A sweeping natural history of rivers as engines of civilization'As fascinating as it is beautifully written' JARED DIAMOND, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and SteelRivers have opened fro
The end of Europe's empires has so often been seen as a story of high politics and warfare. In Tim Harper's remarkable new book the narrative is very different: it shows how empires were fundamentally
In 402 AD, the young Emperor Honorius made the momentous decision to move his capital to a small, easily defendable city on the Po estuary - Ravenna. Until 751 AD, Ravenna served as the capital of the
An exhilarating account of how the co-evolution of psychology and culture shaped the Western mind. Perhaps you are WEIRD: raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Demo
'Give me chastity, but not yet', young Augustine famously prayed to God. From his time as a sexual sinner and member of an outlawed heretical sect to his eventual conversion to Christianity, his maste
The Russian decision to mobilize in July 1914 may have been the single most catastrophic choice of the modern era. This title deals with the foreign work on the Napoleonic era.
What are the causes of violence? Can it be treated? And might it one day be stopped? Are some criminals born, not made? What causes violence and how can we treat it? In this title, the author explains
Intends to uncover some of the hidden truths about our world, from terrorism to shark attacks, cable TV to hurricanes. This title asks such questions as : what's a sure-fire way to catch a terrorist;
In 1953, at the age of twenty-seven, Molaison underwent an experimental psychosurgical procedure intended to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. This title tells the story of the amnesiac Henry Gusta
Shows how so much of the writing of history has been driven by a fatal desire to dramatize differences - to create an 'us versus them'. This book appeals to common humanity.
Nothing seems more real than time passing. We experience life itself as a succession of moments. We identify certain truths as 'eternal' constants, from moral principles to the laws of mathematics and
Focuses on the poets and writers of Paris in the nineteenth century who created what was later called the Modern. The author creates a dramatic Folie Baudelaire: a place where you can encounter Baudel
Takes you through various words you need to survive, shows how and why they work, and steers you past various pitfalls and potential embarrassments of speaking French in France. This title covers vari
Written by the author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, this title offers a fresh account of how the tide was turned against the Nazis by the Allies in the Second World War. It focuses on the
Reporting America is a magnificent collection of Alistair Cooke's key dispatches on the key moments, movements, men and women of post-war America. Alistair Cooke was the greatest, and most humane, of
This is the story of a family led to confront a crisis they had never foreseen. Aged eleven, their eldest daughter has stopped eating and speaking. Alongside diagnoses of autism and selective mutism,
The experience of the last decade has not been kind to the image of economists- asleep at the wheel (perhaps with the foot on the gas pedal) in the run-up to the great recession, squabbling about how
