Modern History (18th–20th Century) Books

A spellbinding narrative of the most infamous stock market crash in history one with ripple effects that still shape our society todayIn 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freef…

The true story of the origins and consequences of MI5’s 1980 intelligence-led strategy in Northern Ireland and its impact on policing, law, and the peace process

From bestselling author David Nasaw, a sweeping new history of the one million refugees left behind in Germany after WWII. In May of 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, effectively putting an end to World War II …

Joe Dunthorne never met his great-grandfather Siegfried: an eccentric Jewish scientist who escaped Nazi Berlin in the 1930s and snuck back under cover of night to rescue the family heirlooms. Decades later, Siegfried wrote about h…

On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which…

For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from t…

New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt and reeling city back to life. But it also entered 1986 as a city divid…

From bestselling historian Katja Hoyer comes a gripping story of life during the rise and reign of Hitler through the eyes of the people of Weimar*One of the most anticipated books of 2026 according to the Sunday Times, Financial …

After the fall of France in June 1940, only Britain stood between Hitler and total victory. Desperate for allies, Winston Churchill did all he could to bring the United States into the conflict, drive the Soviet Union and Nazi Ger…

The first dedicated study of the cat-and-mouse struggle between a British cryptographer at Bletchley Park, and an Austrian SS officer responsible for the mass killings of thousands of Russian and Polish Jews. The account of how Ni…

From the master storyteller behind 2023's critically acclaimed KILLING THATCHERA Rebel and a Traitor is the story of a rogue imperial consul who sought to forge a new nation in the middle of a war - and the mercurial spy chief who…

The house at 38 Londres Street in Santiago, Chile, is home to the legacies of two men whose personal stories span continents, nationalities and decades of atrocity: Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile, and Walther Rauff, a Nazi S…

US President Harry Truman evidently understood the terrifying power of atomic weaponry, but no one could have realised its full potential when he ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Those military attack…

The disappearance of the Hohenzollern family from the history of Germany in November 1918 as the Kaiser fled into Dutch exile is one of the most startling, rapid instances of a once all-powerful royal family becoming almost overni…

On 6 June 1944 when the Allied armies landed on D-Day, the Second World War had already lasted almost five years. Yet many of the British and American troops who invaded Normandy were virgin soldiers, never before committed to bat…

In this riveting tale told with great narrative verve, Frank Dikotter reveals how thirteen delegates gathered in a dusty room in 1921 ended up raising the red flag over the Forbidden City in 1949, forever altering the course of hi…

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their childre…

Iran often appears in the media as a hostile and difficult country. But beneath the headlines there is a fascinating story of a nation of great intellectual variety and depth, and enormous cultural importance. A nation whose impac…

In 1969, the luxury Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul opened its doors: a glistening white box, high on a hill, that reflected Afghanistan s hopes of becoming a modern country, connected to the world.Lyse Doucet first checked into the…

An illustrated account of one of the most pivotal events in modern history – the Russian revolution of 1917. In the early years of the twentieth century, Imperial Russia was an ethnically diverse empire, stretching from Ukraine an…

THE MUST-READ ON THE WORLD'S BIGGEST FLASHPOINT & A BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR - chosen by PETER FRANKOPAN. 'Fascinating ... essential reading' Helen Thompson'Alarming and uplifting' John KampfnerThe Baltic will dec…

From the bestselling author of Nuclear War: A Scenario. Discover the untold story of America's most powerful military science agency. In this first-ever history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful and most contr…

Trump’s second term, even more than his first, is often called ‘unprecedented’. But history shows that Trump and his policies are as American as apple pie…Much of what Donald Trump does seems maverick and even mad.His actions and …

April 1998: the Good Friday Agreement is signed, ending decades of violence and bloodshed in Northern Ireland. The process of getting the IRA to end its so-called ‘armed struggle’ was always the prerequisite of the search for peac…

In this engrossing and deeply disturbing exposé from the bestselling author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen tells the gripping story of a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to t…

Ferriter tells the latest chapter in Ireland's story with authority and insight, deftly weaving together economic and political upheavals with equally tumultuous societal and cultural shifts' Financial Times 'Forensic and insightf…

In this illustrated account of the bloodiest war fought on American soil, civil war expert Brooks Simpson recounts the events of the war from the opening salvo at Fort Sumter through the battlefields of Gettysburg and Shiloh to th…

A history of how corporate innovation has shaped society, from ancient Rome to Silicon Valley.Americans have long been skeptical of corporations, andthat skepticism has only grown more intense in recent years.Meanwhile, corporatio…

The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10,000-strong airbo…

Operation Biting was one of the most thrilling British commando raids of World War II, and probably the most successful. In February 1942 RAF intelligence was baffled by a newly-identified radar network on the coast of Nazi-occupi…