Biography: historical, political & military

Maud West ran her detective agency in London for more than 30 years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society's finest in 1905. Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world but, beneath the public persona, she was forced to hide vital aspects of her own identity in order to thrive in ...

Richard Abels examines the long and troubled reign of Aethelred II the 'Unraed', the 'Ill-Advised'. It is characteristic of Aethelred's reign that its greatest surviving work of literature, the poem The Battle of Maldon, should be a record of heroic defeat. Perhaps no ruler could have stemmed the...

On 27 January 1945, Otto Frank was liberated from Auschwitz by Russian soldiers. At that point not only did his journey home start, but also his long quest to find out what had happened to his wife Edith, his daughters Margot and Anne, and the four other people with whom he had been in hiding wit...

In the quiet Cotswolds village of Great Rollright in 1942, a thin, and unusually elegant, housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted mother-of-three, attentive wife and friendly neighbour, Sonya Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity. However, rather ...

In the quiet Cotswolds village of Great Rollright in 1942, a thin, and unusually elegant, housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted mother-of-three, attentive wife and friendly neighbour, Sonya Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity. However, rather ...

It's November 1974 and John Stonehouse MP, once a star in Harold Wilson's Labour government, is missing in Miami, presumed drowned. His disappearance exposes the most lurid details of his life, including identity fraud, corporate corruption, a love triangle, blackmail, links with the Mafia and a ...

It's November 1974 and John Stonehouse MP, once a star in Harold Wilson's Labour government, is missing in Miami, presumed drowned. His disappearance exposes the most lurid details of his life, including identity fraud, corporate corruption, a love triangle, blackmail, links with the Mafia and a ...

On June 30, 2009, Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl left his post in eastern Afghanistan, about 25 miles from the Pakistani border. He was quickly captured by local tribesmen, who sold him up the Taliban's chain of command. In May 2014, after almost five years in captivity - the longest-held and ...

At age 16 Isaac Fadoyebo ran away from his West African village to join the British Army. The Second World War was raging, and Nigeria's colonial masters were desperate to find men to defend the Empire. Veteran foreign correspondent Barnaby Phillips delivers the gripping, unforgettable story of a...

Can you succeed without being a terrible person? We often think not: recognising that, as the old saying has it, 'nice guys finish last'. But does that mean you have to go to the other extreme, and be a bully or Machiavellian to get anything done? In this volume, David Bodanis uses thrilling hist...