Social & cultural history

The 1930s was a time of great progress, as engines took over from horse power, and electric light from gas and oil. A time of home cooking, and holidays were day trips. In the background, change was everywhere, with the Mallard speed record, the launch of the Queen Mary, the abdication of the Kin...

'1945' is a fresh look at the last year of the Second World War. Evoking the disorienting strangeness of the end and aftermath of war, it narrates the lives of fifty protagonists caught in the ruins of warfare. The effect is a dazzling kaleidoscope, showing how events affected a wide variety of i...

'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...

'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...

Award-winning writer Richard Williams tells the remarkable story of the 24 hours of Le Mans, one of the world's most iconic motorsports events, which celebrates its centenary in 2023. The event was created by a group of Frenchmen in 1923 and remains uniquely compelling to spectators, to the major...

A celebration of Queer history told through one LGBTQ+ figure for each day of the year.

Featuring an updated article on 'The Iron Wall' by Vladimir Jabotinsky, '51 Documents' argues that the Zionists did an immense disservice to many other Jews during this period by making trade-offs with the Nazi authorities. With the Nazi era being one of the most discussed periods in history, the...

The political provocateur offers his slant on where it all went wrong for Britain, analysing post-war life in terms of the effects of TV culture, the reaction to Princess Diana's death, and in this newly revised edition a look at the consequences of the 2016 Brexit vote. How do you tell that a co...

In 1951, the Festival of Britain commissioned a series of short guides they dubbed 'handbooks for the explorer'. Their aim was to encourage readers to venture out beyond the capital and on to 'the roads and the by-roads' to see Britain as a 'living country'. Yet these 13 guides did more than cele...