20th Century

A major new history of revolutionary Iran, from the 1940s to the present Iran’s revolution in 1979 shook the world. The Pahlavi dynasty came crashing down, and the Islamic Republic rose in its place. But what led to this seismic event? How did the revolutionary movement gain such strength? And...

When eighteen-year-old Anita arrived at Auschwitz, she found herself plucked from the Nazi death machine by a twist of fate: she played the cello, and the camp orchestra needed a cellist. Now the last living survivor of the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra, this is her story told in her own words. Like so many German Jewish schoolgirls, Anita had been busy with her studies and ambitions when her everyday life began to turn by degrees into one of unimaginable horror.

The First World War hardly ended with the formal Armistice in Europe on November 11, 1918, amid the continuing violence of blockades and epidemics, amid numerous forms of reconstruction and revolution. For many at the time, the outbreak of what would become the First World War was an...

From New York Times bestselling author Jonathan W. Jordan comes a riveting portrait of friendship, politics, and power at the highest stakes: the extraordinary bond between Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill. One was the soldier-statesman who would become America’s thirty-fourth president...

For the American naval aviators licking their wounds in the aftermath of this defeat, it would be difficult to imagine that within 24 months of this event, Zuikaku, the last survivor of the carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor, would lie at the bottom of the sea. Alongside it lay the other surviving Japanese carriers, sacrificed as lures in a failed attempt to block the American invasion of the Philippines, leaving the United States to reign supreme on the world's largest ocean.

Este Libro negro del comunismo es una historia de los horrores que la aplicación de esa ideología ha generado en el mundo desde 1917. Desde la instauración del primer estado totalitario de la historia, a raíz de la revolución bolchevique de octubre de 1917, hasta su triunfo en países como Cuba en 1959, pasando por territorios en que sigue vigente (China, en primer lugar), este libro es un alegato demoledor de los crímenes, el terror y la represión que han acompañado a esta ideología en su difusión por el mundo desde hace más de un siglo.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller “A magisterial work that charts the 60-year journey of ‘the greatest rock and roll band in the world.’ . . . Hundreds of books have been written about the Rolling Stones, but few sparkle quite like Spitz’s. For anyone who loves or even likes the...

Humans have long transformed the planet, scratching its surface for stones and ores, planting and harvesting crops, sparking fires for light and heat. But since the dawn of industrialization and especially since 1950, our impact has accelerated sharply. Economic, technological, and demographic changes have driven rapid and ongoing shifts in patterns of pollution, human health, and rising sea level and temperatures.

"A beautifully written, clear-eyed biography of a very Russian tragedy.”—Dan Jones, The Sunday Times From one of our most acclaimed historians, a major new biography of one of history’s most disturbing, dubious masterminds, showing how a Siberian peasant, through his seduction of the...

The United States Navy won such overwhelming victories in 1944 that, had the navy faced a different enemy, the war would have been over at the conclusion of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. However, in the moment of victory on 25 October 1944, the US Navy found itself confronting a frightening enemy that had been unimaginable until it appeared. The kamikaze, 'divine wind' in Japanese, was something Americans were totally unprepared for – a shocking violation of every belief held in the West.

For centuries, opium has been a source of both profit and peril, its legacy entangled with addiction, imperialism, and the complex interplay of global trade and national development. While the illicit opium trade is infamous, the history of licit opium has remained largely untold. Markets of...

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER The “compelling,” untold story of the man who captured and brought to trial Rudolf Höss—one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals and subject of the Oscar-nominated film The Zone of Interest—“fascinates and shocks” (The Washington Post). May 1945...

Many rescuers often say they only did what any decent person would have done in their position, and yet we know that is not true. They did what so many others did not do.

From the wooden “walking machines” of the 1800s to today’s electric torque rockets, the motorcycle has traveled a long, dangerous, brilliant road. This book tells the entire story. From Pedals to Pistons is the definitive history of how the humble bicycle evolved into one of the most iconic machines ever created. Blending gripping storytelling with rich historical detail, Kevin L. Whitworth traces the full 200-year saga of two-wheeled innovation—the inventors, the rebels, the racers, the engineers, and the cultures shaped in their wake.

"A war to end all wars"—but its echoes still shape the modern world. From the blood-soaked trenches of the Western Front to the political upheavals that redrew the globe, World War I – Causes and Consequences offers a powerful, cinematic journey through the war that shattered empires, transformed societies, and set the stage for the century to come. This 30-chapter storytelling narrative weaves together the grand strategy of world leaders and the intimate struggles of ordinary people caught in the storm.