Showing titles in 20th Century

From one of the world's leading economists, a sweeping new history of the twentieth century - a century that left us vastly richer, yet still profoundly dissatisfied. Before 1870, most people lived in dire poverty, the benefits of the slow crawl of invention continually offset by a growing...

Within Western culture, World War Two continues to exercise an extraordinary fascination for generations unborn when it took place. The obvious explanation is that it was the greatest and most terrible event in human history. Within the vast compass of the struggle, some individuals scaled summits of courage and nobility, while others plumbed depths of evil, in a fashion that compels the awe of posterity.

Two Brothers tells the story of a great sporting family, uncovering new details, exposing myths and placing Jack and Bobby Charlton in their historical context. It's a book about two English footballers but also about English football and England itself.

'Superb and timely' KATE MOSSE 'Impressive, important, deeply moving' SARAH WATERS 'Brilliant' ANTHONY HOROWITZ What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be...

'An electric biography' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Thrilling' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'A masterclass in the possibilities of biography' FINANCIAL TIMES Vera Gedroits was a towering, sweet-faced lesbian princess, an ardent supporter of workers’ rights who regularly performed true medical miracles of surgery. On...

Among millions of Holocaust victims sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944, Priska, Rachel and Anka each passed through its infamous gates with a secret. Strangers to each other, they were newly pregnant and facing an uncertain fate without their husbands. Alone, scared and with so many loved ones already lost to the Nazis, these young women were privately determined to hold on to all they had left: their lives and those of their unborn babies.

Brought to you by Penguin. From the Sunday Times bestselling author of HANNS AND RUDOLF, THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE and BLOOD ON THE PAGE, comes the gripping story of an unsolved murder which took place against the extraordinary background of Nazi-occupied Florence during World War Two . . . Italy...

On October 14, 1943, 600 Jews imprisoned in Sobibor, a secret Nazi death camp in eastern Poland, revolted. They killed a dozen SS officers and guards, trampled the barbed wire fences, and raced across an open field filled with anti-tank mines. Against all odds, more than three hundred made it safely into the woods. Fifty of those men and women managed to survive the rest of the war. In this edition of Escape from Sobibor, fully updated in 2012, Richard Rashke tells their stories

This story casts penetrating light on how struggles in Europe and Asia merged into a tightly entwined global war. It features not just battles, but also the sweeping political, economic, and social effects of the war, and are graced with a rich tapestry of individual characters from top-tier political and military figures down to ordinary servicemen, as well as the accounts of civilians of all races and ages.

Hugo Vickers's adventures in the world of Cecil Beaton: an unputdownable portrait of a vanishing age, featuring untold anecdotes and thrilling titbits of royal gossip 'A fascinating document, a window on to a lost world of glamour, grandeur and snobbery . . . an elegy, sad and comical, to a...

Bloomsbury presents Dictatorland by Paul Kenyon, read by Hamilton McLeod. A Financial Times Book of the Year 'Jaw-dropping' Daily Express 'Grimly fascinating' Financial Times 'Humane, timely, accessible and well-researched' Irish Times The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop...

Bloomsbury presents Peace, War and Whitehall by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, read by Paul Blezard. Charles Guthrie has been one of Britain’s foremost soldiers as well as a terrific personality throughout his remarkable life. It is great that he is now telling his own story.' – Sir Max...

'Compelling' TELEGRAPH 'Such a compelling account of a small but significant dark corner of history... Profound, angry, and tender all at once' VIRGINIA FEITO, author of MRS MARCH 'An insightful, empathetic and well-researched account of a deeply fascinating and macabre true story' KATE MOORE...

A memoir of how a small number of British officers led Muslim soldiers in the hard-fought anti-insurgency war that has shaped today's Gulf. While the Americans were fighting in Vietnam, a struggle of even greater strategic significance was taking place in the Middle East: The Sultanate of Oman stood guard at the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, and thus controlled the movement of oil from that region.

Brought to you by Penguin. A non-stop flight across the Atlantic might seem routine today. But it is only possible because of those who went first. Newfoundland, 1919. Buffeted by winds, an unwieldy aircraft struggled to take to the air. Cramped side by side in its open cockpit were two men...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER PULITZER PRIZE WINNER A “heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11” (The New York Times Book Review), this definitive history explains in gripping detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that...

Brought to you by Penguin. Read by the author, with Christine Kavanagh, Rosina Aichner, Laurence Dobeisz, Joe Jameson, Conor Macleod, Jamie Zubairi, Ayesha Antoine, Naruto Komatsu, Alfie Thompson, Chris Thompson, Nile Faure-Bryan, Sam Heaton, Michael Pender, Brónagh Grace and Ru Merritt. There...

Olga Lengyel tells, frankly and without compromise, one of the most horrifying stories of all time. This true, documented chronicle is the intimate, day-to-day record of a beautiful woman who survived the nightmare of Auschwitz and Birchenau. This book is a necessary reminder of one of the ugliest chapters in the history of human civilization.

Bloomsbury presents On the Cusp by David Kynaston, read by Mark Meadows. A TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF 2022 ————————— 'Glorious ... It's rare to read anything so teeming with life' SPECTATOR, Books of the Year 'This is Kynaston at his best ... A rich and vivid picture of a nation...