British Nonfiction History

America’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a...

A stunning narrative from one of the most powerful young writers at work today, and the director of the Oscar-nominated documentary, Sugarcane, We Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of...

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that probes the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe Sprawling across a...

For more than five thousand years, the land of Palestine has stood at the crossroads of civilizations. Empires have risen and fallen upon its soil, prophets have walked its hills, and generations of ordinary people have lived, loved, farmed, fought, and dreamed in this contested corner of the world. Today, the story of Palestine is often reduced to headlines about conflict—but its history is far richer, deeper, and more complex. In Palestine: A History Through Empires, Faith, and Struggle, Layla Al-Rami takes readers on a sweeping journey from the Bronze Age to the twenty-first century, ...

In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea...

America’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER This “excellent, all-embracing” (The New York Times) biography of Queen Elizabeth II is a magisterial study of the woman known only from a distance—and a captivating window into her decades-long reign. From the moment of her ascension to the throne in 1952 at...

A novel in The L.A. Quartet. Internationally acclaimed author James Ellroy presents another literary noir masterpiece of historical paranoia. Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns—it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an...

In The Women of Rothschild, Natalie Livingstone reveals the role of women in shaping the legacy of the famous Rothschild dynasty, synonymous with wealth and power. From the East End of London to the Eastern seaboard of the United States, from Spitalfields to Scottish castles, from Bletchley Park...

In this enthralling history, internationally bestselling author Max Hastings recounts the odds-defying Operation Biting, a 1942 parachute commando raid on Northern France to steal vital components of German intelligence—one of the most thrilling British commando raids of World War II, and one...

A forgotten clash that shaped empires — brought vividly to life. In the spring of 1741, the fate of the New World hung in the balance. At the height of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, one of the largest amphibious military campaigns in history descended upon the Caribbean coast. British forces—nearly 200 ships and over 25,000 men—set their sights on the fortified Spanish stronghold of Cartagena de Indias. Their goal: to break Spain’s grip on the Americas. What followed was a brutal and awe-inspiring siege filled with strategic brilliance, devastating miscalculations, tropical disease, ...

Brought to you by Penguin. When does a bandit become a monarch? When does a gang become a government? And is organised crime at the heart of every modern state? On a thrilling whistle-stop tour of how the world's criminal underbelly has shaped state-making, capitalism, globalisation and all...

A best-selling journalist’s illuminating tour through the hidden legacies and modern realities of British empire that exposes how much of the present-day United Kingdom is actually rooted in its colonial past. Empireland boldly and lucidly makes the case that in order to understand America, we...

The Victorians are often credited with ushering in our current era, yet the seeds of change were planted in the years before. The Regency (1811-1820) began when the profligate Prince of Wales - the future King George IV - replaced his insane father, George III, as Britain's ruler. Around the regent surged a society steeped in contrasts: evangelicalism and hedonism, elegance and brutality, exuberance and despair. The arts flourished at this time with a showcase of extraordinary writers and painters such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, the Shelleys, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER It was the most influential marriage of the nineteenth century–and one of history’ s most enduring love stories. Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naïve teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power...

In a life of extraordinary drama, Jane Boleyn was catapulted from relative obscurity to the inner circle of King Henry VIII. As powerful men and women around her became victims of Henry’s ruthless and absolute power, including her own husband and sister-in-law, Queen Anne Boleyn, Jane’s...

The monumental struggle fought against Imperial Japan in the Asia/Pacific theater during World War II is primarily viewed as an American affair. While the United States did play a dominant role, the British and Commonwealth forces also made major contributions. It was a difficult and often desperate conflict fought against a skilled and ruthless enemy that initially saw the British suffer the worst series of defeats ever to befall their armed forces.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The perfect companion to the PBS Masterpiece series Victoria A gripping account of Queen Victoria’s rise and early years in power from CNN’s official royal historian “Kate Williams has perfected the art of historical biography. Her pacy writing is...

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional prime minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style, and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last four years at Number 10 were a period of intense emotional and political turmoil in her private and public life.

As heard on the New Yorker Radio Hour: The triumphant and "engaging history" (The New Yorker) of the young women who devised a winning strategy that defeated Nazi U-boats and delivered a decisive victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. By 1941, Winston Churchill had come to believe that the...