Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate
'If bravery itself could write, it would write like she does' John BergerWhy rebel?Because our footprint on the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or of the
From the international bestselling authors of WillpowerWhy does a bad impression last longer than a good one? Why does losing money affect us more than gaining it? What makes phobias so hard to shake?
The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life-time.' The words of Sir Edward Grey, looking out from the windows of the Foreign Office in early August 1914, are a
One of our most scintillating public intellectuals explores the political paradoxes of the pandemic and helps us think our way through it'We are able to imagine anything because we are being besieged
In this searing book, Priya Satia demonstrates, yet again, that she is one of our most brilliant and original historians' Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly WatersFor generations, the history of the Briti
The renowned historian of the Third Reich takes on the conspiracy theories surrounding Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, in a vital history book for the 'post-truth' ageThe idea that nothing happens by chan
When Henry IV seized the throne from his cousin Richard II, some commentators saw it as a hopeful new beginning for England. The first monarch to have English as his mother tongue since the Norman con
We know our world's unequal. But, says Owen Jones, it doesn't have to stay that way. No status quo simply dissolves of its own accord: it must be replaced with something else. Without a real alternati
The No.1 bestselling author of The Establishment returns with an urgent analysis of where the Left - and Britain - goes next We live in an age of upheaval. The global crisis of Covid-19 has laid bare
An icon of the last fifty years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius: not since Albert Einstein has a scientific figure held such a position in popular consciousness. In this enthralling memoi
In this unflinching intervention, philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. Ranging widely across the culture, from the Kavanaugh hearings and "Cat Person" to H
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize and The Quest reveals how climate battles and energy revolutions are mapping our futureA new type of Cold War is emerging between China and the West. . T
The Haitian Revolution began in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue with a slave revolt in August 1791, and culminated a dozen years later in the proclamation of the world's first independen
'Endlessly fascinating and full of surprises. Easily one of my books of the year' BILL BRYSONThe myth-busting science behind our modern attitudes to exercise: what our bodies really need, why it matte
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give
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
The 'conquistadors', the early explorers and settlers of Spanish America, have become the stuff of legends and nightmares. In their own time, they were glorified as heroic adventurers, spreading Chris
'Tell them. Tell them what is happening on the land. Someone has to tell them... When I was young there was cowslips and ragged robin everywhere, and butterflies on the thyme in the rocky crags on t
Medicine is one of the great fields of achievement of the Ancient Greeks. Hippocrates is celebrated worldwide as the father of medicine and the Hippocratic Oath is admired throughout the medical profe
An enthralling memoir from the inspiring astronaut who spent six months in space'The sun is setting, signalling the end of my first orbital day. I catch a glimpse of the Milky Way; I recognize Cassiop
A leading psychiatrist shows how the mysteries of the brain are illuminated at the extremes of human experience A twinge of sadness, a rush of love, a knot of loss, a whiff of regret. Memories have t
A gripping narrative of the intertwined lives of the four philosophers whose ideas reshaped the twentieth centuryThe year is 1919. Walter Benjamin flees his overbearing father to scrape a living as a
Since prehistory, bunkers have been built as protection from cataclysmic social and environmental forces, and as places of power and transformation. Today, the bunker has become the extreme expression
Other species adapt to their environment; we create ours. Our remaking of the world has not only liberated much of the planet from plague and famine: it has reshaped the human phenotype - the interact
We think we know bullshit when we hear it, but do we? A spotter's guide to bullshit in the wild from two brilliantly contrarian scientistsThe world is awash in bullshit, and we're drowning in it. Poli
The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power - which groups have it and which do not'Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisi
For a time after the end of Communism, intellectuals and politicians across Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, a common progressive purpose and, very often, personal friendships. The e
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
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
Right now, spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium and Mare Sirenum - on the brink, perhaps, of a discovery that would inspire humankind. With poet
You're going to die. The Earth will, one day, be toast. So too, our Sun will eventually shine its last. But what's next?The End of Everything is a unique exploration of the destruction of the cosmos.
A breathtaking portrait of Russia's remote far eastern forest, and of the world's most extraordinary owl. ' Slaght makes the people, wildlife and landscape of the Russian Far East come alive. I have
In The Habsburgs, Martyn Rady tells the epic story of a dynasty and the world it built - and then lost - over nearly a millennium. From modest origins, the Habsburgs grew in power to gain control of
An intimate portrait of Stephen Hawking -- the man, the friend, the physicistAn icon of the last fifty years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius: not since Albert Einstein has a scientific fi
While staying closely aligned with Hitler, Mussolini remained carefully neutral until the summer of 1940. Then, with the wholly unexpected and sudden collapse of the French and British armies, Mussoli
Wagner's last music-drama tells the story of Parsifal, the 'pure fool, knowing through compassion', who has been called to rescue the Kingdom of the Grail from the sins that have polluted it. The Grai
The 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of N
