Titoli in Inghilterra

From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill and Napoleon The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating--and will completely change the way...

A splendid new volume of missives about art, from the author of the bestselling Letters of Note collections. Vincent Van Gogh curses the stare of the blank canvas. Salvador Dali contemplates mailing a piece of his 'lobster-colored pajamas' to Federico Lorca. Hollis Frampton, to the MoMA...

In 1962 the American statesman Dean Acheson famously charged that Britain had lost an empire and failed to find a new role. Nearly 60 years later the rebuke rings true again. Britain's postwar search for its place in the world has vexed prime ministers and government since the nation's great victory in 1945: the cost of winning the war was giving up the empire. After the humiliation of Anthony Eden's Suez expedition, Britain seemed for a time to have found an answer.

Renowned historian Max Hastings recreates one of the most thrilling events of World War II: Operation Pedestal, the British action to save its troops from starvation on Malta—an action-packed tale of courage, fortitude, loss, and triumph against all odds. In 1940, Hitler had two choices when...

Charles Featherstone gleefully narrates the uproarious finale of A’Beckett’s Comic History, skewering Britain’s glorious descent into chaos after Queen Anne. Witness thick-accented German kings fumbling through English, ministers auctioning the nation’s dignity, and England drowning in get-rich-quick scams–all while crinolines expanded and sense evaporated.

Step right up for the most uproariously irreverent chapter of Gilbert Abbott A’Beckett’s Comic History of England—where crowns are comedy props and history’s biggest egos trip over their own dogma!

Patricia and Jean Owtram are possibly the only living sisters to have signed the wartime Official Secrets Act. Raised in a Lancashire country house in the 1920s, the family takes in two Austrian Jewish refugees, and the sisters quickly become fluent in German—which will go on to shape their roles forever.

For over four decades the story of the extraordinary evil that occurred at the Kincora Boys’ Home in East Belfast in the 1970s and the shocking attempts by MI5 to cover it up have haunted our political and social terrain for decades.

Sunset, 8 June 1982, East Falkland. Eight specially trained Royal Marines infiltrate Goat Ridge, a long rocky hilltop between Mount Harriet and Two Sisters which are occupied by a battalion of 600 Argentine infantry. Their daring mission was to hide out in hostile territory, reconnoiter the Argentine position and then report back. From their hiding place just metres away from the enemy, they note and sketch the Argentine positions, then withdraw as stealthily as they had come.

Popular culture has mythologised the Dunera Boys–but who were the real men who sailed on the infamous ship, and how did the voyage transform their lives? Art historian Tonia Eckfeld draws on a deeply personal history to tell the story of her father and her uncle, Jewish refugees whose lives were shaped indelibly by their wartime experiences and internment–each to very different outcomes.

Arguing that global communications have fragmented national cultures and that multiculturalism, intended to reduce social frictions, is today reinforcing them, Sacks argues for a new approach to national identity, making the case for "integrated diversity" within a framework of shared political values. Britain, he argues, will have to construct a national narrative as a basis for identity, reinvigorate the concept of the common good, and identify shared interests among currently conflicting groups.

Victorian women ate arsenic to achieve an ideal, pale complexion, while in the 1790s balloon corsets were all the rage, designed to make the wearer appear pregnant. Women of the eighteenth century applied blood from a black cat's tail to problem skin, while doctors in the 1880s promoted woolen underwear to keep colds at bay. Beautification and the pursuit of health may seem all-consuming today, but their history is long and fantastically varied. Ranging across the last four hundred years, Margarette Lincoln examines women's health and beauty in fascinating detail.

Crushed by the Romans in the first century A.D., the ancient Druids of Britain left almost no reliable evidence behind. Historian Ronald Hutton shows how this lack of definite information has allowed succeeding British generations to reimagine, reinterpret, and reinvent the Druids. Hutton's captivating book is the first to encompass two thousand years of Druid history and to explore the evolution of English, Scottish, and Welsh attitudes toward the forever ambiguous figures of the ancient Celtic world.

Liverpool is a unique city within the United Kingdom—in terms of its dialect, hedonism, friendliness, rejection of 'Englishness', and most pertinently, its politics. It is bastion of working-class left-wing politics like no other—as evidenced by the suspension of a Liverpool FC match after the death of the Queen, for fear the Liverpool fans would boo the minute's silence. Yet it was not always so, and Liverpool's transformation from a stronghold of working-class Toryism to its current identity is a remarkable remaking.

Eagle Days transforms the Luftwaffe’s historical role during the RAF’s ‘Finest Hour’ from a cartoonish antagonist to a multidimensional, flawed-yet-formidable opponent. The narrative contains not just the voices of the air crews who conducted the fighting, but uniquely never-before-translated primary source material of other contemporary eyewitnesses, (Luftwaffe’s paratroopers, anti-aircraft gunners and air signalmen). Eagle Days will offer all fans of this period a refreshing, comprehensive and exciting account of the Luftwaffe’s real experiences during the Battle of Britain.

Willkommen im Regency, dem Übergang vom 18. ins 19. Jahrhundert! Ian Mortimer nimmt uns mit in diese kuriose Zeit, die für viele schlichtweg für Übermaß steht. Zwischen der leicht langweilig anmutenden Eleganz des 18. Jahrhunderts und der prüden moralischen Überlegenheit der Frühviktorianer wirkt diese Epoche liederlich, grell, gefährlich, schockierend und anstößig – doch dabei höchst unterhaltsam und anziehend. Es ist das Zeitalter von Jane Austen und den Dichtern der Romantik, der Gemälde von John Constable, der eleganten Kleidung von Beau Brummell und der poetischen Freiheit von Lord Byron.

An author creates a narrative blend of history, cultural criticism, and memoir in celebration of everyday queer women, based on a lesbian helpline that existed in North London in the nineties. With warmth and humour, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who called and volunteered for the...

Few cities in the world are as famous as Liverpool, the home of the modern world’s most celebrated rock group and of a legendary football team. Liverpool becomes a prism through which recent British history is brought into a new focus. Sam Wetherell sharply criticises the obscenity of accepting human and urban ‘obsolescence’. This is an epic history of a single, iconic city. It is also a warning of what the future may hold for many more communities.

Most of us know our limitations, especially when it comes to a career choice. We watch documentaries about A&E departments and the heroes who work there, and we think no. Oh no, thanks very much. We wouldn't have the nerve, or the stamina, or the resilience to do THAT. But who amongst us hasn’t looked at the woeful performance of a prime minister and thought: ‘Really, is that all there is to it? Even I could do that’. Now is your opportunity to familiarise yourself with what the job of prime minister actually is.

Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, the SAS launched one of the most intense and secretive operations in its history: Task Force Black. BBC journalist Mark Urban uncovers the sensational story of this operation and the extraordinary men who carried it out.