Hot off the press and weighing in at a spectacular 2.35kg with glossy purple, pink, fluorescent pink and orange and yellow and lime page edges and on glossy white paper, extraordinary statistics are brought to life on nature and environment, science and technology, economy and development, society and people and culture and media. This superb and selective history of graphic information begins with medieval maps of the world and Portolan charts to navigate the oceans, mapping the body and knowledge, the Universe and planets, dinosaur timeline, currents of air showing the global wind system as it was perceived in the mid 19th century, tsunamis, where fish are caught, a world of sensations and a fantastic voyage of the incredible shrinking robots, racial inequality and the Corona virus, waste in space, imports and exports and a woman's place in the economy, Africa missing infrastructures, disputed areas of the world. In the centre pages is a spectacular triple gatefold showing on one side gun nations and states, on the other gay acceptance where countries like Spain and Germany have become more accepting of homosexuality. Foods, unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene, a guide to coffee and a cocktail chart of film and literature, the periodic table of heavy metals, comic characters and the football clubs of Europe in a spectacular double page map, this is a very special coffee table book featuring 280 colourful graphics, seven fold-out spreads and all focussing on the 21st century but including some historical masterpieces. 456pp, 21.59 x 33.02cm. Text in three languages, new full price from Taschen.
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In this wide-ranging and sometimes controversial study, one of our pre-eminent political historians dispels the popular myths that have grown up about this critical period in Britain's story, and argues that it set the scene for much that is laudable about our nation today. He looks at how Britain has been governed, the franchise and electoral system, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the monarchy, the Cabinet, local government, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the Empire. He looks at the politics of unionism and the 1895 General Election, at Lord Salisbury's foreign policy and challenges from America, the Middle and Far East. He looks at the war in South Africa and the challenge from the Boers, confident unionism, the Labour Party representing the working class and the trade unions. He does not shy away from the concentration camps in South Africa, Lord Rosebery's return. There was the problem the end of the Victorian Age of reforming education leading into new alignments and the alliance with Japan, the Irish Land Act and devolution, the Corn Duty and its repeal, Home Rule, the 1906 General Election, school meals and medical inspection, old age pensions, the reform of taxation, Churchill and social reform, the constitutional crisis and the end of Balfour's leadership, land reform, female suffrage, and from the entente with France and two world wars. The turbulent years of 1895 to 1914 changed Britain's political landscape for ever. They saw a transition from aristocratic rule to mass politics and heralded a new agenda which still dominates today. Economic modernisation, social welfare and equality, secondary and technical education, a new role for Britain in the world were all complex and difficult issues of the period which proved so thorny that despite the efforts of the Edwardians, they remain among the most pressing problems facing us in the 21st century. Vernon Bogdanor believes that the robustness of Britain's parliamentary and political institutions and her liberal political culture, with the commitment to rational debate and argument, were powerful enough to carry her through one of the most trying periods of her history, and so make possible the remarkable survival of liberal Britain. A thumping 3" thick tome of 880 pages with superb timeline of main events and seven maps in 2022 first edition.

A 'dynasty' is a family of rulers, who wielded power over a period of time as well as over a territory. Some are known by their geographical territory (Cappadocia, Baktria, Parthia), others by the name of their founder (Arsakids, Antigonids, Cerdings), others by their city (Athens, Syracuse, Damascus), or by the people they ruled (Visigoths, Vandals, West Saxons). Three major divisions have been imposed, apart from segregating the Roman Republican dynasties as a separate set. Several dynasties stand out as imperial, while others are civic, and these have been brought into separate parts of the Catalogue. This mammoth unique study of the ruling families of the ancient world known to the Greeks and Romans is a book of two parts. The first offers analysis and discussion of various features including the leading families and examines patterns, similarities and contrasts, categorises types of dynasty and explores common themes such as how they were founded and maintained, the role of women, and the various reasons for their decline. The second part is a catalogue of all known dynasties, over 150 of them, known to have existed between approximately 1000BC and AD750, from the Atlantic Ocean to Baktria, roughly modern Afghanistan. It gives genealogical tables and tells where and when they held power. And the whole forms a valuable study and reference to the families who ruled the Classical world. Of course it also covers usurpations, coup d'état, restorations, election, chieftains, complications and more. 512 pages, many tables.

