The Indian and Pacific oceans constitute a forgotten quarter of this planet, brought here together perhaps for the first time in a sustained work of history by the Cambridge academic. The decades straddling the late 18th and early 19th centuries, called the 'Age of Revolutions', traditionally uncovers an Atlantic triangle of grand defence including the American Revolution, the French Revolution and revolts in the Caribbean and then independence movements in Latin America in the early 19th century. Among what was made anew are the organisation of politics, the conception of equality and rights, the mechanics of governance and empire, the status of labour and enslaved people, the workings of technology and science and the characterisations of nation and self. The intention of this history is to turn the story of the dawn of our times inside out and insist on the critical significance of the people and places in this oceanic tract. A sequence of voices across the sea embody an energetic indigenousness: Pacific Islander, Maori, Aboriginal Australian, Arab, Qasimi, Omani, Parsi, Javanese, Burmese, Chinese, Indian, Sinhalese, Tamil, Malay, Mauritian, Malagasy and Khoisan perspectives come into view. These and other peoples took passage as sailors, partners, fighters, labourers and travellers in these decades of unprecedented globalisation. Great empires, political units, kingdoms were realigned or organised from Oman to Tonga and Sri Lanka and venerable Eurasian empires were transformed at their maritime frontiers. Here is heavy militarised British Colonial states as the Empire spread with Allies and collaborators and sought to neutralise or adopt the ideas, people, structures and modes of organisation which arose from the age of revolutions from 1790 to 1850. Superbly illustrated throughout, very useful Timeline and series of maps. 468pp, 2020 first edition.

'The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and His Egyptian Rite' is the sub-title of this first English translation of the Egyptian Rite ever published. It tells the extraordinary story of a cult figure of European society in the tumultuous years leading up to the French Revolution. An alchemist, healer and Freemason, Count Alessandro Cagliostro inspired devotion and ridicule as well as novels by Alexander Dumas, a drama by Goethe, and Mozart's opera 'The Magic Flute'. Cagliostro's sincere belief in magical powers including immortality, conferred by his Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry, won him fame but made him dangerous enemies too. His celebrated travels through the Middle East and the capitals of Europe ended abruptly in Rome in 1789 where he was arrested by Inquisition and condemned to death for heresy. The authors examine the case made against him, that he was an impostor as well as a heretic, and find that the Roman Church and history itself have done Cagliostro a terrible injustice. They draw on new documentary evidence to prove him a genuine visionary and a true champion of Freemasonry, and his teachings have much to reveal to us today not just of the secrets of Freemasonry, but of the mysterious hostility the movement continues to attract. Cagliostro is remembered for his alchemical operations and there is an account of how on the 7th June 1780 he transmuted base metal into silver during a visit to a Masonic Lodge in Warsaw - see page 46. With 16 pages of photos, many in colour, there are 36 plates in total plus 11 illustrations including the magical consecration of a sword from the Key of Solomon, Vitruvian Man by da Vinci, the Alphabet of the Magi, and Cagliostro's Magical Seals. 317pp in large softback by the famous occult publisher Watkins.

From Scipio Africanus who combined apparent mysticism with iron determination, to Caesar, the aggressive and charismatic aristocrat, Goldsworthy looks at Rome's greatest generals and how and why they won their victories. He tells the story of Roman warfare from the bitter struggle with Carthage and the brilliant Hannibal in the 3rd century BC, to the last desperate attempt to win back the Western Empire in the 6th century AD. He traces the evolution of the Roman Army and the Roman political system which directed it and we meet the conqueror of Macedonia Aemilius Paullus, read about the fall of Numantia, about Caius Marius, Sertorius and the Civil War, Pompey the Great, Caesar in Gaul, Caesar against Pompey, the Imperial 'Prince' Germanicus beyond the Rhine, the Imperial Legate Corbulo and Armenia, Titus and the Siege of Jerusalem, Trajan and the Dacian Wars, Julian in Gaul AD356-60 and Belisarius and the Persians. With 15 maps and diagrams, 480pp in paperback reprint of the 2003 original.

