British History

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Elizabeth II: The Steadfast by Douglas Hurd, read by Jeremy Clyde. Elizabeth II is the longest-serving monarch who ever sat on the English or British throne. Yet her personality and influence remain elusive. This book, by a senior politician who has spent significant periods of time in her company, and is also a distinguished historian, portrays her more credibly than any other yet published.

Challenging conventional wisdom about where power is held on a global scale, Stern complicates the supposedly firm distinction between private enterprise and the state, offering a new history of the British Empire, as well as a new history of the corporation.

The thrilling true story of a British Army soldier who was determined to break free from Japanese captivity in World War II. Corporal Roy Pagani staged a daring escape from the Burma-Thailand Railway of Death, after already escaping twice from captivity, and set out to walk 1,000 miles to freedom in India through some of the most challenging landscape in the world. Along to way he endures great hardships, joins a guerrilla force, launches daring raids against the Japanese and faces betrayal and torture at every step. Can he make it to freedom where none have yet succeeded?

The gripping saga of the plane that carried Britain through the Second World War. In June 1940, the German army had brought the rest of Europe to its knees. 'Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world will move forward into broad, sunlit uplands,' said Churchill. The future of Europe depended on Britain.

In the winter of 1811, the war seems lost. All Spain has fallen to the French, except for Cadiz which is now the Spanish capital and is under siege. Wellington and his British army are in Portugal, waiting for spring to spark the war to life again. Richard Sharpe and his company are part of a small expeditionary force sent to break a bridge across the River Guadiana.

An altogether different kind of book on English gardens - the first of its kind - a look at the history of England’s magnificent gardens as a history of Britain itself, from the 17th-century gardens of Charles II to those of Prince Charles today.

A remarkable story of high hopes and crushing disappointment, the campaign contains moments of sheer horror and nerve-shattering excitement; pathos and comic relief; occasional cowardice and much selfless courage - all culminating in the climax of the First Battle of Ypres. And yet, as Peter Hart shows in this gripping and revisionary look at the war's first year, for too long the British part in the 1914 campaigns has been veiled in layers of self-congratulatory myth.

The life and adventures of Thomas Cochrane, a young man who rose from midshipman to admiral, are so extraordinary that, to paraphrase Patrick O'Brian, one has to suspend disbelief. In fact, O'Brian admitted to using Cochrane as the model for his character Jack Aubrey. Second only to Nelson among the heroes of the Royal Navy, Cochrane became a household name in Britain during the 1800s as the Admiralty called upon his extraordinary skill as a sailor, his mastery of gunnery, and his daring use of ruses...

The Tudors are a national obsession; they are our most notorious family in history. But, as Leanda de Lisle shows in this gripping new history, beyond the well-worn headlines is a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew. The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth, in 1485, before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family’s obscure Welsh origins, the ordinary man known as Owen Tudor who would fall (literally) into a Queen’s lap, and later her bed.

Published for the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, this poignant book examines the inspirations and individuals behind our statue-studded country to rediscover war-torn Britain in 100 monuments. Acclaimed historian Tessa Dunlop travels the length and breadth of the British Isles on a quest to uncover a story of national warring and national mourning, of fighting each other and of fighting together. Lest We Forget casts new light on the map of Britain through hidden treasures and uncomfortable truths, and asks what our war heroes and monuments say about us.

Born on Christmas Day, 1936, Princess Alexandra's birth was almost overshadowed by the abdication of her uncle, King Edward VIII. Yet public affection for this new addition to the Royal Family has only grown during a lifetime of dedicated royal service. In this biography, Helen Cathcart chronicles the first thirty years of Princess Alexandra's life, from the tragic death of her father when she was just five years old to her wartime childhood at Badminton living with her grandmother Queen Mary.

Following the events of Kristallnacht in 1938, Peter Fleischmann evaded the Gestapo’s roundups in Berlin by way of a perilous journey to England on a Kindertransport rescue, an effort sanctioned by the UK government to evacuate minors from Nazi-controlled areas. But he could not escape the British police, who came for him in the early hours and shipped him off to Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man, under suspicion of being a spy for the very regime he had fled.

2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to the shaping international law. Even today, 1 in 3 people drive on the left hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. Empireworld explores the ways in which British Empire has come to shape the modern world.

The last half century has seen society, technology, the character of conflict and the British Army itself all change greatly. From a low point in the 1970s, the Army’s war fighting capability increased in the 1980s in the face of a prospective war with the Soviet Union. This capability was then tested on operations from Kuwait in 1991 through to Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In The Weight of Vengeance, Bickham provides a provocative new account of America's forgotten war, underscoring its significance for both sides by placing it in global context. This shifting balance of power provided the United States with the opportunity to challenge Britain's dominance of the Atlantic world. territorial expansion.

The Battle of Culloden in 1746 has gone down in history as the last major battle fought on British soil: a vicious confrontation between the English Royal Army and the Scottish forces supporting the Stuart claim to the throne. But this wasn't just a conflict between the Scots and the English: The battle was also part of a much larger campaign to protect the British Isles from the growing threat of a French invasion.

The highly acclaimed unexpurgated notes taken by James Pope-Hennessy for his official biography of Queen Mary, the present Queen's grandmother. Published in full for the first time and edited by much-admired royal biographer Hugo Vickers. When James Pope-Hennessy began his work on Queen Mary's official biography, it opened the door to meetings with royalty, court members and retainers around Europe. The series of candid observations, secrets and indiscretions contained in his notes were to be kept private for 50 years....

The mixed population is the fastest-growing group in the UK today, but the mainstream conversation around mixedness is stilted, repetitive and often problematic. At a time when ethnically ambiguous models fill our Instagram feeds and our high street shop windows, and when children of interracial relationships are lauded as heralding in the dawn of a post-racial utopia, journalist Natalie Morris takes a deep dive into what it really means to be mixed in Britain today.

Robert Black was hunted down in Scotland where he had kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered three young girls from the ages of 4 to 11. But before graduating to murder, he abused many children. Black may also have been responsible for several other unsolved child murders in Britain, Ireland and Europe between 1969 and 1987. His murders led to the largest police manhunt ever to take place in Great Britain.

Fred West is said to have murdered at least 12 people, some of them together with his wife Rose. The victims were buried in the basement and garden of their home, which became later known as the House of Horrors. The couple tortured and even killed their own daughter. How it is possible that they have could commit their horrible acts for such a long time, even after several warnings to the authorities about the circumstances in the family, remains a question till this day.