Sejanus was feared, loathed, despised and loved, but he was above all a consummate and immensely gifted politician. He became a master of all through his control of imperial gifts and honours due to the increasing reluctance of Tiberius to fulfil his role as Emperor. Tiberius had become increasingly frustrated by the futility of encouraging the Senate to take responsibility for the governance of the Empire. In Ancient Rome, power lay in the ability to distribute resources, wealth, offices and honours, and Sejanus filled the space once occupied by his master. He is presented in our overwhelmingly hostile sources as a sinister figure, consumed by ambition who used proxies to eliminate his rivals. L Aelius Sejanus was born around 20BC into a world of intense political, social and economic change while the fabric of the old traditional Roman order and Republican aristocracy was decimated by years of civil war. The infamous Praetorian Prefect Sejanus is now synonymous with over-reaching ambition, murder, conspiracy and betrayal. The traditional storyline is that he craved the imperial throne for himself and isolated the naïve Emperor in his island pleasure palace on Capri while using his control over the Praetorian Guard, coupled with his immense power and influence in Rome to purge the capital of potential opponents. His victims supposedly included the emperor's son Drusus, poisoned by his own wife who had been seduced by Sejanus. The Emperor, warned of Sejanus' ambition, struck first, and the Prefect was arrested in the Senate, strangled, and his corpse cast down the Gemonian Stairs. A fresh reappraisal, 312pp, colour photos and timeline.

The cobalt blue pendant-vaulted ceiling with golden lettering and decoration at Hampton Court Palace has been restored and is exactly what Henry VIII would have seen. Angels Costumes has eight miles of hanging rails and is an 'unparalleled dressing up box' housing more than a million costumes and accessories, military uniforms, medals, insignia and outfits for actors. The Daily Express building in Fleet Street has a stunning Art Deco lobby. Television Centre White City has a statue of the sun god Helios outside its curved exterior. The Royal Hospital Chelsea, Old Royal Naval College, the Honourable Artillery Company, Old Bailey, 10 Downing Street, Big Ben, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the disused Aldwych Underground Station, BT Tower, the Thames Barrier, Battersea Power Station, Mansion House, the Bank of England, Repton Boxing Club, Lord's Cricket Ground, St Sophia's Greek Orthodox Cathedral, New West End Synagogue, King Henry VIII's Wine Cellar to Tower Bridge, we embark on a thrilling tour of the hidden interiors of some of London's most iconic buildings. Celebrated photographer Peter Dazeley takes us deep into the boiler room of the city's infrastructure, into the changing rooms of our greatest temples of sport, into the heart of the Establishment, and behind the scenes at the most opulent buildings, livery companies and halls in the Square Mile. Some buildings are derelict, many still working and all of these extraordinary buildings are accompanied by the story of how each of these places was created, how they are used, and what they reveal about the currents of power flowing through the city. These are doors which may be otherwise closed to us in a magnificent volume, revised and updated in 2017 to include the royal palaces of Hampton Court, the Tower of London and Inigo Jones's Banqueting Hall at the Palace of Whitehall, the Royal Courts of Justice Supreme Court and Bow Street Magistrates' Court. Blazing in colour, a superb heavyweight 272 page publication, 24.8 x 31cm.
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There has been a widespread tendency to disregard anti-Judaism, whether expressed in a casual remark or implemented through pogrom or extermination campaign, as somehow exceptional, an unfortunate indicator of personal prejudice, or the shocking outcome of an extremist ideology married to power. But in his magisterial history, David Nirenberg explores anti-Judaism from antiquity to the present, from the Ancient Egyptians who resented their Jewish neighbours, to the ideas of Voltaire and Marx, thereby revealing it to be a mode of thought deeply embedded in the Western tradition. With intolerance and racism on the rise against the West, Nirenberg's central argument is as urgent and as timely as it has ever been. Dark as its subject may be, the book is full of delights. Chapters cover The Road to Emmaus, The Road to Damascus, Making Sense of the World in Jewish Terms, Jewish Enmity in Islam, Jews and Power in Medieval Europe, The Spanish Inquisition, Acting Jewish in Shakespeare's England, 'Israel' at the Foundations of Christian Politics 1545-1677, and Philosophical Struggles from Kant to Heine. Special import. 610pp in sturdy paperback.

