'Thrilling and eye-opening' Lewis Dartnell

'Unpicks everything we thought we knew... Mind blowing' Cal Flyn

Humans did not make history - we played host.

According to the accepted narrative of progress, a few great humans have bent the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Dr Jonathan Kennedy argues that germs have done more to shape humanity at every stage, from the first success of Homo sapiens over the equally intelligent Neanderthals to the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam.

How d...

One of our foremost historical novelists, Philippa Gregory, makes history.

'Janina Ramirez is a born storyteller, and in Femina she is at the peak of her powers. This is bravura narrative history underpinned by passionate advocacy for the women whom medieval history has too often ignored or overlooked. Femina is essential reading' - Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and Powers and Thrones

'I am the fiery life of divine substance, I blaze above the beauty of the fields, I shine in the waters, I burn in sun, moon and stars' - Hildegard of Bingen (1098 ...

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...

'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...

'Superb' Sunday Times

'Revolutionary' Alice Roberts

'Hugely important' Jim Al-Khalili

A radical retelling of the history of science that foregrounds the scientists erased from history

In this major retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day, James Poskett explodes the myth that science began in Europe.

The blinkered Western gaze focusing on individual 'genius' - Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein - was only one part of the story. The reality was an utterly global, non-...

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.