The democratic experiment of 1918-1933, from defeat in WW1 to the rise of the Nazis. Jähner's description of living through this chaotic period is almost as thrilling as Hitchcock.
The remarkable diplomatic mission (Harriman for the US, Archibald Clark Kerr for Britain) that braced Stalin against the Germans and brought him into WW2 as an ally.
VM was the author of The Map of Knowledge, a compelling account of the survival of the ancient classics in the Muslim world, and their re-emergence in the West. Now she turns her attention t... read more
1870 was a cultural Golden Age, but it was also the background for the Dreyfus Affair and the violence of the Commune. This panorama is shown through the eyes of the age's personalities.
Following Cromwell's death, there were 10 changes of government in 2 years. Reece argues that there was still no great support for a return to the monarchy and yet, despite strong military b... read more
While the author's grandfather (Walter Runciman) tried to mediate between the new Czech Republic and the Sudeten Germans, her grandmother publicly favoured the Germans. This is a fascinating... read more
With Chartists, Diggers and Levellers among her cast, the revered Green MP for Brighton offers an inclusive account of Englishness that differs radically from that purveyed by the Right.
Addressing the heart of neoliberalism, JS considers the freedoms of corporations in relation to those of individuals.... And offers some alternatives to prevailing systems.
It has been raining - constantly - for years; in a city that is largely submerged, three sisters contend with a sinister legacy. Tender, spooky, apocalyptic.
A Japanese man tries to form a relationship with his half-French child, who has grown up on the other side of the world. The other side of the story told in A Single Rose, this nevertheless ... read more
A deliciously-written debut novel, in which a harried civil servant is assigned to help a Victorian time-traveller adjust to the C21st. By turns a romance, a thriller and an acid critique of... read more
Not all are hidden by luxuriant, pointy moustaches... The painter's only novel is a baroque and decadent tale set in the 1930s, first published in 1944.