Maria Theresa was the first Holy Roman Empress to rule in her own right. Her father, Charles VI, changed the law so that she could do so, and in 1740 at the age of 23, pregnant with her fourth child, Maria Theresa became Empress of the vast Habsburg empire, with lands covering the modern Germany, Syria, former Czechoslovakia and part of the Netherlands. She immediately had to face an alliance between her neighbours Protestant Prussia and Catholic France as the War of the Austrian Succession got under way, and faced by a coalition against her, Maria Theresa played them off against each other, offering territory in her efforts to persuade one of them to break the alliance. Frederick of Prussia was willing to do so in return for Silesia, but wanted it kept secret. By 1757 she felt she was winning. Meanwhile her daughters Maria Christina ("Mimi"), Maria Carolina ("Charlotte") and Marie Antoinette had made dazzling marriages to European royalty, though the latter ended very badly. This book examines in depth the extent to which the fate of each of the daughters was influenced by the battles and family relationships between each other and with their mother. After attracting the lesbian attentions of her sister-in-law Isabella of Parma, Mimi fell in love with her cousin Albert of Saxony. At first she was thwarted by dynastic considerations, but the sudden death of her father paved the way. She became governor-general of the Austrian Netherlands. Maria Carolina, "Charlotte", was married by proxy to the King of Naples following the death of one sister and disfiguration from smallpox of another, and found the intimacy of marriage an unhappy experience, but she gained Ferdinand's confidence by pretending to love him, and quickly became the effective ruler of Naples. Marie Antoinette was also married by proxy, at the age of 14, to the King of France and her marriage, like her sister's, was made problematic by the unreliable character of her husband, who was to become Louis XVI. Glamorous and ambitious, she became the most famous princess in history. As the country's financial crisis cemented hostility to the ruling family, the French Revolution got under way. Marie Antoinette's sister Mimi had to flee Brussels, but Marie Antoinette's husband left it too late and the royal family was captured as they headed for rural France. The backdrops are the brilliant courts of Vienna to Versailles, the exotic lure of Naples and Sicily. 616pp, colour photos, maps.

This is the history of the Khmers, the people who for thousands of years inhabited the wooded interior of Cambodia. 150 years ago the representatives of imperial France were astonished to find half-buried within the jungle the still magnificent ruins of vast temples. Justly described as one of the wonders of the world, these were the remnants of the once great Angkor Empire. Since then, archaeologists and historians have attempted to piece together its history. This book presents the rise of Angkor which is usually dated to the early 9th century and the accession of Jayavarman II, although the consolidation of the Cambodian nation, marked by a record of impressive religious constructions, was a fitful process begun many years earlier and continuing over many centuries. By the 11th century the empire claimed dominion over large parts of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos and this book describes its organisation, the daily life of kings, priests and farmers and the work of the craftsmen who created in stone and bronze the imperial and religious centres of power. Interspersed with great events and dramatic figures, the book presents both the classic vision of this civilization and the latest theories about it and includes incisive anecdotes. Superbly well illustrated with full page colour photographs with captions explaining the complexity, the decorated figures and pillars, four-headed images, citadels, enclosure walls, exquisitely detailed carving stones, reliefs, the provincial capital, central towers and anthropomorphic statues with monkey heads and more. Large softback 29.85 x 33cm, 208pp, colour.
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This classic account of the event that changed the course of World War I was first published in 1956 and revised in 1996. The huge Cunard passenger ship Lusitania was torpedoed on 7 May 1915 and sank quickly, with a loss of 1198 lives. With her revolutionary turbines she had pushed transatlantic speeds up several knots, and her elevators, complete electrification and rudimentary air conditioning set a standard of comfort well into the following decades. The disaster brought America into the war, although the authors dismiss suggestions that Churchill suppressed information about nearby U-boats in order to bring about this outcome. Rumours of gold bullion, however, have never been satisfactorily answered. The U-20 captained by Kapitanleutnant Schwieger struck near the Irish peninsula of Kinsale. The book follows a wide range of passengers including Charles A. Plamonden and his wife, a machinery manufacturer, who along with several other passengers received a mysterious telegram warning him not to travel. Businessman Edward B. Bowen cancelled his sailing because of a premonition. The German embassy in Washington issued a warning about sailing into British waters, but it was dismissed by the manager of Dewar's whisky, who was also travelling, as "tommyrot". Mme de Page was a charity worker raising funds for Belgian relief, while the fabulously wealthy Alfred Vanderbilt was travelling along with the playwright Justus Forman. The realities of the war had not sunk in to many Americans, and the author alternates scenes aboard the U-20 with social life on board the Lusitania. There was a nursery for first class passengers, though the majority of children were in second. Six year old Ellen Smith, rescued by a Canadian journalist, lost her mother, father and sister. Survivor Elizabeth Duckworth, a steerage passenger returning to her home in Blackburn, jumped from one lifeboat to another in order to help with the rowing. Vivid descriptions of the sinking come from the eyewitness testimonies of survivors, for instance Theodate Pope or Margaret Mackworth who jumped 60 feet into the sea, while the experiences of those waiting for news are poignantly described. 259pp, paperback, photos.