When Will Hunt was 16 years old he discovered an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His first tunnel trips inspired a lifelong fascination exploring underground worlds from the derelict subway stations and sewers of New York City to sacred caves, catacombs, tombs, bunkers and ancient underground cities in more than 20 countries around the world. He tracks the origins of life with a team of NASA microbiologists a mile beneath the Black Hills, camps out for three days with urban explorers in the catacombs and sewers of Paris, descends with an Aboriginal family into a 35,000 year old mine in the Australian outback, and glimpses of sculpture moulded by Palaeolithic artists in the depths of a cave in the Pyrenees. Each adventure is woven with mythology and anthropology, natural history and neuroscience, literature and philosophy and told in an elegant and graceful prose. Feel the lure of the darkness and our desire to connect with what we cannot see. 'A fearless, eloquent and truly insightful guide, Will Hunt takes us through the hidden worlds beneath our feet, from guerrilla art galleries to ancient sacred chambers to lost worlds inhabited by lost souls. Along the way, Hunt initiates us into a suite of subterranean mysteries that span geography, culture and time, awakening the dormant but profound allure the underworld holds for us...' - John Vaillant. 276pp, illus, US first edition with tiny remainder mark.

Warfare results from disordered identity and in earlier times can be traced to the progress of urbanisation, or more recently to the ideology of the secular state being replaced by fundamentalist religious loyalties, which frequently assert that religion is more important than material wealth, a tendency seen not only in modern Islam but also in Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. The author of this book puts forward themes that challenge the received thinking about warfare, focusing on three arguments: that small wars are inevitable, that they will mostly be concentrated in areas where honour is valued and material possessions disdained, and thirdly, that most wars will use professional soldiers and elite forces to reduce the political costs. The book was published before the current war in Ukraine and the author notes that our politicians tell us that general war is unlikely. But he adds, "Wars just over the horizon of our awareness are nothing new, as the examples in this book will illustrate". He comments that we tend to worry about weapons of mass destruction, but points out that the jihadists on 9/11 used only box cutters to hijack the planes that did such massive damage and changed our world-picture. Spain and Portugal created the first great colonial empires, encouraging the exploitation of native peoples without provoking rebellion. Military historians of the 19th century were divided on whether the world could be controlled by conquering eastern Europe and central Asia, or whether sea power and domination of trade and coastlines was the route to global power. This debate lay at the back of the "Great Game", focused on the prevention of Russian expansion. Ignorance of the terrain in Afghanistan led to impossible expectations, but the British had better agents and were eventually able to stop Russian colonisation of India. It was only a matter of time until the British, too, lost their empire. 226pp.

By the middle of the 18th century there were 160 capital crimes, many of them reflecting the period's obsession with protecting property. You could be hanged for stealing goods worth five shillings, or, famously, for impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner. The author lists all the female victims of hanging in this period with a brief account of the charges against them, and she describes in detail the lives, alleged crimes and deaths of 20 of them. Of the 131 women hanged in the 40 years covered by this book, 91 were charged with murder or attempted murder, 23 for deceptions such as forgery or passing off forged documents, others for stealing and arson. The records make it clear that sometimes these women were acting under severe mental pressure, and some were almost certainly innocent. Insanity was a valid defence, in which case the woman would be consigned to an asylum, but evidence of previous erratic behaviour was required. Eliza Fenning was hanged for attempted murder by arsenic, and while it seems certain that arsenic poisoning took place in the family where she was in service, Eliza was hanged on the strength of her being able to read the label on the arsenic container. Mary Bateman, on the other hand, was undoubtedly guilty of running a quack medicine racket, extorting money for the exorcisms performed by "Miss Blythe", an imaginary and expensive medium from Scarborough, and adapting and improving a variety of scams as she became more proficient, one of which led to the death of Rebecca Perigo. Esther Hibner was effectively a slave-owner, two of whose apprentices died of neglect, while Sarah Price was the last woman to be hanged on forgery charges, in her case for passing a forged one-pound note. Includes chapters on baby murder among domestic servants, and husband poisoning. 236pp, chronology, photos.

