by Charles Spencer. The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 is one of the greatest disasters England has ever suffered. In one catastrophic night, the king’s heir and the flower of Anglo-Norman society were drowned and the future of the crown was thrown […]
By Marc Morris. Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign […]
By Roger Crowley. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 signaled a shift in history and the end of the Byzantium Empire. Roger Crowley’s readable and comprehensive account of the battle between Mehmet II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the […]
By Brendan Simms. The true story, told minute by minute, of the soldiers who defeated Napoleon. Europe had been at war for over twenty years. After a short respite in exile, Napoleon had returned to France and threatened another generation of fighting […]
By Christopher Hibbert. I think most of us have heard of the French Revolution and perhaps some of the characters in it. Up until reading this book however, the closest I’d come was playing Assassins Creed Unity! The French Revolution was a period […]
By Dan Jones July 1346. The Hundred Years’ War has begun, and King Edward and his lords are on the march through France. But this war belongs to the men on the ground. Swept up in the bloody chaos, a tight-knit company […]
By Robert Harris. ‘From what is it they flee?’He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, ‘They killed the King.’ 1660. Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, cross […]
By Keith Thomson Discover the “fascinating and outrageously readable” account of the roguish acts of the first pirates to raid the Pacific in a crusade that ended in a sensational trial back in England-perfect for readers of Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough […]
By Juliet Barker. Agincourt took place on 25 October 1415 and was a turning-point not only in the Hundred Years War between England and France but also in the history of weaponry. Azincourt (as it is now) is in the Pas-de-Calais, and […]
By Cecil Woodham-Smith. This history is a war story of astonishing courage and honor, of stupidity, of blood, death, agony — and waste. Nothing in British campaign history has ever equaled the tragic farce that was the charge of the Light Brigade […]