SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 PINSENT MASONS SPORTS WRITING AWARDA Times Best Sports Book of 2023**'Fascinating' Daily Telegraph'Lively, rich and readable' The Spectator'Thoughtful and entertaining' Guardian'Completely eye-opening - every page contains a gem' Marina Hyde**The remarkable s****tories of how sport shaped the British people.The history of Br...

Although he styled himself 'His Highness', adopted the court ritual of his royal predecessors, and lived in the former royal palaces of Whitehall and Hampton Court, Oliver Cromwell was not a king - in spite of the best efforts of his supporters to crown him.Yet, as David Horspool shows in this illuminating new portrait of England's Lord Protector, Cromwell, the Puritan son of Cambridgeshire gentry, wielded such influence that it would be a pretence to say that power really lay with...

For many, Richard III is an obsession-the Richard III Society has a huge membership, and Shakespeare's Histories have contributed to, if not his popularity, certainly his notoriety. Now, with the discovery of Richard III's bones under a parking lot in Leicester, England, interest in this divisive and enigmatic figure in British history is at an all-time high. It is a compelling story to scholars as well as general readers, who continue to seek out the kind of strong narrative history that ...

The English have a rich and glorious history of making trouble for themselves. One hundred and forty years before the French Revolution, the English executed their king and instituted a radical revolutionary government. In 1215, more than 570 years before the United States ratified its Bill of Rights, England's barons forced King John to accept the Magna Carta. In 1926 over 1.5 million strikers brought the nation to its knees.From the Peasants' Revolt to the suffragettes, from Oliv...

The story of how the British shaped sport, and sport shaped the British.Sport is an enduring element of British life and culture. Few other strands of Britain's history touch on so many significant aspects of past and present: national identity, class, gender, the relationship between country and town, the rise of commerce, the evolution of ethical debate. And that's apart from the on-field action - the triumphs and heartbreaks that have become part of the national...

The idea was simple. Take the most impassioned speeches about the fight for what is right and bring them to life for a new generation. The reason why it's so powerful is because it's about everything that matters to us: love and life, sex and death, justice and freedom. We've found some amazing speeches from the most unlikely places, British voices that have been ignored for centuries because history is a tale often told by the winners' COLIN FIRTH The People Speak tells the story of Brita...