An investigation of the obscure centuries that followed the departure of the Romans from Britain.

A revolutionary and fun new book that reveals how everything, from beds and bubbles to sleep and signatures, has a history.

In this classic text, Jane Jacobs set out to produce an attack on current city planning and rebuilding and to introduce new principles by which these should be governed. The result is one of the most stimulating books on cities ever written. Throughout the post-war period, planners temperamentally unsympathetic to cities have been let loose on our urban environment.

Inspired by the ideals of the Garden City or Le Corbusier's Radiant City, they have dreamt up ambitious projects based on self-c...

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...

It was believed that in 1491, the year before Columbus landed, the Americas were a near-pristine wilderness inhabited by small roaming bands of indigenous people. Here, Charles Mann provides a new, fascinating and iconoclastic account of the Americas before Columbus.

South of the Golden Horn, on the narrow tongue of land—narrow it seems as seen from the hills of the northern shore—is the city of Constantine and his successors in empire, seated, like the old Rome, on seven hills, and surrounded on three sides by sea, on the fourth by the still splendid, though shattered, mediæval walls. Northwards are the two towns, now linked together, of Pera and Galata, that look back only to the trading settlements of the Middle Ages.

The single spot united, as G...

Little Kingdom by the Sea, a celebration of Dutch cultural heritage

Memories are our most precious possession and often come to life through something small. Therein lies the power of a souvenir too. On October 7, KLM added her newest Delft blue house no. 103 to the expanding collection. The world-class miniatures are modeled after historic (canal)houses and landmark buildings from all over the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They are filled with history; the stories will enrich you with knowledg...