Political & Historical Biography Books

Leo Varadkar shares his fascinating experience as Irish prime minister at a time of much change and turbulence, in this remarkably honest memoir.Leo Varadkar was an unlikely Taoiseach – the youngest on taking office in 2017, the f…

Dramatic in scope and deep in feeling, Raise Your Soul traces three generations swept up in the whirlwind of history, across a century of occupation, civil war, Cold War fracture and economic crisis, from 1924 to the present. At i…

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…

Sharing never-before-told stories, his closest friends, confidantes, lovers, classmates, teachers, and colleagues paint a vivid portrait of one of the most beloved figures of the 20th century who still captures public imagination …

‘This is not a war … it is a comic opera with an occasional death.’ In this personal account of his time fighting for the POUM militia of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell details his life in the tren…

In early October 2023, Plestia Alaqad was a recent graduate with dreams of becoming a journalist. By the end of that November, she would be internationally known as the 'Eyes of Gaza', moving millions with her social media posts d…

What can you do when your country becomes a repressive authoritarian state? 2014: Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics. Russia invades Crimea.Putin is re-elected president. Several political prisoners are amnestied and rele…

As Ireland's Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy took on one of the toughest briefs in government, one that continues to be a challenge today. Looking back at his life in the build-up to parliamentary office and at his time in the…

A monumental account of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the forging of a leader, The Showman provides an insider's perspective on the war reshaping our world, based on unprecedented access to Volodymyr Zelensky and the …

A national bestseller and American Book Award winner, The Best We Could Do is an intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family’s journey from war-torn Vietnam from debut author Thi Bui.In what Pulitzer Prize–winning no…

The book opens in 1909 with her grandmother's birth - and foot-binding - when China was under the last emperor, moving through Mao Zedong's rule, especially the Cultural Revolution during which Jung's parents were subjected to hor…

David Trimble was one of the most influential figures in modern British and Irish history. A Nobel Laureate, he negotiated the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that helped to secure peace in Northern Ireland. In this first biography …

When Lea Ypi discovers a photo of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the Alps in 1941 posted by a stranger on social media, she is faced with unsettling questions.Growing up, she was told records of her grandmother’s yo…

Bill Gates is one of the most powerful figures of the past four decades. But the world-famous public image he has so carefully crafted is not the whole truth. In this explosive new book, Anupreeta Das (finance editor of the New Yo…

When he receives an invitation to deliver a lecture in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, international lawyer Philippe Sands begins a journey on the trail of his family's secret history. In doing so, he uncovers an astonishing series of…

Before his murder at twenty-five, Tupac Shakur rose to staggering artistic heights as the pre-eminent storyteller of the 90s, building, in the process, one of the most iconic public personas of the last half century.In this cultur…

Alexei Navalny’s poisoning in 2020 by the Russian security services was a global news event.In 2024 he died in a brutal Arctic prison. He began writing Patriot whilst recovering from his poisoning; it ends with his secret prison d…

The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and above all else integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the pattern of Kennedy men physically and psychologically abusing women …

Rough Beast is Máiría Cahill's harrowing story of her life and of what she went through at the hands of what is now Ireland’s largest and richest party. That story is told here for the first time in full detail and with unsparing …

They called him the 'angriest black man in America' . . .Celebrated and vilified the world over for his courageous but bitter fight to gain for millions of black men and women the equality and respect denied them by their white ne…

With knowledge, spirit, good humour and passion, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr brings to life a remarkable man whose thoughts and actions speak to our most burning contemporary issues and still inspire the desires, h…

The English language has no specific word for the parent that has lost a child. There exist words for orphan, widow and widower, but there is no word that captures and conveys this tragic type of loss. It has been eleven years sin…

An exhilarating, immersive journey into the Exclusion Zone of Chornobyl with the disaffected adventurers who illegally stalk its ruins Amidst the toxic desolation of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, a subculture has sprung up. They c…

The harrowing story of a woman who escaped famine and terror in North Korea, not once but twice. ‘A gripping, suspenseful and cathartic memoir that tells a story of pain and perseverance and makes the moral case for asylum.’ David…

An illuminating account of John F. Kennedy’s brief but transformative tenure in the White House, from acclaimed author and historian Mark K. Updegrove, head of the LBJ Foundation and presidential historian for ABC News.Nearly sixt…

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a new exploration of Karl Marx's life through his intellectual contributions to modern thoughtKarl Marx (1818–1883)—philosopher, historian, sociologist, economist, current affairs journal…

From the author of the #1 bestselling Born a Crime comes a gorgeously illustrated fable about a young child's journey into the world beyond the shadow of home, an enchanted landscape where he discovers the secrets of solidarity, c…

The riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—a record-breaking, critically-acclaimed no.1 bestseller, now out in paperback. In the stirring first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the s…

Discover the authoritative, illuminating biography of T. E. Lawrence – the man who inspired the iconic film Lawrence of Arabia – from The World's Greatest Living Explorer Ranulph Fiennes Thomas Edward Lawrence first set foot on th…

On 29 September 1934, at the German Embassy office in London, Christabel Bielenberg officially became a German citizen. Having met her German husband Peter two years prior, Christabel decided to renounce her British citizenship, p…