History

John Farndon, author of the bestselling Do You Think You’re Clever?, has set out to find the answer. A distinguished panel of experts agreed on a list of 50 ideas, and each chapter of The World’s Greatest Idea sees Farndon explore the argument for a different one.The candidates are intriguingly v...

What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can – if you know where to look.A brilliant new cultural history of the long 18th-century, Writing on the Wall is told through the marks its citizens left behind, bringing into focus lost voices from the highest to the lowest in soci...

On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. In the days and weeks that followed, Fang Fang’s nightly postings gave voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of her fellow ci...

From one of China’s most acclaimed and decorated writers comes a powerful first-person account of life in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak.On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. In the d...

Brought to you by Penguin. June 1942. The Third Reich is victorious everywhere. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who escaped to Britain just before the War. Many have lost their f...

The untold story of Enigma and the men who broke it…

This is the story of American volunteer pilots who risked their lives in defense of Britain during the earliest days of World War II—more than a year before Pearl Harbor, when the United States first became embroiled in the global conflict. Based on interviews, diaries, personal documents, and re...

Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. This was the 'big bang' ...

Spend a year in the company of the ancient Egyptians, during the twenty-sixth and final year of the reign of Amenhotep II (c.1400 BC), which saw a royal transition bringing Thutmose IV to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. While builders from the secluded village of royal tomb workers rush to c...

In recent years the Club has established itself as one of the leading clubs closely competing for honours every season. The Club has transformed its fortunes off the pitch managing to redevelop The County Ground in Taunton without freighting itself with large debts. It is now in a position to hos...