Historical History

Intrepid voyager, writer and comedian Michael Palin follows the trail of two expeditions made by the Royal Navy's HMS Erebus to opposite ends of the globe, reliving the voyages and investigating the ship itself, lost on the final Franklin expedition and discovered with the help of Inuit knowledge in 2014.

This definitive biography of one of history's most influential father-son duos tells the story of two rulers who gripped the world - and their rise and fall from power.

After their fateful adventure in China, Captain Will Laurence of His Majesty's Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching.

In a 2010 terrorist plot, Al-Qaeda hid a bomb in a FedEx shipment addressed to Reynald de Chatillon, a knight who had died centuries ago in the Crusades. A reviled figure in Islamic history, often portrayed as the very epitome of brutality, Reynald remains as controversial - and as vividly present in the minds of many in the Middle East - as the story of the Crusades themselves.

Nell Martin is moving again, this time to the Winslow Grand Hotel, built in 1878. As Nell is settling in, strange things begin to happen. Doors lock of their own accord, writing appears on bathroom walls - and most horrifying of all - visions of a dead boy permeate her waking life. Thinking it was her mind playing tricks on her, she soon finds the past and the present colliding as she learns horrific details of a murder that happened at the hotel in 1907 involving a girl named Lea.

Will defied history and saved the Alamo. However, before the celebration even gets started, proof of a Comanche uprising the likes of which have never been seen before force Will to scramble for a solution to keep the frontier from going up in flames. This time, he doesn't know what the future holds. But he might be able to find an invention to give his troops a fighting chance, assuming there's enough time and his enemies don't kill him or remove him from command.

This is the story of the Italian tourist who became the first European to completely cross Asia. After returning home, he wrote a book about the amazing things he had seen. Even today, people still love hearing about his adventures!

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Eddy Okubo, a Japanese American teenager, is more determined than ever to prove his loyalty and worth as an American soldier. Graham Salisbury poignantly pens the historically accurate but fictional account of the special mission given to 26 Japanese American soldiers in the midst of WWII and a young man’s struggle between heritage and patriotism.

The definitive history of a powerful family dynasty who dominated Europe for centuries - from their rise to power to their eventual downfall.

Rome 174 AD. As the war continues in the north, Marcus Aurelius orders Gaius Maximus and Rufus Atticus to return to Rome. Enemies lurk in the shadows in the capital, spreading propaganda and sowing dissent. The praetorian guards must lure their enemies out - and defeat them. Yet Maximus is returning home for something, or rather someone, else: Aurelia. The soldier will be caught between his duty and his happiness. Rufus Atticus will also be forced to make a choice, between duty and family.

From the earliest civilizations to the 21st century: a global journey through human history, published alongside a landmark BBC One television series. Our understanding of world history is changing, as new discoveries are made on all the continents and old prejudices are being challenged. In this truly global journey, Andrew Marr revisits some of the traditional epic stories, from classical Greece and Rome to the rise of Napoleon, but surrounds them with less familiar material, from Peru to the Ukraine, China to the Caribbean.

For all the literature about Adolf Hitler, there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood, to his failures as a young man in Vienna, to his experiences during the First World War, to his rise as a far-right party leader.

Menedemos, the young dashing sea captain, and his helper (and cousin) the scholarly Sostratos, are back in their third adventure. This time around the two cousins end up in the Sacred Land, Jerusalem, where they encounter a strange religion. This fascinates Sostratos, who wants to learn as much as he can about the strange monotheists living there. The more worldly Menedemos looks toward more common pleasures, particularly those involving pretty women (not letting small inconveniences like their marriage to other men get in the way).

Let's start with two truths about our era: We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percentage of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-meaning but ignorant. Some of it is deliberately deceptive. All of it is pernicious. With the internet always at our fingertips, what's a teacher of history to do? Sam Wineburg has answers, beginning with this: If we want to educate citizens who can sift through the mass of information around them and separate fact from fake, we have to work to give them the necessary critical thinking tools.

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.

Her marriage is in her brother's gift to give, but in Simon de Montfort she meets a man of passion and charisma; a man for whom she is willing to defy convention; a man who harbors great ambition. When de Montfort rallies an army of peasants and barons who object to the king's absolute power, Eleanor finds herself torn between love and loyalty.

History has lied. Anne Boleyn has been sold to us as a dark figure, a scheming seductress who bewitched Henry VIII into divorcing his queen and his church in an unprecedented display of passion. Quite the tragic love story, right? Wrong. In this electrifying exposé, Hayley Nolan explores for the first time the full, uncensored evidence of Anne Boleyn’s life and relationship with Henry VIII, revealing the shocking suppression of a powerful woman.

In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly 20 years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilisation and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire.

Fatherland is set in an alternative world where Hitler has won the Second World War. It is April 1964 and one week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Xavier March, a detective of the Kriminalpolizei, is called out to investigate the discovery of a dead body in a lake near Berlin's most prestigious suburb. As March discovers the identity of the body, he uncovers signs of a conspiracy that could go to the very top of the German Reich.

After a devastating encounter with Japanese submarines at the Battle of Midway, American naval forces are left in disarray as Japan dominates the Pacific, but a bold plan for ambushing the Japanese offers the hope of giving the Americans a fighting chance again.