In a particularly elegant diplomatic gesture, the Caliph Harun al-Rashid sent an elephant to Aachen in 802 AD. This fresh perspective draws on many Arabic sources.
The British empire observed through the lens of a single day: the 29th September 1923, when the Mandate for Palestine became law and the British empire reached its maximum extent, just as i... read more
Born in Kenya, the author was two when the Mau Mau uprising began. A powerful memoir of this very difficult period and the end of empire in Kenya.The author worked for many years for the BBC... read more
Xi Jinping is head of the CCP, head of state and commander-in-chief of the military, with an indefinite period in office; he's centralised power, increased state control of the economy and i... read more
The story of the first contact between the Haida and other indigenous peoples of the Pacific North West with Europeans - and what came after. Told very powerfully in a graphic form that comb... read more
Brilliant detective work by this French paleoanthropologist, who has studied Neanderthal traces from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and argues that their intelligence was different from our... read more