The first examination of the seedier side of the canal routes which were, for almost two centuries, Britain's major transportation network. Even when traffic routes on canals imposed a speed limit of four miles an hour, criminals were still aboard and in what was seen as the fastest growing area of Britain's leisure industry. Books have been written retelling tales of bandits, footpads, highwaymen attacking the lone traveller, horseman, coachman, shipping line, locomotive engineer, lorry or van driver and even pilot. For almost two centuries the majority of goods travelled on Britain's famed canal network and this also attracted felons of all kinds, yet many of these tales have been largely ignored until now. From murders to muggings, parental problems to pilfering, arson, assault, smugglers, counterfeiters and even road rage canal-style, we follow the policeman on foot chasing down a thief on board the narrowboat and discover what really lies beneath the waters of the canal. Learn also about canal etiquette, the hardships, the kindness and the cruelty. Chapters cover dozens of characters from William Hancock in 1826, Ann Bridges in 1847 to Southwick's Iron Foundry, Counterfeit Coin and one character just named Annie (just like our editor!) in 1915; Annie being the name of the vessel central to the story when she struck something beneath the waterline while travelling the Forth and Clyde Canal in a prosecution described as 'an act of piracy'. Fascinating social history. 120pp in illustrated large paperback.

Designed for children but a fantastic revision course with hundreds of specially commissioned colour artworks to enjoy and maps and fact boxes, we believe adults will appreciate the clear layout of this superb resume. Beginning with the ancient lands 500,000 to 700BC and including chapters on Flint and Stone, The First Farmers, Stones of Mystery and Places of the Dead, Metal and Pottery, we then move on to the Celts and Romans 700BC to AD446 with chapters on The Masters of Iron, Druids and Mistletoe, Roads and Towns. The period AD446 to 1066 is entitled Raiders and Settlers and looks at The Age of Arthur, Saxon Swords, The Making of Wales and England, Viking Raids, Alfred and the Danes and Macbeth's Scotland. The following chapters cover Castles and Knights, Palaces and Players, World Power and The Modern Age and includes the Crusades, the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the Roses, Shakespeare's Genius, the Spanish Armada, Royalty, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Factory Age, World Wars, the Cold War, Ireland North and South, Left, Right or Centre and Looking to the Future. With super timeline and fact boxes as we find out about fossilised bones and stone tools, the first mines, Hastings 1066, knights in armour, clashes of faith, treason and gunpowder, asylum seekers, a textile revolution, puffing billies, the Gold Rush, dance music to climate change. 384 magnificent pages for ages 10 and up. 22.8 x 18cm.

Sub-titled 'The Story of a Tangled Inheritance', what would you do if you found out that your ancestors were slave owners? Richard Atkinson was in his late 30s and approaching a milestone he had long dreaded, the age at which his father died, when one day he came across a box of old family letters gathering dust on top of a cupboard. This discovery set him on an all-consuming, highly emotional journey, ultimately taking him from the weather-beaten house of his Cumbrian ancestors to the abandoned ruins of their sugar estate in Jamaica. His search has led him to one forebear in particular, an earlier Richard Atkinson, a West India merchant who had shipped all the British army's supplies during the American War of Independence, and amassed staggering wealth and connections along the way. 'Rum' Atkinson died young, at the height of his powers, leaving a vast inheritance to his many nephews and nieces, as well as the society beauty who had refused his proposal of marriage. Described as 'a real page-turner, the subject matter is Georgian-era merchants, early merchant banks, the American War of Independence, slavery, trade, war with France, sugar and abolition', and defying classification, this is part political thriller and definitely a history of what could be described as a British Alexander Hamilton figure. 502pp including historical line art and colour photos and other images.

