Social & Cultural History Books

Why have Western societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? Looking to the feelings and faith of ordinary people, the award-winning author of Protestants Alec Ryrie offers a bold new history of atheism. W…

If the past is another country – what happens when we revisit it, one day a year?Carlo Gébler has done just that. Here is the story of Ireland – from the tail end of the Troubles to the Good Friday agreement, to the glory days of …

In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama took us from the dawn of mankind to the French and American Revolutions. Here, he picks up the thread again in the second instalment of his definitive account of mankind's emerge…

A Pipeline Runs Through It is a fresh, in-depth look at the social, economic, and geopolitical forces involved in our transition to the modern oil age. It tells an extraordinary origin story, from the pre-industrial history of pet…

Britain's most famous classicist asks: what are civilisations? Central to this huge question are the ways in which we have depicted the human and the divine from prehistory to the present day. And across such iconic creations as A…

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. During the two hundred millennia of hum…

Smartphones, skyscrapers, spacecraft. Modern technology seems mind-bogglingly complex. But beneath the surface, it can be beautifully simple.Tracing their journeys through the millennia, she shows us how handmade Roman nails led t…

Explore the places that time forgot. These abandoned, mysterious, sleeping monuments around the world have been relegated to the margins of history. From ancient ruins and crumbling castles to more recent relics – an art deco New …

A spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, from the bestselling author of The Stranger in the Wood. For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as…

An authoritative and concise history of witchcraft from the ancient world up to the present day. Witchcraft has always been a fluid and intriguing belief system that has enchanted and sometimes terrified humanity. For over forty y…

A darkly evocative compendium of images exploring natural, constructed, imaginary and subconscious underworlds, curated by renowned image collector and social media figure Stephen Ellcock. From the burrows and secret bunkers benea…

Amidst the moments of seismic change in LGBTQ history in Ireland lie the stories of ordinary people, who did extraordinary things to change queer Ireland and Irish culture. Marking fifty years of the founding of an LGBTQ rights mo…

The Rest is History, a whistle-stop tour through the past – from Alexander the Great to Tolkien, the Wars of the Roses to Watergate. The nation’s favourite historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook take on the most curious mome…

Dinosaur bones had been found centuries before scientists understood what they were and what creatures they came from; ancient Chinese writings spoke of 'dragon' bones, and large fossils discovered in the UK were thought to belong…

The true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry—with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winterIn August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Ge…

A New York Times bestseller, the incredible true story of a couple that escaped slavery in the South and eventually made their way to the UK, Africa and beyond. The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped sl…

The Book of Durrow is among the earliest surviving decorated manuscripts in north-western Europe, dating to the late seventh century AD. A masterpiece of Celtic art, it is believed to be the oldest fully decorated Insular Gospel t…

In this acclaimed bestseller, an explorer and Neanderthal hunter takes us on a riveting journey of discovery'With the style of a poet and imagination of a philosopher, Ludovic Slimak probes the minds of Neanderthals. . .This fun a…

Something has gone really wrong in Britain. Our economy has tanked, our freedoms are shrinking, and social divisions are growing.Our politicians seem most interested in their own careers, and much of the media only make things wor…

In this revelatory book, Dr Jonathan Kennedy argues that germs have shaped humanity at every stage, from the first success of Homo sapiens over the equally intelligent Neanderthals to the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam.How did…

A captivating, eloquent and deeply original book, We All Go into the Dark is an absolute must-read for true-crime fans across the board. Three women were brutally murdered between early 1968 and late 1969, each after a night danci…

How much do you know about the Victorian novelist who outsold Dickens? Or the woman who became the first published poet in America? Do you know what connects Homer’s Iliad to Aesop’s Fables?The Secret Library explores these intrig…

From the international bestselling author of The Silk Roads comes a major history of how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development—and demise—of civilisations across time. When we think about history, we rarely pa…

The story of the pioneering anthropologists and their adventures among civilisations that were first thought of as being primitive and savage. What they discovered, however, would change the way we think about ourselves. In the la…

 From Boudicca to Ukraine, battlefields have always contained a surprising number of female fighters. We have all heard of Joan of Arc, but not the cross-dressing soldiers whose disguises were so effective the men around them…

The Underground Sea is a succinct, urgent collection of writing from John Berger's archive. It brings together for the first time his work on mineworkers and the miners' strikes and has been edited as a set of actions for today. P…

Have you ever heard the march of legions on a lonely country road? For two thousand years, the roads the Romans built have determined the flow of ideas and folktales, where battles were fought and where pilgrims trod. Almost every…

Manuscripts teem with life. They are not only the stuff of history and literature, but they offer some of the only tangible evidence we have of entire lives, long receded.Hidden Hands tells the stories of the artisans, artists, sc…

The groundbreaking story of Nomadic peoples on the move across history. Tracing the epic paths of wanderers across twelve thousand years, acclaimed travel writer Anthony Sattin recovers the stories of tribes who lived beyond imper…

Through ancient art, evocative myth, intriguing archaeological discoveries and philosophical explorations, Bettany Hughes takes us on a voyage of discovery to reveal the truth behind Venus, and why this immortal goddess is so much…