Written by the inimitable Zahi Hawass in collaboration with underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio, this richly illustrated book chronicles the life of Cleopatra and the centuries-long quest to learn more about the queen and her tumultuous era, the last pharaonic period of Egyptian history. A legendary temptress, Cleopatra has captivated the world for 2,000 years and here is her story, illustrated with stunning artefacts in book form for the first time ever. Gods and sphinxes, sacred objects of worship, priceless jewellery, and the simple relics of everyday life all saved from the desert or the sea, they bring back the humanity, culture and beliefs of the people who made them, and who served the empire ruled and lost by Queen Cleopatra. In a deep green sea, flanked by sphinxes on either side, a priest stands as if about to process through the murky water in a superb double page colour photograph. On coins we see the head of Ptolemy I, with diadem and aegis around his neck. Measuring nearly 5m tall and found in separate pieces in Heracleion's underwater ruins, a magnificent Ptolemaic king wears a double crown signifying the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the Pharoah. Made of red granite, there is a fantastic photograph of the researchers hoisting the immense statue out of the water. Basins, strainers, braziers, amphora, columns engraved with Greek descriptions, ancient documents and the gleaming golden jewellery collection are among the hundreds of colour photographs in this heavyweight softback of 256pp. 20.3 x 25cm.

Sub-titled 'Forty Years of Letters Between Winston Churchill and His Mother', carefully edited and put into their historical context by David Lough. The early letters sent home from boarding school constantly ask his parents for more money and foreshadow Churchill's later financial recklessnesses. His mother Jennie Lady Randolph Churchill corresponded with her young son age six, and in 1921 the year of her death, mother and son were still prolific letter writers. Over those 40 years, Churchill's life saw army service in India, escape from a Boer POW camp, his swift ascent from Conservative MP for Oldham to Liberal First Lord of the Admiralty, resignation in the wake of the debacle of Gallipoli, and eventual return to the Cabinet in 1917. His mother's life by contrast is an extravagant and indolent life of the monied classes touring the houses of aristocratic friends and taking advantage of their hospitality. Her second marriage flounders and she becomes a lonely figure. As Winston joins Asquith's Cabinet and meets his wife-to-be Clementine, Jennie is getting divorced and making faltering attempts to embark on a literary career. Winston's letters back from India, Egypt and the First World War trenches demonstrates his disregard for personal safety. The letters reflect Churchill's emotional, intellectual and political development as confided to his mother as his mentor and charts a mother-son relationship characterised at the outset by young Winston's dependence on Jennie, which is dramatically reversed as her life crumbles towards its end. Brimming with gossip, name-dropping and chutzpah, and populated by a cast of the great and good of late Victorian and Edwardian England, there are very illuminating introductions to each exchange. A beautifully designed and illustrated tome of 610pp with satin pagemarker.

Sub-titled 'The Decline of Macedonian Europe In the Wake of the Wars of the Successors', for Macedon there was not the thousand years of glory that was the extraordinary destiny of the Romans, nor even the 200 years of Persian primacy, only 50 or so years of strife and trauma, ending in a Galatian deluge that threatened the sacred site at Delphi. This was the period during which Cassander and Lysimachus had seemed about to construct durable Europe-based processes of civil government. It had seen the likes of Demetrius Poliorcetes and Pyrrhus of Epirus battling and besieging across Macedonia, Thrace and Greece. So why was it that the Macedonian state virtually created by Philip II and taken to the heights of epochal triumph by his son Alexander the Great had, hardly two generations after his death, become a weaker entity than it had been when the young conqueror had crossed the Hellespont? The story that unfolds explores how the unique character and particular legacy left when Alexander died at Babylon in 323BC at the age of just 32 ensured that his homeland failed to gain the kind of imperial dividend of the world's other great empires. We see the remarkable parallels to the earlier Persian invasions of the Greek world that Alexander had claimed to avenge. 288pp, colour plates and maps.

From the invasion of the Franks and Mongols, this remarkable collection of artifacts and structures tells the story of the conflicts which shaped the nature of the Western World we know today, both in spiritual and geographical terms. Throughout almost the entire Medieval period, the Catholic church sanctioned military campaigns against what it perceived as its enemies. The rise of Islam and its spread across large parts of the Middle East, Asia, North Africa and even the peripheries of Europe saw Muslim warriors seize the Holy Land, occupy Jerusalem and threaten Constantinople. In response, Pope Urban II called for a crusade to retake the Holy Land, the first of nine military campaigns that continued for the next 200 years. Other lesser-known crusades were mounted with the aim of Christianising the more remote regions of northern and north-eastern Europe, as well as against the Cathars in Southern France. The advance of the Ottomans into the Balkans saw further crusades to halt the Muslims in Bosnia and Serbia, the reconquest of Spain from the Muslim Moors, and such diverse theatres of conflict have resulted in an equally diverse number of relics still to be found. Artillery, coats of arms, Crusader-struck coins, the pen boxes of prolific Muslim writers, Yemen and Saladin's bolt holes, camels carrying projectile weapons in Afghanistan, the invention of trebuchets, reliquary caskets decorated with colourful rock crystal, beautifully decorated minbars in the Court of the Mosque, Karak Castle in Jordan, Pisa Cathedral, Europe's oldest active synagogue in Prague, the Bayeux tapestry showing Duke William leading a charge of his Knights, the murder depicted from a 14th century illuminated manuscript and the Great Mosque of Córdoba, we enter a world of emperors, caliphs and sultans. Beautifully written by an acknowledged expert of the period, 100 objects of never seen before. 251 glossy pages, over 200 colour images.