British History

Few outside the security services have heard of 14 Company. As deadly as the SAS yet more secret, the operators of 14 Company are Britain's most effective weapon against international terrorism. For every bomb that goes off, 14 Company prevent 12. The selection process is the most physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding anywhere in the world. This is the true story of one operator and of some of the most hair-raising military operations ever conducted on the streets of Britain.

From the story of the desperate man from 17th-century Amsterdam who grimly cut a stone out of his own bladder to Bob Marley's deadly toe, Under the Knife offers a wealth of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating room. What happens during an operation? How does the human body respond to being attacked by a knife, a bacterium, a cancer cell, or a bullet? And, as medical advances continuously push the boundaries of what medicine can cure, what are the limits of surgery?

Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, shy and genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous O'Connors in Kilgarret, Ireland. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth and Aisling O'Connor, a friendship which will endure through twenty turbulent years of change...

The extraordinary tale of survival and friendship between a man and a dog in World War II. Flight technician Frank Williams and Judy, a purebred pointer, met in the most unlikely of places: an internment camp in the Pacific. Judy was a fiercely loyal dog, with a keen sense for who was friend and...

“Strikingly original. . . . Nicolson brings to life superbly the horror, devastation, and gore of Trafalgar.” —The Economist Adam Nicolson takes the great naval battle of Trafalgar, fought between the British and Franco-Spanish fleets, and uses it to examine our idea of heroism and the...

Brittle with Relics is a vital history of Wales undergoing some of the country's most seismic and traumatic events: the disasters of Aberfan and Tryweryn; the rise of the Welsh language movement; the Miners' Strike and its aftermath; and the narrow vote in favour of partial devolution.

An evocative journey into early medieval Britain, where myth and wilderness intertwine – brought to life by Amy Jeffs’ original linocut art. Step into the wilderness of early medieval Britain with Wild, a captivating collection of myths, legends, and reimagined tales from the sixth to tenth...

“A witty, charming, delight of a book!” —Evie Dunmore, USA TODAY bestselling author A tart young woman and an arrogant lord collide in this flirty, sexy, and remarkably modern historical romance, perfect for fans of Bridgerton. Anna didn’t intend to ride in a high-stakes horse race or...

A sweeping biography of one of the most influential and successful business-women in American history, BECOMING ELIZABETH ARDEN opens the Red Door to a world of wealth, glamor, and the profitable business of beauty Elizabeth Arden was a household name on six continents and a millionaire several...

A tender and engrossing historical novel about the unlikely love affair between two great 19th-century poets, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. On a bleak January day in 1845, a poet who had been confined to her room for four years by recurrent illness received a letter from a writer she...

With Muse of Fire, Michael Korda, the bestselling author of Alone and Hero, takes a novel approach to World War I by telling its history through the lives of the soldier-poets whose verses memorialize the war's unimaginable horrors. He begins with Rupert Brooke and the halcyon days before violence engulfed his generation—destroying the self-contented world of Edwardian England—and ends with the tragic death of Wilfred Owen, killed only days before the armistice brought an end to a war that took over 25,000,000 lives.

Behind the locked doors of three mansions in London's exclusive Kensington Palace Gardens neighborhood, the British Secret Service established a highly secret prison in 1940: the London Cage. Here recalcitrant German prisoners of war were subjected to "special intelligence treatment." The stakes were high: the war's outcome could hinge on obtaining information German prisoners were determined to withhold. After the war, high-ranking Nazi war criminals were housed in the Cage, revamped as an important center for investigating German war crimes.

Rider Sandman, having fought Napoleon in the French wars, expected to lead the life of an English country gentleman, but now, two years after Waterloo, his family is impoverished, his name is disgraced and he has been forced to relinquish the woman he loves from her obligation to marry him...

From the author of the acclaimed Crooked Heart comes another “smart, funny, ingenious, revealing tale of London life during the Second World War” (The Independent)—longlisted for the Orange Prize upon its original publication in England. It is 1940. France has fallen, and only a narrow...

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...

SAILS ON THE HORIZON Dientes de Diablo, 1797 With his first historical high-seas adventure chronicling the exploits of Naval Commander Charles Edgemont, Jay Worrall sets sail in the rousing tradition of C.S. Forester and Patrick O’Brian. The year is 1797. Napoleon Buonaparte is racking up...

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.

Dynamite and Davey: The Explosive Lives of the British Bulldogs is the triumphant but ultimately tragic story of Tom Billington and Davey Boy Smith. Cousins born just a couple of years apart in a small mining town near Wigan, Tom and Davey discovered the art of wrestling as schoolboys. Tom went on to become the Dynamite Kid, arguably the greatest and most pioneering wrestler in history, but his short temper and determination to reach the top of a sport dominated by naturally bigger men would be his undoing.

On 28 May 1982, 450 men of the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment—2 Para—went into action to retake the settlement of Goose Green on East Falkland, where more than 1,000 Argentine soldiers were holding 119 Falkland Islanders—men, women, children and one baby—in squalid conditions. Forty years on, Goose Green is still the biggest and bloodiest battle the British Army has fought in modern times. This book is the living narrative of the battle told by the very men who fought it.

A riveting, heart-stopping family memoir that blends art, obsession, and love as the author searches for the spectacular jeweled egg that consumed her father’s dreams—and spelled her family’s downfall. When she was eleven years old, Serena Kutchinsky’s life changed forever. Her father...