The 10th anniversary edition featuring a new afterword, this is the untold story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Billy the Kid, aka Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim and William Bonney, was a horse thief, cattle rustler, charismatic rogue and cold-blooded killer. A superb shot, the Kid gunned down four men single-handedly and five others with the help of cronies. Two of his victims were Lincoln County, New Mexico, deputies killed during the Kid's brazen daylight escape from the courthouse jail on 28th April 1881. For the new sheriff, Pat Garrett, an acquaintance of Billy's, the chase was on. This fact-packed shoot-'em-up tale recreates the thrilling manhunt for the Wild West's most iconic outlaw and the author digs beneath the myth to take a fresh look at these two men and their epic ride to immortality. Unfazed, Billy spoke up: 'Mrs Lesnett, they can't hang me if I'm not there, can they?' Chapters include Outlaws and Lawmen, Facing Death Boldly, and Both Hero and Villain. 330pp, illustrated paperback.

A leading historian of English architecture, Simon Thurley was Chief Executive of English Heritage for 13 years and responsible for 420 sites and monuments including Stonehenge and has been director of the Museum of London and the Curator of Historic Royal Palaces. Life in the court of the House of Stuart has been shrouded in mystery. The first half of the century was overshadowed by the fall and execution of Charles I and the second half in the complete collapse of the House itself. Lost is the extraordinary contribution the Stuarts made to the fabric of sovereignty. When James I of England ascended the throne in 1603 he inherited an estate of dilapidated palaces, many barely renewed since the start of the reign of Henry VIII nearly 100 years before. The Stuarts would be in power for only 111 years, but in that short time they were to bring transformational change to the palaces and their contents, becoming the greatest builders and collectors of art of any Royal House. Every palace they built, painting they commissioned, or artwork they acquired was a direct reflection of the lives they led and the way they thought. We are taken from Royston and Newmarket where James I appropriated most of the town centre as a sort of rough-and-ready royal housing estate, to the steamy Turkish baths at Whitehall where Charles II seduced his mistresses. Hampton Court, Whitehall, Somerset House, Windsor Castle, Oatlands, St James's, Greenwich, Newmarket and Winchester, here are capital improvements, dignity and order, and of course the Civil War, republican residences, the court in exile, the Restoration and much domesticity and splendour in this celebration of the magnificence of sovereignty. It is in all a thrilling new history of the Stuart monarchy told through their palaces by one of the best architectural historians alive in the world, 'an impressive book - for its scholarship, for its easy didacticism.' - The Sunday Times. We also greatly admire in this heavyweight hardback how many colour plates, architectural drawings, woodcuts, maps and illustrations have been included. 543pp. Colour.

With a captivating dreamy musical score, authentic dramatisations, and a lilting historical narration, this fascinating documentary was first produced by Times Television. It is a superb introduction to the magical, beautiful and historical rich country of Ireland which has made a distinctive and lasting contribution to the world. Discover the treasured and haunting tapestry of events in this cultural adventure from the time of the Celts to the Williamite War, from the rise of the O'Connell to the Easter Rising and the revolutionary Michael Collins. 66 minute colour DVD with interactive menus.

Are the Freemasons the largest charitable organisation in the world, or a secretive society with an ulterior motive? With running time 47 minutes, this colour DVD film delves into a world of age-old allegory, infamous rituals and secret associations to reveal a fascinating, enigmatic and often misunderstood organisation. A series of fascinating interviews from current and ex-Freemasons offers an unprecedented look into the normally private world of Freemasonry. We explore the cloaked and veiled world from mystical symbolism to the declaration of Brotherly love, charity and truth.