A BBC History Magazine and Aspects of History Book of the Year 2025'Terrific – full of drama … it has profoundly altered my understanding of the Second World War' PATRICK BISHOPFROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SBS COMES AN EPIC HISTORY OF THE ALLIED VICTORY IN NORTH AFRICA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR.On 8 November 1942, British and American troops invaded French North Africa as part of Operation Torch, th...

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is Saul David's compelling examination of one of history's greatest battles.On 22nd January, at Isandlwana in Zululand, South-East Africa, the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its history. A camp of 1,700 men, armed with state-of-the-art weapons and two artillery pieces, was surprised and overwhelmed by a hu...

George Hart, back in England following his heroics in the Zulu Wars, scarcely has time to gamble away his meagre fortune when he is summoned to a secret meeting in Whitehall. There, Prime Minister Disraeli himself asks George to undertake a dangerous mission to Afghanistan. Mistrust and dislike for the local ruler chosen by the British is growing and Muslim extremists threaten to overthrow the local government. The British cannot allow the loss of Afghanistan, which would put at risk India...

John Reimer, minister of Lakeview Mennonite Church in Chicago, has survived several attempts on his life while looking into a gruesome killing at North Pond. He has also just lost his spouse. Everyone from district minister Waldo Wedel to Lakeview’s church moderator Nancy Huefflinger thinks they know what is best for John. What he can’t deny is that his extracurricular activities and tendency to question authority, including that of cops and aldermen, has both friends and detractors worrie...

John Reimer, a Mennonite preacher in Lakeview, Chicago, might be on the downslope of his ministerial career. At least that's how he feels most days. Then one morning in March a hungover waitress at the Melrose diner tells him to look into the murder of a bike messenger at North Pond--and begs him to keep the cops out of it. Before too long Reimer is making tracks through Chicago, asking a lot of questions, and leaving many people uncomfortable. Reimer encounters a menagerie of characters i...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFrom bestselling historian Saul David, a riveting new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War.The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. Created at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10,000-strong airborne divisions: the 1st, 6th and 44th Indian, each composed of ...

Given the increasing interest in the Victorian era an authoritative biography of Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood VC is long overdue. By any standards his career was remarkable and began with him in the Royal Navy in the Crimea before he transferred to the cavalry to see more action.

Saul David's All The King's Men is a thrilling history of the British Redcoat from the English Civil War to Waterloo.Between 1660 and 1815 British supremacy on foreign soil was near total. Central to this success was the humble redcoat soldier who showed heroism in battle and stoicism in peace, despite appalling treatment. This is their story: of brutal discipline and inedible food, of loyalty and low pay, of barracks and battlefield - of victory, defeat, ...

"The people of this land had simply vanished. They had left meals half-eaten, jobs half-done. Everywhere was the debris of daily life – knives, forks, spoons, tools, pens and pencils. There were tables carefully laid with plates of fossilised food, and there were work-desks spread with important-looking documents. Human life had once bustled and hummed in this city, but then mid-sentence everything had just ... This was now the realm of spiders. With a hundred years of patient industry, th...

Hailed as "masterly" (Wall Street Journal) and a "monumental achievement" (Douglas Brinkley), this book tells the riveting, true story of the group of elite US and Canadian soldiers who sacrificed everything to accomplish a crucial but nearly impossible WWII mission.In December of 1943, as Nazi forces sprawled around the world and the future of civilization hung in the balance, a group of highly trained U.S. and Canadian soldiers from humble backgrounds wa...

'A rattling good yarn... A compelling, sexy hero who could give Cornwell's Sharpe a run for his money' The Times on ZULU HARTLondon 1888: George 'Zulu' Hart is the mixed-race illegitimate son of a Dublin actress and (he suspects) the Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the army. George has fought his way through wars in Africa and Afghanistan, won the VC and married his sweetheart, but he's also a gambler, short of money and in no position to turn dow...