'The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America' is the sub-title of this original combination of cutting edge scholarship and vivid prose. Few individuals, European or Native American, had as much impact on early America as the Pamunkey leader Opechancanough. Generally he plays a brief part as a violent and tragic figure but in contrast renowned historian of early Virginia James Horn reconstructs a remarkable life story that spanned a century at a time when America was digging more deeply into its origins. This eye-opening narrative challenges well-worn tales of Pocahontas and congenial first encounters with a grim record of kidnapping, starvation and total war. In the mid-16th century, Spanish explorers in the Chesapeake Bay kidnapped an Indian youth, took him back to Spain, and subsequently Mexico. During this time abroad, the boy lived in Madrid, Seville, Havana and Mexico City, becoming a favourite of King Philip II and converting to Catholicism. Eventually after nearly a decade he returned to Virginia with a group of Jesuits to help establish a mission. Shortly after arriving however, he abandoned his fellow missionaries, rejoined his family, and soon organised a war party that killed the Spaniards. In the years that followed, Opechancanough, as the English called him, helped establish the most powerful chiefdom in the mid-Atlantic region. When English settlers founded Virginia in 1607 he fought tirelessly to drive them away, leading to a series of wars that spanned the next 40 years, the first Anglo-Indian wars in America, and came close to destroying the colony. But the English settlers proved more resilient than the Spanish missionaries had been 40 years earlier. Additional soldiers, weapons and provisions arrived from England, forcing Opechancanough to continue his offensive for decades. He survived to be nearly 100 years old and died as he lived, fighting the invaders. 296pp, maps and woodcut illustrations.

Blending biography and history this is a highly readable account of Winston Churchill's adventures as a young war correspondent from the jungles of Cuba and the mountains of the North-West Frontier to the banks of the Nile and the plains of South Africa. Enthralled by combat, cigars and whisky, young Winston showed extraordinary courage and tenacity under fire. He was the brazen foreign correspondent covering wars of empire in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa and in those far-flung corners of the world he reported from the front lines between 1895 and 1900. He mastered his celebrated command of language and formed strong opinions about war. He thought little of his own personal safety, so convinced was he of his destiny, jumping at any chance to be where bullets flew and canons roared. Based on his private letters and war reportage, the book intertwines young Winston's daring exploits in combat, adventures, and rise as a major literary talent, experiences that shaped the world leader he was to become. The huge public interest generated by his South African activities, his capture and subsequent escape provided the final boost Churchill needed to edge his way as a Conservative into the formerly Liberal parliamentary seat of Oldham. 309 exciting pages, photos.

Beginning with the medieval trial by ordeal, which entailed carrying a red-hot iron bar in your bare hand for a certain distance, through to the stretching on the rack of political prisoners and the mutilation of those found guilty of sedition, the evidence clearly shows that Britain has relied heavily upon torture, both at home and abroad, for almost the whole of its history. Branding with red-hot irons of blasphemers during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, libelling the monarch in Elizabethan England could result in having the right hand chopped off, the rack, breaking on the wheel (occasionally inflicted in Scotland but never in England), thumb screws used with a variety of names such as pilliwinks, slaves branded and whipped, gibbetting alive by hanging a man in chains to die of exposure and thirst, roasting over a slow fire prolonging death for hours, hanging drawing and quartering, the pillory being stoned to death, the ducking stool, flogging in the 1860s and medieval waterboarding used as late as the 1970s by the British Army in Northern Ireland are illustrated and described. Not a book for the fainthearted. 145pp.

Most of us learned in schooldays that Romulus was the son of a god; he was left for dead until a she-wolf rescued him; sometime later, he murdered his brother Remus and ultimately established Rome. Few people know much more about Rome's purported founding father than this because historians have in large part disregarded him and there are at least 60 different extant histories of Rome's founding. The book is presented not as history but as the myth that later Romans knew well and the kernel of truth within the Romulus legend. Born to a Vestal Virgin and left for dead as an infant near the Tiber River, his early life nearly ended as quickly as it began. A humble shepherd rescued the child and helped raise him into manhood. As Romulus grew older, he fearlessly engaged in a series of perilous adventures that ultimately culminated in Rome's founding, and he became its fabled first king. Establishing a new city had its price, and Romulus was forced to defend the nascent community. He tirelessly safeguarded Rome and proved that he was a competent leader and talented general, yet he also harboured a dark side which tainted his legacy. But despite all his misdeeds, redemption and subsequent triumphs were usually within his grasp. 'A delicious book that will satisfy any Roman/Latin language lover.' 284pp, maps.