History Ages

From a neurologist and the award-winning author of The Sleeping Beauties, a meticulous and compassionate exploration of how our culture of medical diagnosis can harm, rather than help, patients. We live in an age of diagnosis. Conditions like ADHD and autism are on the rapid rise, while new...

A fascinating new portrait of Medieval Britain that brings together the everyday and the extraordinary. Using wide-ranging evidence, Martyn Whittock shines a light on Britain in the Middle Ages, bringing it vividly to life. Thus we glimpse 11th century rural society through a conversation between a ploughman and his master. The life of Dick Whittington illuminates the rise of the urban elite.

From the bestselling author of The Storm Before the Storm and host of the Revolutions podcast comes the thrilling story of the Marquis de Lafayette’s lifelong quest to defend the principles of liberty and equality Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette...

There are very few national relationships quite as complicated and enigmatic as the one that exists between the English and the Irish. For two peoples so interconnected by geography and history, the depth of animosity that is often expressed is difficult at times to understand. At the same time, historic links of family and clan, and common Gaelic roots, have at times fostered a degree of mutual regard, interdependence, and cooperation that is also occasionally hard to fathom. During World War I, for example, Ireland fought for the British Empire as part of that empire.

In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. Instead, in the time-stopping soils, water, and ice of the North, Eleanor Barraclough excavates a preserved lost world, one that reimagines a misunderstood society.

When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution.

The Secret of the Ages should rightfully be called the original The Secret. It is one of the pioneering works on the powers of the universal mind and the subconscious mind.

In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the...

Hanna Slivka is on the cusp of 14 when Hitler's army crosses the border into Soviet-occupied Ukraine. Soon, the Gestapo closes in, determined to make the shtetele she lives in "free of Jews". Until the German occupation, Hanna spent her time exploring Kwasova with her younger siblings, admiring the drawings of the handsome Leon Stadnick, and helping her neighbor dye decorative eggs. But now she, Leon, and their families are forced to flee and hide in the forest outside their shtetele—and then in the dark caves beneath the rolling meadows, rumored to harbor evil spirits.

When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.

For Coming of Age, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Peabody Award-winning radio host Studs Terkel - himself an octogenarian - interviewed several very different men and women ranging in age from 70 to 99. Some are powerful celebrities (Maggie Kuhn of the Grey Panthers, economist John Kenneth Galbraith); others are obscure people in small towns. Together they represent an extraordinary panorama of American life and work throughout this century and the ways in which the times have changed.

Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025. Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning...

From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.

From the author of NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO, a powerful story of war in our time, love of country, the experience of tragedy, and a platoon at the center of it all. This story might sound familiar at first: it is about a platoon of mostly nineteen-year-old boys sent to Afghanistan, and an...

The history of England can be said to have begun with the arrival of Julius Caesar in 54 BC. Four hundred years later, Romano British civilization came to an end with the withdrawal of Roman military protection and the onslaught by successive waves of Germanic invasions. Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Norsemen ravaged Britain for almost 500 years. The native Celtic peoples were displaced and driven westward into present-day Wales, where their descendants dwell to this day.

The acclaimed, bestselling author—winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize—tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s...

From the critically acclaimed author of The 25th Hour and When the Nines Roll Over and co-creator of the HBO series Game of Thrones, a captivating novel about war, courage, survival — and a remarkable friendship that ripples across a lifetime. During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev...

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century. From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New...

Discover the beguiling history of witchcraft, magic, and superstition through the centuries and across the world in this stunningly audiobook. A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult charts the extraordinary narrative of one of the most interesting and often controversial subjects in the...

Philosophy has often seemed like the castor oil of the disciplines: healthy, but never pleasurable, and best when swallowed quickly and forgotten. Will Durant’s classic The Story of Philosophy is a welcome remedy for this misconception, and—in view of the fact that it is nearly 100 years old—a remarkably refreshing one. This deluxe edition includes The Age of Faith, the fourth volume in the great series, The Story of Civilization. It covers the years 1095—the launching of the First Crusade—and 1300.