‘One of our very best writers on France.’ Antony BeevorAfter publishing an acclaimed biography of Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance, Patrick Marnham received an anonymous letter from a person who claimed to have worked for British Intelligence during the war. The ex-spy praised his book but insisted that he had missed the real ‘treasure’. The letter drew Marnham back to the early 1960s when he had been taught French by a mercurial woman – a former Resist...

Discover the truth behind one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of World War II.Who was the enigmatic Jean Moulin, a man as skilled in deception as he was in acts of heroism? The memory of this French Resistance hero, who was betrayed to the Gestapo and tortured by Klaus Barbie, the infamous 'Butcher of Lyon', is revered alongside that of other national icons. But Moulin's story is full of unanswered questions and the truth of his life is far more complicated than...

He was six feet tall, huge-chested, handsome, ebullient, a warrior, a hunter, a fisherman, a drinker.'Ernest Hemingway was 'a man who lived it up to write it down' and his life became the root from which his novels grew. At the age of 18 he was awarded a medal for bravery in the First World War; he honed his craft in 1920s Paris, amongst the 'Lost Generation': F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot and John Dos Passos; his macho image grew with his love of big-game hunting, deep-sea fishi...

“Enthralling and intelligent, a masterly exploration ofthe sinister labyrinth that was wartime France . . .It is a remarkable book, utterly fascinating.”—Allan MassieNot long after 2:00 p.m. on June 21, 1943, eight men met in secret at a doctor’ s house in Lyon. They represented the warring factions of the French Resistance and had been summoned by General de Gaulle’s new envoy, a man most of them knew simply as “Max.”Minutes after the last man entered ...

An “absorbing, provocative, and far-reaching” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) look at what power is, who gets it, and what happens when they do, based on over 500 interviews with those who (temporarily, at least) have had the upper hand—from the creator of the Power Corrupts podcast and Washington Post columnist Brian Klaas.Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? Are tyrants made or born? Are entrepreneurs who embezzle ...

The vibrant, sprawling saga of Empress Maria Theresa—one of the most renowned women rulers in history—and three of her extraordinary daughters, including Marie Antoinette, the doomed queen of France.Out of the thrilling and tempestuous eighteenth century comes the sweeping family saga of beautiful Maria Theresa, a sovereign of uncommon strength and vision, the only woman ever to inherit and rule the vast Habsburg Empire in her own name, and three of her remarkable ...

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • SUNDAY TIMES (UK) BESTSELLER • A gripping history of the British appeasement of Hitler on the eve of World War II“An eye-opening narrative that makes for exciting but at times uncomfortable reading as one reflects on possible lessons for the present.”—Antonia Fraser, author of Mary Queen of ScotsOn a wet afternoon in September 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stepped off ...

Lisbon had a pivotal role in the history of World War II, though not a gun was fired there. The only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis power operated openly, it was temporary home to much of Europe's exiled royalty, over one million refugees seeking passage to the U.S., and a host of spies, secret police, captains of industry, bankers, prominent Jews, writers and artists, escaped POWs, and black marketeers. An operations officer writing in 1944 described the daily scene a...

This “captivating illustration of the follies of trying to model and forecast the unpredictable world” (Financial Times) is both “empowering” (The New Statesman, UK) and “compelling” (New Scientist) as it challenges our most fundamental assumptions—by social scientist and Atlantic writer Brian Klaas, whom Prospect magazine has named one of the world’s “Top 25 Thinkers.”If you could rewind your life to the very beginning ...

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...

A landmark collection of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural worldA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR"To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth," Rolling Stone has advised, "you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert." From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbe...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAn NPR Best Book of the Year • Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the YearLonglisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence“American Whitelash is indispensable. Really. It is.” – Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an AntiracistPulitzer Prize–winning journalist Wesley Lowery confronts the sickness at th...