Barely two centuries ago, most of the world's productive land still belonged either communally to traditional societies or to the higher powers of monarch or church. But that pattern, and the ways of life that went with it, were consigned to history as a result of the most creative – and, at the same time, destructive – cultural force in the modern era: the idea of individual, exclusive ownership of land.This notion laid waste to traditional communal civilisations, displacing entir...

This edition contains a limited number of illustrations.Due to the level of detail, maps are best viewed on a tablet.The epic story of how the gigantic land of America acquired its unique shape across 3000 miles of territory, and how the largest land survey in history paved the way both for a colossal sale of property and for the embedding of democracy and the spirit of independence in the psyche of Americans.The sheer scale of it makes the measuring of America extr...

'A beautifully written portrait of an overlooked prime minister and a fascinating account of his assassination during the Napoleonic Wars**'** ANTONY BEEVOR, author of StalingradFour American presidents have been assassinated, but in its much longer history, only one British prime minister. This is the untold story of that killing and its enormous repercussions.On 11 May 1812 Spencer Perceval, the British Prime Minister, was fatall...

For fifty years, Pamela Kirrage longed to unlock the secrets of her husband’s encrypted war diary. She was on the verge of giving up when she at last found a mathematician who became as obsessed with learning the secrets of the diary as she was. After months of painstaking investigation, he was finally able to crack the code, and in the process uncover the ending to an extraordinary World War II romance.Pamela fell in love with RAF pilot Donald Hill in the summer of 1939, just a fe...

Using the same blend of narrative and rhetorical brilliance that made his critically acclaimed debut history so successful, Andro Linklater begins with premier U.S. surveyor Andrew Ellicott calculating the Pennsylvania-Virginia border in 1784- using telescope, chronograph, and astronomical tables. As pioneers move westward, Ellicott and his kind create property which hastens the formation of stabilizing government.

DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEARIf in the year 1411 you had been able to circumnavigate the globe, you would have been most impressed by the dazzling civilizations of the Orient. The Forbidden City was under construction in Ming Beijing; in the Near East, the Ottomans were closing in on Constantinople.By contrast, England would have struck you as a miserable backwater ravaged by plague, bad sanitation and incessant war. The other quarrelsome kingdoms of We...

Why are some countries rich and others poor? In 1500, the income differences were small, but they have grown dramatically since Columbus reached America. Since then, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined the wealth and poverty of nations. The industrial revolution was Britain's path breaking response to the challenge of globalization. Western Europe and North America joined Britain to form a club of rich nations by pursuing...

"Splendid: the global history of capitalism in all its creative—and destructive—glory.”—The New York Times Book ReviewWith its deep roots and global scope, the capitalist system seems universal and timeless. The framework for our lives, it is a source of constant change, sometimes measured and predictable, sometimes drastic, out of control. Yet what is now ubiquitous was not always so. Capitalism was an unlikely development when it emerged from isolated changes in farming,...

This classic work of comparative history explores why some countries have developed as democracies—and others as fascist or communist dictatorships.Originally published in 1966, this classic text is a comparative survey of some of what Barrington Moore considers the major and most indicative world economies as they evolved out of pre-modern political systems into industrialism. But Moore is not ultimately concerned with explaining economic development so much as ex...

'If there were a Nobel Prize in History, Colley would be my nominee'Jill Lepore, New Yorker'One of the most exciting historians of her generation, but also one of the most interesting writers of non-fiction around' - William Dalrymple, Guardian'Colley takes you on intellectual journeys you wouldn't think to take on your own, and when you arrive you wonder that you never did it before' - David Aarono...

John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising ov...

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*Why do some countries succeed while others fail? What causes boom or bust? The World Trade Editor of the FT explains how the world really works.'A thorough examination of economies from the age of empire to the age of the IMF' The Washington PostWhy do oil and diamonds lead to economic disaster more often than boom? Why doesn't Africa gr...