Historiska & politiska biografier

The definitive biography of Tom Paine, published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his death

'A stunning achievement . . .Neither sanitized nor mythologizing, Victoria: The Queen is a remarkably lucid, endlessly engaging account of Queen Victoria's life and rule' Amanda Foreman

The story of Gestapo officer Horst Kopkow, who was responsible for coordinating the tracking down of all British and Soviet parachute agents in Europe. He was directly implicated in the concentration camp murders of several hundred agents. Despite this, Kopkow was a consultant with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service for 20 years after the war.

A brilliant portrayal in graphic novel format of the career of the great war photographer during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known, whose empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East and Russia. So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such colossal power, eclipsing Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon?

This is the extraordinary saga of Countess Evelina van Millingen Pisani, a modern woman who lived in the age of Queen Victoria. A friend of Henry James and Isabella Stewart Gardner, she led a rich but turbulent life that spanned from Rome to Constantinople and Venice.

A compelling and comprehensive history of the world's most successive secret service.

A classic biography of the man who was partly responsible for the development of modern tank warfare.

The definitive volume on one of the most important and controversial figures of the 20th century, a man who almost singlehandedly changed his country and the world.

As a youth in Saigon's Chinatown of the 1960s and 70s, Paul Au was greatly affected by American 'hippie' culture and Rock & Roll. He was smuggled into Hong Kong in 1974 to escape the South Vietnamese military draft. At first living in rooftop squats, he started to trade used vinyl records on the streets of Kowloon, and finally established an underground reputation for his eclectic blend and unending supply of recorded music.

Former BBC correspondent's graphic personal account of National Service with the Suffolk Regiment in the 1950s based on the letters he wrote home to his family at the time.

The classic, bestselling account of the infamous Kray twins, now a major film, starring Tom Hardy.

Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-FictionA New York Times Notable Book of 2015 A painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators - her father, Josef Stalin.

* Remarkable biography of the complex and tragic 'First Lady' of the Third Reich, Magda Goebbels

Bruce Barton's 1925 effort to reconfigure Jesus for the Roaring Twenties turned into one of the great best-sellers of the century. No Puritan or Prohibitionist, here was Christ as the world's first advertising man, a great business executive who "picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world." In his Introduction, Richard M. Fried explores the book's rich insights into the culture of the 1920s.

Before publishing his book How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis (1849-1914) spent his first years in the US as an immigrant and itinerant laborer, until he landed a job as a muckraking reporter. This book places Jacob Riis' images in historical context. It explores Riis' reporting and activism within the gritty specifics of Gilded Age New York.

"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is among the most enigmatic and influential figures of the twentieth century. While his life and work are crucial to any understanding of modern history and the socialist movement, generations of writers on the left and the right have seen fit to embalm him endlessly with superficial analysis or dreary dogma. Now, after the fall of the Soviet Union and 'actually-existing' socialism, it is possible to consider Lenin afresh, with sober senses trained on his historical context and how it shaped his theoretical and political contributions. Reconstructing Lenin, four decades in the making and now available in English for the first time, is an attempt to do just that. Tamaas Krausz, an esteemed Hungarian scholar writing in the tradition of Gyeorgy Lukaacs, Ferenc Tiokei, and Istvaan Maeszaaros, makes a major contribution to a growing field of contemporary Lenin studies. This rich and penetrating account reveals Lenin busy at the work of revolution, his thought shaped by immediate political events but never straying far from a coherent theoretical perspective. Krausz balances detailed descriptions of Lenin's time and place with lucid explications of his intellectual development, covering a range of topics like war and revolution, dictatorship and democracy, socialism and utopianism. Reconstructing Lenin will change the way you look at a man and a movement; it will also introduce the English-speaking world to a profound radical scholar"--Provided by publisher.

Tommy Porter, came into this world whilst the Second World War was in full flow. His home was the heavily bombed docks area of Liverpool called Bootle.Poverty was rife and times were hard for Tommy and his family; but life was good and his was full of love and fun. Until, that is, tragedy struck the family. This is the true story of how two brothers endured the cruel world of the children's homes and orphanages of the time. An inspiring story of love, sadness and the unbreakable bond between brothers which simply must be read.

Presents the fascinating life of the father of the New Germany. This book tells how, in an astonishing political career that spanned six decades including fourteen years as chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) was instrumental in shaping the modern political landscape, both of his own country and of Europe.

A catalogue of history's greatest military leaders - from the Classical Age to the Napoleonic Era - and what drove them to victory.

';A superb biography, not to be missed either by armchair explorers or students of human naturereveals the famed missionary and explorer as he really was.'Cleveland Plain DealerDavid Livingstone is revered as one of history's greatest explorers and missionaries, the first European to cross Africa, and the first to find Victoria Falls and the source of the Congo River. In this exciting new edition of his biography, Tim Jeal, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Stanley, draws on fresh sources and archival discoveries to provide the most fully rounded portrait of this complicated mandogged by failure throughout his life despite his full share of success.Using Livingstone's original field notebooks, Jeal finds that the explorer's problems with his African followers were far graver than previously understood. From recently discovered letters he elaborates on the explorer's decision to send his wife, Mary, back home to England. He also uncovers fascinating information about Livingstone's importance to the British Empire and about his relationship with the journalist-adventurer Henry Morton Stanley. In addition, Jeal here evokes the full pathos of the explorer's final journey. This masterful, updated biography also features an excellent selection of new maps and illustrations.';Fascinating.'Los Angeles Times';A thrilling and in the end moving workThe Livingstone who emerges is a man of terrifying dimensions.'Irish Press

John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough (1644-1722), was one of the greatest military commanders and statesman in the history of England. His descendant, Sir Winston Churchill wrote this work as both an act of homage, and as an historical insight into the man behind the statesman.

Arrian's account of Alexander's life and campaigns, published as the Anabasis and its companion piece the Indica, is our prime source for the history of Alexander, told with great narrative skill. This edition features a new translation of both texts, introduction, notes, guide to military systems and terminology, maps and a full index.

He is best remembered as the astute and powerful orator who inspired a battered Britain to victory against Nazi Germany during World War 2 and led the post-war, shattered nation to recovery. Richard Langworth, co-chairman and editor of The Churchill Centre, has spent over 20 years researching Churchill's written and spoken words.

The decade that followed James Stockdale's seven and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison saw his life take a number of different turns, from a stay in a navy hospital to president of a civilian college to his appointment as a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. In these essays he offers his thoughts on his imprisonment.

Cleopatra VII (69-30 BC) is the most famous woman from classical antiquity. Yet her modern reputation is based largely on her post-antique representation in drama, art, and other media. The current study is the first to examine the queen solely from the source material from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents including those of the queen herself, her own writings, and her representations in art.