Biography: historical, political & military

As a statesman, Ernest Bevin is second only to Churchill in impact and legacy. Born in abject poverty to a single mother, and with virtually no formal education, Bevin went on to become the founder of the largest trade union in British history and then made it to the top of politics and governmen...

On 19th June 1953 Ethel Rosenberg became the first woman to be executed by the US government in almost a century, and the only woman in the US to be executed for a crime other than murder. She was 37 years old and the mother of 2 small children. Her case resonates more than ever today at a time o...

The autobiography of the Louisiana senator, Huey Long, who was one of Roosevelt's most vociferous critics. "The Kingfish", as he called himself, gained a nationwide following, forcing Roosevelt to turn his New Deal significantly to the left. Huey Long (1893-1935) was one of the most extraordinary...

Eva Peron was a star and a legend during her lifetime, one of the most alluring women of the twentieth century. Through the hit Broadway musical Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber, her story became famous, and with the release of the film starring Madonna as Eva Peron, her life became a media obsession...

An account of the Falklands War told by an ordinary soldier. In retelling what happened to him and his fellow paratroopers during the bloody battle for Mount Longdon, Bramley exposes the effects that the prospect of dying and the reality of killing have on a common soldier - from those who desert...

As a politician Boris Johnson seemed propelled by his own ambition, rising to prime minister. He won an era defining general election in 2019 where he smashed Labour's Red Wall after he promised to 'Get Brexit Done'. But after guiding Britain through the COVID-19 pandemic his leadership was beset...

As a politician Boris Johnson seemed propelled by his own ambition, rising to prime minister. He won an era defining general election in 2019 where he smashed Labour's Red Wall after he promised to 'Get Brexit Done'. But after guiding Britain through the COVID-19 pandemic his leadership was beset...

Three men. Three short, glittering lives. Young English painter Christopher Wood arrives in Paris in 1921 set on becoming the next great master. By day he studies; by night he attends parties with Picasso and Cocteau before paying too high a price for success. Richard Hilary, a confident if unpri...

The noted Soviet dissident recounts his trial by Soviet authorities, his nine-year term in the Soviet gulag, his release and reunion with his wife and their new life in Israel. Temperamentally and intellectually, Natan Sharansky is a man very much like many of us,which makes this account of his a...

Anne Lister is best known to us through her diaries - a vivid record of an extraordinary life. In them she describes how she challenged the social conventions of the 1830s and her writings suggest a reappraisal of opportunities for independent women.