From the Byzantine to the Battle of Bosworth, the Anglo-Saxons to the American Revolution, here are the History books our booksellers have most loved.
We start with new releases in both hardback and paperback, then look at some of the best recent publications in Ancient, British & Military History - and then we've chosen some of our favourite History books from all of, well, history...
Domesday
Max Adams
In Domesday, Max Adams retreads the path taken in 1085 by King William I’s agents, taking us on foot through the very sites covered by one of the most iconic documents of English history. In this fascinating new history, Adams explores this unique portrait of a land and its people, bringing the past into intimate contact with the present.
Talking Classics
Mary Beard
Weimar
Katja Hoyer
Rasputin
Antony Beevor
The Lost Voices of Pompeii
Dr Jess Venner
Across Sicily with Garibaldi's Thousand
Tim Parks
The Fire in the Mountain
Helena Attlee
HOW TO KILL A WITCH
Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi
The Visionaries
James Holland
Servus
Emma Southon
Europe
Roderick Beaton
Self-Help From the Middle Ages
Peter Jones
The Shortest History of Scotland
Murray Pittock
Babylon
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Blitz
John Nichol
The Masquerade
Meghan Kobza
Fashioning the Crown
Justine Picardie
My Neighbour, The Dictator
Tari Lang
The Last Enchanted Places
Ian Bradley
The Shortest History of Ireland
James Hawes
How Queer Bookshops Changed the World
A.J. West
A Woman’s Work
Elinor Cleghorn
Samurai
Rosina Buckland and Oleg Benesch
What's in a name?
Susan Dwyer Amussen
The Path More Travelled
Nicholas Crane
The Edge of Revolution
David Torrance
The Buried City
Gabriel Zuchtriegel
Everything Is Tuberculosis
John Green
Hawai'i
Alice Christophe
A History of Scottish Witches
Mary W Craig
No Ordinary Deaths
Molly Conisbee
Mythica
Emily Hauser
The Discovery of Britain
Graham Robb
Raise Your Soul
Yanis Varoufakis
The Renoir Girls
Catherine Ostler
Hoax
Madeleine Pelling
Mad Tom's Rising
Ian Breckon
Wilderlands
Eloise Kane
Elizabeth II
Robert Hardman
The Nazi Mind
Laurence Rees
Proto
Laura Spinney
A Rebel and a Traitor
Rory Carroll
Revolting
Terry Deary
A Shellshocked Nation
Alwyn Turner
The World After Gaza
Pankaj Mishra
King of Kings
Scott Anderson
Stalin’s Apostles
Antonia Senior
Trafalgar
Paul O'Keeffe
Hotel Exile
Jane Rogoyska
A Training School for Elephants
Sophy Roberts
Trip to the Moon
John Yorke
Baltic
Oliver Moody
Children of Radium
Joe Dunthorne
Fulvia
Jane Draycott
Queen Elizabeth II
Hugo Vickers
Rain of Ruin
Richard Overy
The World's Reformation
Alec Ryrie
The Black Death
Thomas Asbridge
The Blood in Winter
Jonathan Healey
Made in America
Edward Stourton
The Queer Thing About Sin
Harry Tanner
Tales of the Suburbs
John Grindrod
This Dark Night
Deborah Lutz
Year of the Rat
Harry Shukman
Archbishop, Chancellor, Kingmaker
Chris Given-Wilson
Between Two Rivers
Moudhy Al-Rashid
The Book of Revelations
Juliet Nicolson
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove
Barbara Demick
The English House
Dan Cruickshank
God is an Englishman
Bijan Omrani
James Hutton
Ray Perman
No More Napoleons
Andrew Lambert
This Little World
Nandini Das
Underdogs
Joel Budd
Betrayal
Tom Bower
Get In
Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund
Iran and the Revolution
Homa Katouzian
The Last Titans: Churchill and de Gaulle
Richard Vinen
Manchester must dance
Mike Pickering
Parallel Lives
Iain Pears
Queen James
Gareth Russell
Representations of the Intellectual
Edward W. Said
Weimar Germany
Victor Sebestyen
Carthage
Eve MacDonald
Exit Stalin
Mark B. Smith
The Bookshop
Andrew Pettegree
Bookshops are a comforting sight on our high streets, warm and welcoming spaces in which to browse, meet friends and occasionally buy books. They may feel timeless, yet their history is a restless and turbulent one, filled with as many entrepreneurial street hawkers and illicit trades as with beloved institutions. The Bookshop explores the evolution of bookselling from the cramped collectors’ shops frequented by Samuel Pepys to the radical feminist bookshops of the 70s, the rise of monolithic chains and the new world of online selling. Connecting stories and lives that span centuries, countries and continents, The Bookshop brings us into beloved bookshops of today and looks forward to the possible experience of booksellers of tomorrow.
Talking Classics
Mary Beard
The Lost Voices of Pompeii
Dr Jess Venner
The Lives of the Caesars
Suetonius
Servus
Emma Southon
Babylon
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
The Buried City
Gabriel Zuchtriegel
Inferno
Conn Iggulden
Mythica
Emily Hauser
Proto
Laura Spinney
Fulvia
Jane Draycott
Between Two Rivers
Moudhy Al-Rashid
Carthage
Eve MacDonald
Aphrodisia
Jean Menzies
The Library of Ancient Wisdom
Selena Wisnom
Roman Britain in Twenty Towns
Richard Hingley
The Tattooed Hills
Jon Woolcott
Ancient Christianities
Paula Fredriksen
Stories of the Stones
Paul Robichaud
The Age of Alchemy
Kit Chapman
Athens and Sparta
Adrian Goldsworthy
Celtic Art Across the Ages
Susanne Ebbinghaus
Emperor of the Seas
Jack Weatherford
The Far Edges of the Known World
Owen Rees
How England Began
Nicholas J. Higham
Lawless Republic
Josiah Osgood
Thucydides on Strategy
Athanasios G. Platias and Constantinos Koliopoulos
Berenice
Bruce Chilton
Echoes of Ash
Adrian Murdoch
Hubris
David Stuttard
The Muse of History
Oswyn Murray
Olympia
Judith M. Barringer
Origins of the Just War
Rory Cox
Out of One, Many
Jennifer T. Roberts
Polis
John Ma
The Roman Empire
Jacob F. Field
The Roman World War
Giusto Traina
A Short History of Ancient Rome
Pascal Hughes
Strike
Sarah E Bond
Themistocles
Michael Scott
A History of Britain in 21 Paintings
Alice Loxton
Alice Loxton travels across Britain in search of twenty-one extraordinary paintings. From the wall art of St Cadoc’s Church near Cardiff and the exquisite detail of daily life portrayed by L.S. Lowry to landmark works including ‘The Rainbow Portrait’ of Elizabeth I and Millais’ ‘Ophelia’, Loxton creates a fresh, transformative history of Britain.
Blitz
John Nichol
The Masquerade
Meghan Kobza
The Path More Travelled
Nicholas Crane
The Spirit of Stone
Wyl Menmuir
The Edge of Revolution
David Torrance
Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee
Charlie Higson
The Discovery of Britain
Graham Robb
Wilderlands
Eloise Kane
Elizabeth II
Robert Hardman
A Shellshocked Nation
Alwyn Turner
Trafalgar
Paul O'Keeffe
Dad’s Army
Sinclair McKay
Queen Elizabeth II
Hugo Vickers
The Blood in Winter
Jonathan Healey
The Colour of Home
Sajid Javid
This Dark Night
Deborah Lutz
Year of the Rat
Harry Shukman
Archbishop, Chancellor, Kingmaker
Chris Given-Wilson
No More Napoleons
Andrew Lambert
Queen James
Gareth Russell
Upon A White Horse
Peter Ross
To the Sea by Train
Andrew Martin
Uncommon Ground
Patrick Galbraith
The North Road
Rob Cowen
Peace Makers
Peter Ricketts
Roman Britain in Twenty Towns
Richard Hingley
A Spy Amongst Us
Marc Mierowsky
Things We Found in the Ground
Eleanor Bruce and Lucilla Gray
Wild Pavements
Amanda Tuke
Building Britannia
Steven Parissien
Coastline
Dr Ben Robinson
Elizabeth
Gyles Brandreth
The Alienation Effect
Owen Hatherley
Along the Borders
Richard Collett
Ancient
Luke Barley
Eagle Days
Victoria Taylor
Is This Working?
