Cities, economies and national infrastructures of every kind were reduced to rubble by the end of WW2. Betts looks at the efforts made by western European countries to rebuild their societi... read more
This epic tale of the Sassoons and the Kadoories in 1930s Shanghai is like 'Dynasty' transferred from Texas to the global stage of China-Baghdad-London in the 1930s.
NB Publ... read more
Takes the reader from the earliest written accounts to the present in vivid portraits. The empress Masako is there, and presumably princess Murasaki Shikibu, whose diary is not only fascina... read more
A superb account of how European imperialism in Asia was undermined by a network of ingenious radicals, who used printing presses, global travel and the colonisers' languages to spread their... read more
Berlin is defined by its many edges - the blurred edge between Huns and Slavs, pagan and Christian, the competing spheres of influence of Western Europe and Russia, autocracy and democracy, ... read more
The author is a distinguished historian; as professor of British history at Stanford, she has a commanding view of the Empire and its changing narratives. Original and well-informed.
A zesty account of archaeological wizardry, from Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon.