Political History Biography

Niccolò Machiavelli is the most influential political writer of all time. His name has become synonymous with cynical scheming and the selfish pursuit of power, but the real Machiavelli, says Miles Unger, was a deeply humane and perceptive writer whose controversial theories were a response to the violence and corruption he saw around him. Machiavelli’s philosophy was shaped by the tumultuous age in which he lived, an age of towering geniuses and brutal tyrants. His first political mission was to spy on the fire-and-brimstone preacher Savonarola.

This “elegant and sobering” (The New York Times) history reveals how Germany’s fractured republic gave way to the Third Reich, from the breakthrough of the Nazi party to the rise of Hitler Amid the ravages of economic depression, Germans in the early 1930s were pulled to political extremes...

When William the Conqueror died in 1087, he left the throne of England to William Rufus . . . his second son. The result was an immediate war as Rufus's elder brother Robert fought to gain the crown he saw as rightfully his; this conflict marked the start of 400 years of bloody disputes as the English monarchy's line of hereditary succession was bent, twisted, and finally broken when the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, fell at Bosworth in 1485.

Based on unrivalled access to all the key politicians and their advisors - including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, George Osborne, Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings, the mastermind of Vote Leave - Shipman has written a political history that reads like a thriller and offers a gripping day-by-day account of what really happened behind the scenes in Downing Street, both Leave campaigns, the Labour Party, Ukip and Britain Stronger in Europe.

Part memoir, part history, part political manifesto, Seeking Social Democracy offers the first full-length treatment of Ed Broadbent's ideas and remarkable seven-decade engagement in public life. In dialogue with three collaborators from different generations, Broadbent leads listeners through a life spent fighting for equality in Parliament and beyond: exploring the formation of his social democratic ideals, his engagement on the international stage, and his relationships with historical figures from Pierre Trudeau and Fidel Castro to Tommy Douglas, Rene Levesque, and Willy Brandt.

“Practically every paragraph has a line or two that demands to be read aloud to the mirror, tattooed on foreheads, carved on tombstones.” –Rolling Stone “Morrissey is a pop star of unusual writing talent.” –The New York Times Autobiography covers Morrissey’s life from his birth...

“This is the book I have been waiting for.”—Rachel Maddow INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | The FBI veteran behind the Russia investigation draws on decades of experience hunting foreign agents in the United States to lay bare the threat posed by President Trump. “Peter Strzok is...

As President Barack Obama's adviser on Russian affairs, Michael McFaul helped craft the United States' policy known as "reset" that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. And then, as US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting, hopeful moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. This riveting inside account combines history and memoir to tell the full story of US-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of the hostile, paranoid Russian president.

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best - covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN - 24 hours of mainline news.

The decade of the 1790s has been called the "age of passion". Fervor ran high as rival factions battled over the course of the new republic - each side convinced that the other's goals would betray the legacy of the Revolution so recently fought and so dearly won. All understood as well that what was at stake was not a moment's political advantage, but the future course of the American experiment in democracy. In this epochal debate, no two figures loomed larger than Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

An inspiring survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China makes a passionate case that history is eerily repeating itself as the Woke Revolution spreads across America. Xi Van Fleet lived through the horrors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a schoolgirl. Forced to the countryside with...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Henry VIII: The Quest for Fame by John Guy, read by John Banks. Henry VIII's reign transformed the physical and spiritual landscape of England. Magnificent, tyrannical, a strong ruler, a 'pillager of the commonwealth', this most notorious of kings remains a figure of extreme contradictions: a devout traditionalist who oversaw a cataclysmic rupture with the church in Rome, a talented, charismatic, imposing figure who nevertheless could not bear to meet people's eyes when he talked to them.

In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time: Greg Mortenson's one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.

Dive deep into the lives, successes, and failures of some of the most successful, and wealthiest, men on the planet - Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jack Ma, and Richard Branson - and discover what drove them all to become super achievers.

From a member of the Pussy Riot collective: An urgent, intimate, firsthand account of grassroots dissent, bravery, art, and spectacle in Putin's Russia Picking up where Riot Days left off, Maria (Masha) Alyokhina takes us through her activist experiences between 2014 to 2022. In vivid...

In the early 1990s, North America was the vibrant center of an increasingly democratic and revitalized western hemisphere. The United States and Canada were close allies working together to implement a bilateral free trade agreement and build an integrated manufacturing and export economy. By the late 2000s, the economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries were strained as policies stagnated or slipped backward and passports were needed to cross the border for the first time in history.

Brought to you by Penguin. Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book distils Japan's long, complex and fascinating history into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. These vivid and entertaining portraits take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to...

Un muy joven Ernesto Guevara viaja por América Latina, junto a su amigo Alberto Granado, parten de Argentina y se enfrentan a aventuras y realidades que los transformarán para siempre. Vivido y entretenido diario de viaje del joven Che. Esta edición incluye fotografías inéditas tomado por Ernesto a los 23 años, durante su travesía por sudamérica y es presentada con un tierno prefacio de Aleida Guevara, quien ofrece una perspectiva distinta de su padre, el hombre y el icono de millones de personas.

A fresh look at the endlessly fascinating Tudors - the dramatic and overlooked story of Henry VII and his founding of the Tudor Dynasty - filled with spies, plots, counter-plots, and an uneasy royal succession to Henry VIII. Near the turn of the sixteenth century, England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy and civil war. Henry Tudor clambered to the top of the heap, a fugitive with a flimsy claim to England’s crown who managed to win the throne and stay on it for 24 years.

From 1934 until 1944, Mussolini met Hitler numerous times, and the two developed a relationship that deeply affected both countries. While Germany is generally regarded as the senior power, Christian Goeschel demonstrates just how much history has underrepresented Mussolini's influence on his German ally. Goeschel, a scholar of 20th-century Germany and Italy, revisits all of Mussolini and Hitler's key meetings and asks how these meetings constructed a powerful image of a strong Fascist-Nazi relationship that still resonates with the general public.