For decades, the question has haunted the Arab and Muslim world. Was it always so? When did the extremism, intolerance and bloodletting of today displace the region's cultural promise and diversity? In Black Wave, award-winning journalist and author Kim Ghattas argues that the turning point in the modern history of the Middle East can be located in...

In the seventy thousand years that modern human beings have walked this earth, we've come a long way. Art, science, culture, trade - on the evolutionary food chain, we're real winners. But, frankly, it's not exactly been plain sailing, and sometimes - just occasionally - we've managed to really, truly, quite unbelievably f--k things up. From Chairm...

Al Murray's passion for military history and the Second World War in particular has always run parallel with his comedy and was brought to the fore with several acclaimed and award-winning television shows and the recent huge success of his podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk which he hosts with fellow bestselling military author James Holland....

Throughout history, the centre of gravity in Budapest and among Hungarians has shifted between this division of East and West—culturally, politically, emotionally. Invaders have come and gone, empires have conquered, occupied for centuries or decades, and left a few footprints behind: the remains of a Roman bath house complete with wonderfull...

Uncover the true story of an Egyptian king, and the 20th century explorer who found him. Ideal for readers aged 7+ Discover the troubles Tutankhamun faced as a young king, his untimely death, and his legacy, which lay hidden for centuries. Pore over his treasures, learn the steps of mummification, and see Tutankhamun's fascinating story bought to l...

Surprisingly little has been written about second-generation Bloomsbury who tantalised the original 'Bloomsburies' at Gordon Square parties with their captivating looks and provocative ideas. Young Bloomsbury introduces us to an extraordinarily colourful cast of characters, including novelist and music critic Eddy Sackville-West, 'who wore elaborat...

An enthralling 6,000-year journey through the history of books and reading Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and Pharaohs were so determined to possess them that they dispatched emissaries to the edges of the earth to bring them back. In Papyrus,...

The second part of the best-selling novelist's dramatic autobiography about his time in the Gurkhas during the Second World War. This is the second part of John Masters's autobiography: how he fought with his Gurkha regiment during World War II until his promotion to command one of the Chindit columns behind enemy lines in Burma. Written by a best-...

The first of John Master's evocative memoirs about life in the Gurkhas in India on the cusp of WWII. John Masters was a soldier before he became a best-selling novelist. He went to Sandhurst in 1933 at the age of 18 and was commissioned into the Fourth Gurkha Rifles in time to take part in some of the last campaigns on the turbulent North-West Fron...

The gripping account of how the Royal family really operates from the man who has spent years studying them in his role as Royal correspondent for The Times. Valentine Low asks the important questions: who really runs the show and, as Charles III begins his reign, what will happen next? Throughout history, the British monarchy has relied on its cou...

Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and Lenin's single-minded...

When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a deluge as staff old and new - from overnight security to respected curators - brought him testimonies of their supernatural encounters. It became clear that the source of the disturbances...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Stopping Places, written and read by Damian Le Bas.*BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week*'I needed to get to the stopping places, so I needed to get on the road. It was the road where I might at last find out where I belonged.'Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would t...

'With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the m...

100 of the most heroic, inspirational and sometimes hilarious animals from history, brought to life by national treasure Clare Balding. Bobbie the Wonder dog crossed more than 2,500 miles of plains, desert and mountains to find his way home .Cher Ami the pigeon delivered a message that saved the lives of 194 soldiers in 1918.Trakr the police dog sp...

An enthralling, panoramic history of the influence of colonialism on the world today, told through the surprising story of the nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation - of both human life and the natural environment - and the origin of our contemporary climate crisis.Tracing the threats to our future to the discovery o...

Cleopatra: lover, seductress, and Egypt's greatest queen. A woman more myth than history, immortalized in poetry, drama, music, art, and film. She captivated Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, the two greatest Romans of the day, and died in a blaze of glory, with an asp clasped to her breast - or so the legend tells us. But the real-life story of the h...

Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the Falklands conflict. The most in-depth and powerful account yet published of the first crucial clash of the Falklands war—told from both sides. Goose Green was the first land battle of the Falklands War. It was also the longest, the hardest-fought, the most controversial and the most important to win. W...

Otto Rosenberg is nine and living in Berlin, poor but happy, when his family are first detained. All around them, Sinti and Roma families are being torn from their homes by Nazis, leaving behind schools, jobs, friends and businesses to live in forced encampments outside the city. Otto arrives in Auschwitz aged 15 and is later transferred to Buechen...

For the first time ever, New York Times best-selling author and former CIA operative Robert Baer tells the explosive story of how insiders believe a KGB mole rose to the highest ranks of the CIA. In the aftermath of the Cold War, US intelligence caught three high-profile Russian spies. However, these arrests left major questions unanswered, and rum...

In April 1944, a teenager named Rudolf Vrba was planning a daring and unprecedented escape from Auschwitz. After hiding in a pile of timber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their bloodhounds searched for him, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler would eventually cross Nazi-occupied Poland on foot, as penniless fugitives. Their missi...