Russia . . . by one of the masters of Russian scholarship' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

'A great historian at the peak of his powers' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

'[An] excellent short study' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

'If you really want to understand Putin'...

A thrilling, epic and original history of humanity from a dazzlingly fresh and global perspective, from the prize-winning, bestselling historian

'Impeccably researched and superbly written' Observer

'Holland has something new to say.... Filled with insight and detail' Neil Oliver

'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians' Sebastian Faulks

With the invasion of France the following year taking shape, and hot on the heels of victory in Sicily, the Allies crossed into Southern Italy in September 1943. They expected to drive the Axis forces north and be in Rome by Christmas. And although Italy surrendered, the Germ...

A lively and immersive global history of witchcraft which shows its evolution from the Middle Ages to the present day and shines a light on the stories of the victims, told in thirteen trials.

Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance. An outburst of Western triumphalism proclaimed a US-led unipolar world entitled to 'impose democracy' on countries that failed to recognise the new order. Politicians foretold the universalisation of Western values as the final, enduring form of human society...

When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, he was startled to find how the lives of the 19th century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising at all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history was swept up in the story.

Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, memo...

Hugh Aldersey-Williams transports us to the Dutch Golden Age - a time of immense scientific and artistic innovation - in this histo-biography of Christiaan Huygens, one of Europe's leading, yet unsung, thinkers.