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1189. The long-awaited goal of Richard Plantagenet, the Lionheart, comes true as he is crowned King of England. Before he can set off on crusade and retake Jerusalem from the Saracens, he must set his own kingdom in order and deal with his half-brother Geoffrey and younger brother John, both of whom pose threats to the throne.

Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs, but this is not a simple chronological record. It is a comprehensive account, animated by Ackroyd's concern for the close relationship between the present and the past as well as by what he describes as the peculiar "echoic" quality of London whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.

In My Scotland, number one best-selling author Val McDermid takes readers to the landscapes she has known all her life and the places where her stories and characters reside. This remarkable book uncovers Val's own Scotland in all its glory - from the iconic Isle of Skye to the majestic streets of Edinburgh, from the undiscovered hideaways of the Highlands to the wild and untamed Jura. Featuring excerpts from Val McDermid's best-selling novels and charting Karen Pirie's Fife to Lindsay Gordon's Glasgow, My Scotland is an unforgettable and uniquely personal journey.

The Wars of the Roses were a tumultuous period in English history, with family fighting family over the greatest prize in the kingdom—the throne of England. But what gave the eventual victor of these brutal and complex wars, Henry Tudor, the right to claim the crown? What made his Beaufort mother the great heiress of medieval England, and how exactly did an illegitimate line come to challenge the English monarchy? This book uncovers the rise of the Beauforts and tracks their fall during the 1460s and 1470s.

Using archival records, in this book, David Stahel presents a history of Germany's summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest and most powerful Panzer groups on the Eastern front. Stahel's research provides a fundamental reassessment of Germany's war against the Soviet Union, highlighting the prodigious internal problems of the vital Panzer forces and revealing that their demise in the earliest phase of the war undermined the whole German invasion. 

One of the most famous queens in history, Mary Stuart lived in her homeland for just twelve years: as a dauntless child who laughed at her friends' seasickness as they sailed to safety in France and later, on her return as an eighteen-year-old widow to take control of a nation riven with factions, dissent, and religious strife. Brief though her in time Scotland was, her experience profoundly influenced who she was and what happened to her.

For over three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded, on land and at sea, by the overwhelming forces of Spain and France. It became the longest siege in British history, and the obsession with saving Gibraltar was blamed for the loss of the American colonies in the War of Independence. Located between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, on the very edge of Europe, Gibraltar was a place of varied nationalities, languages, religions and social classes.

1941: almost four million Nazi troops marched on Moscow, with a brutal scorched-earth tactic that saw millions of Soviet citizens massacred. A level of brutality only paralleled after the Soviet's triumphed at Stalingrad and took mindless revenge as they marched back into Berlin. Beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, to the appalling circumstances of the Fall of Berlin in April 1945 and told from the perspective of the people of Russia and Eastern Europe, Barbarossa is a heartrending story of tragedy, suffering and heroism.

Brought to you by Penguin. A Sunday Times Bestseller A gripping and authoritative account of the year that sealed the fate of the Nazis, from the bestselling historian June 1944: In Operation Bagration, more than two million Red Army soldiers, facing 500,000 German soldiers, finally avenged...

The SAS: Britain’s Original Special Forces pulls back the curtain on one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. From its desert birth under the radical vision of David Stirling to the urban battlefields of counter-terrorism and beyond, the SAS has forged a reputation for ruthlessness, efficiency, and quiet excellence. Whether conducting daring raids behind enemy lines, training allied forces in jungle warfare, or silently watching from the shadows in foreign cities, the SAS operates on the cutting edge of modern combat—often invisible, but never irrelevant.

Frank Blaichman was 16 years old when the war broke out. In 1942, the killings began in Poland. With his family and friends decimated by the roundups, Blaichman decided that he would rather die fighting; he set off for the forest to find the underground bunkers of Jews who had already escaped. Together they formed a partisan force dedicated to fighting the Germans. This is a harrowing, utterly moving memoir of a young Polish Jew who chose not to go quietly and defied the mighty German war machine during World War II.

In 1951, the Festival of Britain commissioned a series of short guides they dubbed ‘handbooks for the explorer’. Their aim was to encourage readers to venture out beyond the capital and on to ‘the roads and the by-roads’ to see Britain as a ‘living country’. Yet these 13 guides did more than celebrate the rural splendour of this ‘island nation’: they also made much of Britain’s industrial power and mid-century ambition. Armed with these About Britain guides, historian Tim Cole takes to the roads to find out what has changed and what has remained the same.

In this New York Times best seller, award-winning author Simon Schama presents an ebullient country, vital and inventive, infatuated with novelty and technology - a strikingly fresh view of Louis XVI's France. One of the great landmarks of modern history publishing, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is the most authoritative social, cultural and narrative history of the French Revolution ever produced.

London is special. For centuries, it has been amongst the greatest cities of the world. But a city is nothing without its people. This sparkling new history of London, told through a relay-race of great Londoners shows in one, personality-packed book that the ingenuity, diversity, creativity and...

From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the Samurai warrior. The Samurai emerged as a warrior caste in Medieval Japan and would have a powerful influence on the history and culture of the country from the next 500 years. Clements also looks at the Samurai wars that tore Japan apart in the 17th and 18th centuries and how the caste was finally demolished in the advent of the mechanized world.

*THE NO.3 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* 'Raw, compelling, wise and tender' Dolly Alderton 'Motherwell is razor-sharp, fearless and wonderful' Adam Kay 'Utterly candid and staggeringly good, both as the history of a woman and the history of a place' India Knight Just shy of 18, Deborah Orr left...

Now a major film, this is a dramatic reinterpretation of the life of Mary Queen of Scots by one of the leading historians of this period. Who was the real Mary Queen of Scots? The most enigmatic ruler of England lived a life of incredible drama and turmoil: crowned Queen of Scotland at nine...

Anna Del Conte brought Italian cooking to Britain at a time when the nearest most of us came to pasta was a Heinz spaghetti hoop. Sharply observant, evocative, full of tastes and talk of food, hers is a delicious, poignant memoir of an unusual life and the food she loves to cook, which launched a culinary revolution.She arrived in England in 1949 when much of Britain was a culinary wasteland, married an Englishman, and stayed on.

After the failure of the Weimar Republic, the Nazis believed their mission was to "masculinize" life in Germany. Hermann Goering told women, "Take a pot, a dustpan and a broom, and marry a man", but many still became active participants in murder and mayhem. From the Reich Bride Schools through the Bund Deutscher Mädel and the bizarre Lebensborn Aryan breeding programme to the brothels of the Sicherheitsdienst, this book covers the lives of women in the Third Reich, concentrating on those who sought personal power and influence amid the chaos.

Entertaining and different, this is an enjoyable study of a flawed yet characterful Prince of Wales seen through the eyes of the women in his life. Edward Vll, who gave his name to the Edwardian Age and died in 1911, was King of England for the final 10 years of his life. He was 59 when at last he came to the throne. Known as Bertie, the eldest son of Victoria and Albert, he was bullied by both his parents.