Tamerlane was the last of the 'world conquerors': his armies looted and killed from the shores of the Mediterranean to the frontier of China. Nomad horsemen from the Steppes had been the terror of Europe and Asia for centuries, but with Tamerlane's death in 1405, an epoch of history came to an end. The future belonged to the great dynastic empires - Chinese, Mughal, Iranian and Ottoman - where most of Eurasia's culture and wealth was to be found, and to the oceanic voyagers from Eurasia's ...

A both controversial and comprehensive historical analysis of how the British Empire worked, from Wolfson Prize-winning author and historian John DarwinThe British Empire shaped the world in countless ways: repopulating continents, carving out nations, imposing its own language, technology and values. For perhaps two centuries its expansion and final collapse were the single largest determinant of historical events, and it remains surrounded by myth, misconception ...

The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the rise and fall of that great imperial project. The British Empire, he argues, was much more than a group of colonies ruled over by a scattering of British expatriates until eventual independence. It was, above all, a global phenomenon. Its power derived rather less from the assertion of imperial authority than from the fusing togeth...

The Prospect of Global History takes a new approach to the study of global history, seeking to apply it, rather than advocate it. The volume seeks perspectives on history from East Asian and Islamic sources as well as European ones, and insists on depth in historical analysis. The Prospect of Global History will speak to those interested in medieval and ancient history as well as modern history. Chapters range from historical sociology to economic history, from medieval t...

A breathtaking romp through Tokyo's history from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, using lots of images, writings and clippings to bring back to life those far-off days.

From the provincial peccadilloes of Prestwich in Manchester to coffee houses and bars by the Bosporus in İstanbul, John Darwin explores life’s three stages of arriving, staying for a bit, and then leaving.A poetic reflection on the ennui of the everyday, intermittent pleasures, and the quest to understand love and belonging from the Gtr Manchester Fringe Festival 2021 Best Spoken Word Performance Award winner.“A collection of acutely and fondly observed everyday acts by eve...

“Whichever way I take I meet myself returning.”A poetic journey from the mills and moors of the industrial north to the meals and mosques of the Byzantine middle-east and back again. I Meet Myself Returning is about finding your feet in our convoluted world and letting them take you to a place to call your own. And, occasionally, stopping off for a pint.“For those of us who struggle with the concept of permanence, who gulp when we’re asked where we’re from and shiver when w...

The Western world has experienced extraordinary economic progress throughout the last six decades, a prosperous period so extended that continuous economic growth has come to seem normal. But such an era of continuously rising living standards is a historical anomaly, economist Stephen D. King warns, and the current stagnation of Western economies threatens to reach crisis proportions in the not-so-distant future. Praised for the “dose of realism” he provided in his...

National Bestseller · Finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize · Finalist for the Orwell Prize · A Guardian Book of the Year · A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice“Essential reading for everyone who is interested in the processes of change that have led to the emergence of today’s Asia.” —Amitav Ghosh, The Wall Street JournalThe Victorian period, viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, was exp...

'The past is a foreign country' has become a truism, yet the past differs from the present in many unfamiliar ways and historical memory is extraordinarily imperfect. The degree to which we think of the European past as the history of France, Germany, Britain, Russia and so on, actually obstructs our view of former reality, and blunts our sensitivity to the ever-changing political landscape. Europe's past is littered with kingdoms, empires and republics which no longer exist but which were...

“Year Zero is a remarkable book, not because it breaks new ground, but in its combination of magnificence and modesty.” —Wall Street JournalA marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War IIYear Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime chan...

Mark Greengrass's gripping, major, original account of Europe in an era of tumultuous changeThis latest addition to the landmark Penguin History of Europe series is a fascinating study of 16th and 17th century Europe and the fundamental changes which led to the collapse of Christendom and established the geographical and political frameworks of Western Europe as we know it.From peasants to princes, no one was untouched by the spiritual and intellectual uphe...