History

At 18, your life is full of possibility. You have everything to look forward to - unless you've got the plague. In this unconventional and witty history, award-winning writer and broadcaster Alice Loxton delves into Britain's past, exploring the country though 18 notable figures at that most form...

'1964' is a living history of one of the most pivotal years in the twentieth century. In Britain, a new Labour government promised to bring the 'white heat of technology'. The Beatles and Rolling Stones cemented their grip on the charts, while the introduction of BBC Two ended the two-channel mon...

'Sapiens' showed us where we came from. 'Homo Deus' looked to the future. '21 Lessons for the 21st Century' explores the present. How can we protect ourselves from nuclear war, ecological cataclysms and technological disruptions? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news or the threat of ter...

The story of Hebden Bridge, told through the experiences of three generations of the prosperous Spencer family who made clothes for working men in the nineteenth century.

When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he was about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history? Abroad in Japan charts a decade of liv...

When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he was about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history? 'Abroad in Japan' charts a decade of l...

In 'The Bookseller of Kabul', Seierstad studied life in Afghanistan before and after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Now twenty years later, the Taliban is back in power, and Seierstad returns with 'The Afghans', a book to help us understand Afghanistan's past, present and future, told th...

For too long, Africa's history has been neglected. Dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, its past has been fragmented, overlooked and denied its rightful place in our global story. Now, Zeinab Badawi guides us through Africa's spectacular history, from the origins of humanit...

This is the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo. Agent Zo was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, and then in Britain she became the only woman to join the Poli...

Inspired by the tales of Homer & his own ambitions of empire, Alexander the Great sketched the idea of a city onto the sparsely populated Egyptian coastline. He did not live to see Alexandria built, but his vision of a sparkling metropolis that celebrated learning & diversity was swiftly realised...