10 June 1907, Peking. Five cars set off in a desperate race across two continents on the verge of revolution.

An Italian prince and his chauffeur, a French racing driver, a conman and various journalists battle over steep mountain ranges and across the arid vastness of the Gobi Desert. The contestants need teams of helpers to drag their primitive cars up narrow gorges, lift them over rough terrain and float them across rivers. Petrol is almost impossible to find, there are barely any roads, a...

'Not all lost cities are real, but this one was.'

The extraordinary story of Alexander the Great's lost city, and a quest to unravel one of the most captivating mysteries in ancient history.

'Superb . impeccably researched, but with the pace and deftly woven plot complexity of a John le Carré novel ... utterly brilliant' William Dalrymple, Guardian

'[An] exceptional biography ... This is a jewel of a book' Sunday Times

'A brilliant and evocative biography, written with consummate scholarship...

A narrative history of the Korean War by bestselling author Sir Max Hastings.

The great historian of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Russia returns with an enthralling revisionist history of the Russian Revolution.

An original and compelling history of the northern European medieval renaissance in art, science and philosophy, which rivalled its Italian counterpart, by the author of The Florentines and The Borgias.

The extraordinary story of the German foreign ministry official who, at risk to his life, spied for the Allies in the Second World War.

Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known, whose empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East and Russia. So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such colossal power, eclipsing Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon?

'Wry, readable and often astonishing... A provocative and absorbing history of the United States' New York TimesThe United States denies having dreams of empire. We know America has spread its money, language and culture across the world, but we still think of it as a contained territory, framed by Canada above, Mexico below, and oceans either side.

Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the story of the United States outside the United States – from nineteenth-century conquests l...

A magnificent work of original research, unwinding history through cloth - how we make it, use it and what it means to us.