'It's rare for a book to make you see the world differently, but this ... does exactly that on almost every page' GuardianStandard histories of technology give tired accounts of the usual inventions, inventors, and dates, framing technology as the inevitable march of progress. They split history into ages - electrification, motorisation, and computerisation - and rarely ask whether anyone bothered to use these inventions at the time.

Shock of the Old is not one of those histories. I Letters e...

In Hello Everybody! a bestseller in his native Holland, Joris Luyendijk tells the story of his five yearsas a reporter in the Middle East. Young and inexperienced but fluent in Arabic, he speaks to stone throwers and soldiers, taxi drivers and professors, victims and aggressors chronicling first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation and war. But the more he witnesses, the less he understands and he becomes increasingly aware of the yawning gap between what he sees on the ground and wha...

WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2008'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy' Laura Silverman, Daily MailThe ruins of Pompeii, buried by an explosion of Vesuvius in 79 CE, offer the best evidence we have of everyday life in the Roman empire. This remarkable book rises to the challenge of making sense of those remains, as well as exploding many myths: the very date of the eruption, probab...

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTHSHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2019SUNDAY TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR an ECONOMIST Politics and Current Affairs book of the year and a DAILY MAIL and TIMES book of the year'You cannot understand power, wealth and poverty without knowing about Moneyland.'Simon Kuper, New Statesman2019: democracy is eating itself, inequality is skyrocketing, the system is breaking apart. Why?Because in 1962, some bankers in London had an idea...

Over a million copies soldClear writing is the key to clear thinking. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible. That's the thinking that underpins this much-loved guide, and the mantra for anyone wanting to communicate with the clarity, style and precision for which The Economist is renowned.

The Economist Style Guide guides the reader through the pleasures and pitfalls of English usage. It offers advice on the consistent use of punctuation, abbreviations and capital l...