During the first years of the pandemic, the political mainstream agreed that 'following the science' with hard lockdowns and vaccine mandates was the best way to preserve life. But social science reveals the true human cost of this policy. The Covid Consensus provides an internationalist-left perspective on the world's Covid-19 response, which has had devastating consequences for democratic rights and the poor worldwide. As the fortunes of the richest soared, nationwide shutdowns ...

Winner of the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2019Shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize and the Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award'Astonishing, staggering' Ben Okri, Daily TelegraphA groundbreaking new history that will transform our view of West AfricaBy the time of the 'Scramble for Africa' in the late nineteenth century, Africa had already been globally conn...

'A stunning global history of West Africa ... with this new tour de force, Green confirms himself as the most innovative historian, writer, and thinker of his generation' Ana Lucia Araujo, author of Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of SlaveryA unique, startling book that gives a rich and detailed sense of life in an African port some 360 years agoIn 1665 Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave traf...

This groundbreaking, interdisciplinary collection is one of the first scholarly books in the world to address the impacts of Covid-19 restrictions on the Global South.Bringing together health and social scientists from around the world--including many leading figures from Global-South countries such as Angola, Bolivia, Colombia, India, Kenya, and Nigeria--the book shows how, in low- and middle-income countries in particular, Covid responses often exacerbate problem...

4 CITIES, 4 LIVES, 1 CRIMEÖ In Madrid, an Argentinian bookseller gets caught up in the scheme of an American professor to prevent an appalling crime. Her sidekicks soon include a Gambian migrant in Paris and a Spanish waitress in London. Seeking some sort of companionship in their exiles, the four characters join forces in a quest that becomes a dangerous obsession. All four lives seem to be fatefully connected. But how to get people to take the crime seriously if it does not yet exist? In...

The region between the river Senegal and Sierra Leone saw the first trans-Atlantic slave trade in the sixteenth century. Drawing on many new sources, Toby Green challenges current quantitative approaches to the history of the slave trade. New data on slave origins can show how and why Western African societies responded to Atlantic pressures. Green argues that answering these questions requires a cultural framework and uses the idea of creolization - the formation of mixed cultural communi...

THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025A CAPX AND ENGELSBERG IDEAS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025The late 17th century saw the rise of a new phenomenon that would transform Britain forever: party politics.Beginning with a furious dispute over whether to allow a Roman Catholic - James II - to become king, the division between Whig and Tory marked the chief political battlelines of a ferociously polarised country for ...

From the acclaimed author of In the Shadow of the Empress comes the thrilling, “richly detailed, entertaining” chronicle of two of the most influential and glamorous women in nineteenth-century Europe—Elisabeth, empress of Austria, and Eugénie, empress of France—and their efforts to rule amid the scandal, intrigue, tragedy, and violence of their era (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).When they married Emperors Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, respecti...

FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE'Monumental and highly readable... by smartly knitting together the past with the present, Zubok brings a prescient and fresh perspective' Financial TimesA sweeping, original history of the Cold War, from an acclaimed historian of the USSRWhy did the Cold War erupt so soon after the Second World War? How did it escalate so rapidly, spanning five continents over six decades? ...

'Outstanding, illuminating, compelling ... a riveting read' Peter Frankopan, Sunday TimesIslamic civilization was once the envy of the world. From a succession of glittering, cosmopolitan capitals, Islamic empires lorded it over the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and swathes of the Indian subcontinent. For centuries the caliphate was both ascendant on the battlefield and triumphant in the battle of ideas, its cities unrivalled powerhouses of artis...

A leading historian reconstructs the forgotten history of medieval AfricaFrom the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middl...

'[An] elegant and forensic double portrait setting Greene, that sociologist of sin, alongside the Kremlin's golden boy Philby, with the lengthening shadow of the cold war falling between them ... both his subjects make for terrific copy ... Part of the pleasure of Verkaik's book is the vicarious glide through their parallel rake's progresses.' - Pratinav Anil, Guardian'A wholly fascinating account of an extraordinary friendship. Robert Verkaik's nu...