Europe

Globally famous and yet universally misunderstood – these are the complex and utterly engrossing stories of Britain's royal women behind the public façade. Saints or sinners? Perfect princesses or difficult duchesses? Monarchy’s saviours or its destroyers? They rank among the world’s most...

“A fascinating, provocative, and highly eccentric volume” (The New York Times) exploring the true story of Elisabeth Nietzsche’s maniacal attempt to found a utopian colony in the jungles of Paraguay in the late nineteenth century—from the bestselling author of Prisoners of the Castle. In...

Bloomsbury presents The Wise and Their Works: The Legacy of the Great Exhibition of 1851, written and read by A. N. Wilson The Wise and Their Works celebrates the 175th anniversary of the Great Exhibition in 2026. The men who inspired the Great Exhibition of 1851 - Henry Cole, Sir Robert Peel...

An authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Anglo-Saxon history Offa ruled the Mercian heartland of the west midlands from 757 to 796. But while Alfred the Great and his dynasty are seen as agents of a new beginning that...

Major Peter Weaver's military career is remarkable for its breadth, from the Royal Tank Corps, to the infantry, but also as an engineer and on colonial and special operations. Hearing accounts of the rise of Hitler, he joined the Territorials. The outbreak of war saw him rapidly promoted...

What is 'Central Europe'? Where do its borders lie? Does it even exist? Attempts to define it usually yield more questions than answers. But perhaps the wrong questions are being asked. Luka Ivan Jukic disentangles the enigma of Central Europe through its birth, death, and rebirth. Today, Poland...

"NOW THERE ARE FIELDS WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD" —OVID During the great migrations of the second millennium BC, peoples from Western Europe-known as Achaeans or Sea Peoples-arrived in the Mediterranean region, either to settle there peacefully or to plunder and raze the land. They brought about...

A remarkable true story about saving life in wartime, not taking it The Lifesavers were a little-known band of men and women at the forefront of groundbreaking battlefield care in the Second World War. As part of a new and pioneering service, unconventional and iconoclastic, they pushed and...

From acclaimed author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and historian Emma Southon, a groundbreaking history of Ancient Rome that explores how the empire was built, fueled, and shaped by its enslaved people. When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul he boasted that he killed a million...

Bloomsbury presents… Rome: Eternal City Standard pronunciation Written and read by Ferdinand Addis The sweeping story of the city of Rome, told through twenty-two moments that shaped its history. ***A Times History Book of the Year*** 'Vivid, pacey... Superb' The Times. 'Grand narrative...

From an award-winning historian, the story of World War II exiles and one famed Paris hotel. Since its birth in 1910, the Hotel Lutetia has been a grand Paris institution, a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, musicians, and politicians. André Gide took his lunch here, James Joyce lived...

An enthralling account of Mary, Queen of Scots' captivity in England, revealing intrigue, plots, and political turmoil. Discover a thrilling true story of treachery, deceit, hope, and despair. From the moment Mary, Queen of Scots set foot on English soil in 1568 until her execution at...

The Industrial Revolution was a pivotal point in British history that occurred between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries and led to far reaching transformations of society. With the advent of revolutionary manufacturing technology productivity boomed. Machines were used to spin and...

Constantinople, provides an updated and extended introduction to the history of Byzantium and its capital city. Accessible and engaging, the book breaks new ground by exploring Constantinople's mystical dimensions and examining the relationship between the spiritual and political in the city.

The ancient Greeks were exceptional and they were consequential. This innovative, engrossingly written book addresses head-on the problematic question of the Greek Miracle. It will appeal to anyone interested in the ancient world and its modern meaning. Reviel Netz boldly argues that the...

KNOW BALDR. KNOW TYR. KNOW THE NORNS. NO HOLLYWOOD. In this third and final volume of The Norse Mythology Simplified Series, you’re invited back for a 7-day journey into a world of gods, giants, and cosmic upheaval. As Odin, Thor, Tyr, Heimdall, and Loki move toward the end of everything, to Ragnarök, you’ll step into a story of fate, transformation, and renewal. This is more than a tale of destruction—it’s a journey through courage, change, and the rise and fall of ages. With every page, you uncover how even the darkest ending can reveal a new beginning.

Rome is not a city that can be understood quickly, and it is certainly not one that reveals itself fully through its most famous landmarks alone. It is a place built upon layers of time, meaning, and human activity, where the past does not sit quietly behind glass or within museum walls, but remains actively present in the streets, the buildings, and the rhythm of daily life. To encounter Rome is to engage with a city that exists across centuries at once, where ancient foundations support modern movement, and where every corner carries a sense of continuity that few other cities can match.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle was only the first of many English histories to be compiled over many generations in the scriptoria of Britain – the chronicle hammered out by monks in Worcester in the 12th century is the only one that made any claim to be 'ultimate', or 'The Chronicle of Chronicles'.

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. A tribute to the female agents whose war in the shadows saved thousands of lives, this is the first-ever to tell the story of all 40 SOE female agents of F Section, including Nancy Wake The history of SOE's war in the shadows has been told many times...

In May 1685, two women — the young Margaret Wilson and the elder Margaret MacLachlan — faced execution at the Bladnoch estuary, steadfast in their refusal to renounce their Presbyterian faith. The Wigtown Martyrs tells their story with clarity and compassion, tracing the social, religious, and political forces that shaped their courage. Drawing on contemporary testimonies, parish records, and Covenanting accounts, this concise volume explores the moral conviction, community networks, and enduring legacy of these remarkable women.

The assassination of Austria-Hungary's Archduke Franz Ferdinand didn't just ignite the fuse to the tinderbox that was Europe in the early years of the twentieth century. When war was declared and the soldiers set off to fight the "war to end all wars," World War I realigned nations, sent their economies reeling, and toppled thrones and classes. Hungary was a particularly vivid example of how quickly a nation's fate could plummet from empire to supplicant.

Bloomsbury presents The Domesday Cows, written and read by Iszi Lawrence A hilarious tale of hijinks, cows and a well-meaning sister with a comical culture clash between Anglo-Saxons and Normans. From the rising star of children’s historical fiction, Iszi Lawrence, this is the perfect...

How did an entire nation's churches end up serving the regime that destroyed them?God's People tells the story of the Christian institutions that accommodated Adolf Hitler, and the Christ they reinvented to do it. In November 1933, twenty thousand members of the German Christian movement packed the Berlin Sportpalast to hear a schoolteacher demand that Christianity be purged along racial lines and rebuilt as a national religion. The movement was embarrassed. They got rid of the man. They kept the agenda.

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. From royal babies to royal marriages, not all are what they seem—this book exposes the hidden skeletons of England's most famous rulers Were the "Princes in the Tower" illegitimate? Did Henry Viii really have six wives? How virginal was "the Virgin...

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. Robert Hardy is famous throughout the world as an actor. Not so widely known is his deep interest in archery and its history. An acknowledged expert on the longbow, he is a Trustee of the Royal Armouries at HM Tower of London, and of the Mary Rose Trust...