'A masterpiece of history'DAILY TELEGRAPHBetween 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and Lenin's single-minded Communist dictatorship. Terror begat terror, which in ...

Rasputin: visionary, fraud or victim of history?THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'THE GOLD STANDARD OF NARRATIVE HISTORY' DAN SNOW'ONE OF THE GREAT STORIES OF HISTORY, TOLD BY ONE OF OUR GREATEST HISTORIANS' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE'THIS EXTRAORDINARY STORY HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER TOLD' ANTHONY HOROWITZ'A STUNNING BANQUET OF A BOOK' ROSE TREMAIN

A fascinating account of Russia's famous dissident and the politics he embodies.Who is Alexei Navalny? Poisoned in August 2020 and transported to Germany for treatment, the politician returned to Russia in January 2021 in the full glare of the world media. His immediate detention at passport control set the stage for an explosive showdown with Vladimir Putin.But Navalny means very different things to different people. To some, he is a democratic hero. To ot...

THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEARONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARA SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author - the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family.We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic j...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Berlin by Antony Beevor, read by Peter Noble.Berlin: The Downfall 1945 is Antony Beevor's brilliant account of the fall of the Third Reich.The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. Political instructors rammed home the message of Wehrmacht and SS brutality. The result was the most terrifying example of fire and sword...

Brought to you by Penguin.Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of Russia in June 1941, aimed at nothing less than a war of extermination to annihilate Soviet communism, liquidate the Jews and create Lebensraum for the German master race. But it led to the destruction of the Third Reich, and was cataclysmic for Germany with millions of men killed, wounded or registered as missing in action. It was this colossal mistake -- rather than any action in Western Europe ...

Brought to you by Penguin.From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that interrogates the pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe.Sprawling across a quarter of the world's land mass and claiming nearly 500 colonial subjects, Britain's empire was the largest empire in human histo...

The Battle of Stalingrad was not only the psychological turning point of World War II: it also changed the face of modern warfareHistorians and reviewers worldwide have hailed Antony Beevor's magisterial Stalingrad as the definitive account of World War II's most harrowing battle.In August 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached the city that bore Stalin's name. In the five-month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold Stalingrad at any cos...

'Delightful … Venner builds an excellent narrative of a city that was thriving and bustling with life at the very point it was snuffed out.' The TimesWe all know how the people of Pompeii died. But what about how they lived?__________In 24 hours, Pompeii will vanish.The morning of the eruption was a day like any other. Julia Felix opens her tavern for another day o...

'I devoured this book!' Alison Weir*'*A fresh and intriguing take on Boleyn's story ... Borman's deep knowledge of her characters, of how they lived and loved, is evident in every line. This is an Anne to cherish' The TimesBehind the walls of Hever Castle history was being made ... but who was watching?When nobleman Thomas Boleyn, lord of Hever Castle, is called to London i...

'[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...

**Brought to you by Penguin.An extraordinarily atmospheric and powerful history of the world's largest country and its decline and fall.**With Stalin's death, the Soviet Union remained a repressive, harsh and belligerent place, but one which became more predictable for its citizens and one which made a genuine attempt to create the egalitarian, progressive country that the Russian Revolution had once promised. That this attempt would fail was not clear until the 1980s....