Charlie Colenutt
Lost London
Paul Knox
Nature's Memory
Jack Ashby
Nine Days in May
Jonathan Schneer
Stories of the Stones
Paul Robichaud
These Isles
Brian Groom
Born to Rule
Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman
The Cancelled Prime Minister
Walter Reid
The Country House Dining Room
Amy Boyington
Friends in Youth
Minoo Dinshaw
How England Began
Nicholas J. Higham
If We Tolerate This
Daniel Trilling
Members Behaving Badly
Debbie Kilroy
The Mercian Chronicles
Max Adams
Shelf Life
Michael Robb
Sum of Us
Georgina Sturge
Sunday Best
Daniel Gray
Turner and Constable
Nicola Moorby
Voices of Victory
Geraint Jones
Winston Churchill
Lucy Davis
Bloody Dangerous
Colin Bell
Blitz
John Nichol
Sword
Max Hastings
The Scramble for America
Clement Knox
SAS The Great Train Raid
Damien Lewis
The Nazi Mind
Laurence Rees
A Rebel and a Traitor
Rory Carroll
Stalin’s Apostles
Antonia Senior
Dad’s Army
Sinclair McKay
Hotel Exile
Jane Rogoyska
SAS Great Escapes Five
Damien Lewis
Tehran Diaries
Raha Nik-Andish
Allies at War
Tim Bouverie
Children of Radium
Joe Dunthorne
Rain of Ruin
Richard Overy
Statecraft
Jack Watling
Victory '45
James Holland and Al Murray
The Illegals
Shaun Walker
Made in America
Edward Stourton
The Writer and the Traitor
Robert Verkaik
No More Napoleons
Andrew Lambert
Polar War
Kenneth R. Rosen
Looking at Women, Looking at War
Victoria Amelina
Weimar Germany
Victor Sebestyen
Lest We Forget
Tessa Dunlop
The CIA Book Club
Charlie English
Her Secret Service
Claire Hubbard-Hall
The Long Death of Adolf Hitler
Caroline Sharples
Master of Lies
Piers Blofeld
Peace Makers
Peter Ricketts
A Spy Amongst Us
Marc Mierowsky
Stay Alive
Ian Buruma
The Einstein Vendetta
Thomas Harding
The Glass Mountain
Malcolm Gaskill
The House of War
Simon Mayall
The Spy in the Archive
Gordon Corera
Eagle Days
Victoria Taylor
Forged in War
Mark Galeotti
Nuclear Weapons
David Holloway
On Democracies and Death Cults
Douglas Murray
Tank
Mark Urban
The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz
Anne Sebba
Captain de Havilland's Moth
Alexander Norman
Fakers
Rory Cormac
The Great Heist
David R. Shedd and Andrew Badger
Kane
Graham Hurley
My Family And Other Spies
Alistair Wood
Project Maven
Katrina Manson
Saint Petersburg
Sinclair McKay
A Spy in the Blood
Paul Warner
Voices of Victory
Geraint Jones
A Woman Named Edith
Daria Santini
Conquer We Must
Robin Prior
Cromwell's Convicts
John Sadler and Rosie Serdiville
The Death of Trotsky
Josh Ireland
A Fate Worse than Hell
W. Fitzhugh Brundage
The Great Siege of Malta
Marcus Bull
Life Is Rosi
Jess Robinson
Midway
Mark Stille
Miracle
Michael Calvin and Naftali Schiff
The Next World War: The new age of global conflict and the fight to stop it
Peter Apps
On Strategists and Strategy
Lawrence Freedman
Origins of the Just War
Rory Cox
The Other Great Game
Sheila Miyoshi Jager
The Roman World War
Giusto Traina
Scorched Earth
Paul Thomas Chamberlin
Tojo
Peter Mauch
Wartime Letters
Kathleen Harriman
Redwood
Ben Macintyre
The remarkable, unknown Cold War story of how one spy saved the world from nuclear war.
Redwood lifts the lid on how espionage really works, and on an unknown and highly significant Cold War victory. For without Redwood, our world would be very different – and might not exist at all.
Killers of the King
Charles Spencer
Between Two Fires
Joshua Yaffa
Salvador
Joan Didion
A Kick in the Belly
Stella Dadzie
River Kings
Cat Jarman
The Light Ages
Seb Falk
Novels in Three Lines
Félix Fénéon
Germany
Neil MacGregor
The White Ship
Charles Spencer
Open Veins of Latin America
Eduardo Galeano
East West Street
Philippe Sands
The Wager
David Grann
Colditz
Ben Macintyre
Eminent Churchillians
Andrew Roberts
God’s Hammer
Thomas Williams
Telling the story of how the Vikings took up arms and the cross, this is a book that leads to extraordinary places: from Jerusalem and Istanbul to Novgorod and Tallinn, via cold northern seas and ice-shrouded northern forests. It tells stories full of adventure, horror and madness, of pilgrimages and war-paths, bodyguards and princes, holy missions and rapacious greed.
That which transformed the bounds of Christendom forever was a hammer forged in the pagan fires of the Viking Age.
