A thought-provoking combination of practical parenting information and scientific analysis, Our Babies, Ourselves is the first book to explore why we raise our children the way we do--and to suggest that we reconsider our culture's traditional views on parenting.New parents are faced with innumerable decisions to make regarding the best way to care for their baby, and, naturally, they often turn for guidance to friends and family members who have already raised children. B...

An epic cultural journey that reveals how Venetian ingenuity and inventions—from sunglasses and forks to bonds and currency—shaped modernity.How did a small, isolated city—with a population that never exceeded 100,000, even in its heyday—come to transform western civilization? Acclaimed anthropologist Meredith Small, the author of the groundbreaking Our Babies, Ourselves examines the the unique Venetian social structure that was key to their explosion of c...

‘Witty, rigorous, and as urgent as a fire alarm’ Dorian Lynskey‘Cooly prosecutorial’ GuardianNobody meant for this to happen.Facebook didn’t mean to facilitate a genocide.Twitter didn’t want to be used to harass women.YouTube never planned to radicalise young men.But with billions of users, these platforms need only tweak their algorithms to generate more ‘engagement’. In so doing, t...

The Katyn Massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war is a crime to which there are no witnessesWINNER OF THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZECommitted in utmost secrecy in April–May 1940 by the NKVD on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, for nearly fifty years the Soviet regime succeeded in maintaining the fiction that Katyn was a Nazi atrocity, their story unchallenged by Western govern...

War, revolution, treason and love – the thrilling tale of Sir John of Gaunt brought to life by medieval history's rising star.‘The Red Prince announces Helen Carr as one of the most exciting new voices in narrative history.’ Dan JonesSon of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV and the sire of all the Tudors. Always close to the English throne, John of Gaunt left a complex legacy. Too rich, too powerful, too h...

A Prospect Best Book of 2021‘A fascinating and timely book.’ William Boyd‘Gripping…a must read.’ FT‘Compelling…humane, reasonable, and ultimately optimistic.’ Evening Standard‘[A] valuable guide to a complex narrative.’ The TimesIn 1897, Britain sent a punitive expedition to the Kingdom of Benin, in what is today Nigeria, in retali...

“Lakes is my favorite kind of natural history: meticulously researched, timely, comprehensive, and written with imagination and verve.”—Jerry Dennis, author of The Living Great LakesLakes might be the most misunderstood bodies of water on earth. And while they may seem commonplace, without lakes our world would never be the same. In this revealing look at these lifegiving treasures, John Richard Saylor shows us just how deep our connection to stil...

Harvard’s acclaimed geologist “charts Earth’s history in accessible style” (AP)“A sublime chronicle of our planet." –Booklist, STARRED reviewHow well do you know the ground beneath your feet?Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roame...

A highly personal memoir of exile and homeland by bestselling author Isabel AllendeIn My Invented Country Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country, a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and indomitable spirit, and the politics, religion, myth and magic of her homeland that she carries with her even today.The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle, Salvador Allende Gossens, on September 1...

The miraculous history of Notre Dame de Paris – its construction, near destructions and survival against all odds‘Vivid and engrossing… the opening chapter repays the cover price.’ ObserverWinner of The 2022 French Heritage Society Book AwardThe profound emotion felt around the world upon seeing images of Notre-Dame in flames opens up a series of questions: Why was everyone so deeply moved? Why does Notre-D...

A new, transformative history – in Tudor times there were Black people living and working in Britain, and they were free‘This is history on the cutting edge of archival research, but accessibly written and alive with human details and warmth.’ David Olusoga, author of Black and British: A Forgotten HistoryA black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a...

From the author of Hidden Gardens of Paris, The Streets of Paris is Susan Cahill's wonderfully unique guide to present-day Paris following in the footsteps of famous Parisians through the last 800 years.For hundreds of years, the City of Light has set the stage for larger-than-life characters—from medieval lovers Héloïse and Abelard to the defiant King Henri IV to the brilliant scientist Madame Curie, beloved chanteuse Edith Piaf, and the writer Co...