World History Books

This is the story of the fall of an Empire – and the rise of another. Who spread Christianity, how, and why? In her quest to find the answer, Professor Alice Roberts takes us on a gripping investigative journey. From a secluded va…

A grab bag of historic spleens, chins, and more, this is your ultimate literary dissection of body parts throughout history!From famous craniums to prominent breasts, ancient spleens and bound feet, this book will bring history to…

Through eight sensational stories of discovery, Professor Michael Scott traces the evolution of modern archaeology from colonial expeditions to today's cutting-edge digs, unearthing traps, curses and buried treasure along the way.…

In Tracks on the Ocean, Sara Caputo tells how our journeys around the globe became fixed lines on maps - and how journey lines themselves reshaped maps and the way that we view the world. From Captain Cook's route across the South…

The Gaza Strip is one of the most widely-reported on regions in the worldyet misinformation about its history and its people abound. In this vital book, historian Anne Irfan explains Gaza's outsized political significance through …

Mountains, meridians, rivers and borders; these are some of the features that carve up the world on our maps and in our minds. But geography is far less set in stone than we might believe and, over time, we have become experts at …

Discover the ground-breaking, must-read history of Africa, the Sunday Times bestseller charting the epic story of the oldest inhabited continent in the world from the perspectives of Africans themselves. Shortlisted for the Nero B…

Over the last half century, sub-Saharan Africa has not had one history, but many. Histories that have intertwined, converged and diverged. They have involved a continuing process of decolonization and state-building, conflict, eco…

An epic new history of Ancient China told through the prism of a dozen extraordinary tombsThe three millennia up to the establishment of the first imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC cemented many of the distinctive elements of Chinese…

The United States denies having dreams of empire. We know America has spread its money, language and culture across the world, but we still think of it as a contained territory, framed by Canada above, Mexico below, and oceans eit…

From a Bronze Age ship built during the age of Queen Nefertiti and filled with ancient treasures, a Viking warship made for King Cnut himself, Henry VIII's spectacular Mary Rose and the golden age of the Tudor court, to the explor…

From renowned underwater archaeologist David Gibbins comes an exciting and rich narrative of human history told through the archaeological discoveries of twelve shipwrecks across time.The Viking warship of King Cnut the Great. Hen…

Throughout history, intrepid men and women have related their experiences and perceptions of the world's great cities to bring them alive to those at home. The thirty-eight cities covered in this entertaining anthology of travelle…

The author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and The Perfectionists explores the notion of property bought, earned, or received; in Europe, Africa, North America, or the South Pacific through human h…

In this final work from renowned journalist Robert Fisk, he picks up reporting on the Middle East where his internationally bestselling The Great War of Civilisation left off. From the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war to Is…

The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Ho…

In this groundbreaking, story-driven retelling of Western history, Naoise Mac Sweeney debunks the myths and origin stories that underpin the history we thought we knew.Told through fourteen figures who each played a role in the cr…

In 1962, Edward Wong's father, disillusioned with Communism, fled China for Hong Kong and later the USA. From then on, he rarely spoke of his homeland, or his years crisscrossing the country in Mao's People's Liberation Army. Much…

A revolutionary new history of the diffusion of Indian ideas, from the award-winning, bestselling author and co-host of the chart-topping Empire podcast. India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world. In the millennium and a h…

In this groundbreaking book, renowned global economist David McWilliams unlocks the mysteries and the awesome power of money: what it is, how it works and why it matters. Money is an epic, breathlessly entertaining journey across …

‘The lips of the present give depth to history, and Fintan Drury certainly knows that there are several sides to every story. He rows the boat out – for some it will be a drowning experience, but for others it will be a pure lifeb…

The world is full of ruins. From the Colosseum of Rome to the crumbling suburbs of Detroit, the vine-wreathed temples of the Maya to the shell-pocked buildings of Bakhmut and Gaza. Each of these ruins has a different history, but …

WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTIONNamed a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Economist, Time, The New Republic, and the Financial Times.Immersive and gripping, an intimate story of a deadly acciden…

A fascinating new history of America, told through the stories of a diverse cast of ten extraordinary and often overlooked adventurers, from Sacagawea to Matthew Henson to Sally Ride, who pushed the boundaries of discovery and det…

Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook bring you an alphabetical miscellany, taking on some of history’s best and most bizarre moments. Charge forth against the traitors of the American Revolution, journey through Baghdad to discover t…

What can the fall of Rome teach us about the decline of the West today? A historian and a political economist, both experts in their field, investigateOver the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, sudd…

Yuan Yang, the first Chinese-born British MP, tells the stories of four Chinese women striving for a better future in an unequal society. From June, who dreams of going to university rather than raising pigs, to Sam, forced into h…

People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or …

Ancient Greece and Rome are considered the parents of Western civilisation. But the ancient world was much more interconnected than we realise - a place of constant exchange, commerce and theft, sex, war and enslavement.Journeying…

There is not just one story of silk. In silk is science, history and mythology. In silk is the future.Aarathi Prasad’s Silk is a gorgeous new history weaving together the story of a unique material that has fascinated the world fo…