D-Day - June 6, 1944 - was a pivotal day in human history. This was the great turning point of the Second World War, when the largest armada ever assembled took a third of a million Allied men across the English Channel.The invasion force of 150,000 troops from Britain, the United States, Canada and many other nations fighting on the Allied side on D-Day under the command of Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery landed on five beaches to spearhead Operation Overlord, the invasion of German-oc...

This history of the pivotal WWII Battle of Stalingrad reveals newly translated firsthand accounts from Russian and German soldiers as well as civilians.In August of 1942, the German Army and Axis Powers invaded the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. The ensuing battle was one of the most protracted and bitterly fought conflicts of the Second World War. More than five months later, Germany was forced to retreat in what would be a major turning point in the war.

Journey to the seventeenth century and a dramatic period of political upheaval, plague, and fire, with this "vivid portrait of Restoration England" ( History Today).Inside Pepys' London reveals a vivid picture of London at a critical point in history, as it was poised to become a major center of international commerce and culture. It provides accounts of all aspects of contemporary life, from the arts and entertainment, to politics and religion.

Contemporary creative writers reflect on the past, present and future of the novelIn 2012-2013, a year-long conversation between writers took place at 17 literary festivals around the world, from Jaipur to Krasnoyarsk, and from Melbourne to Berlin. Distinguished novelists such as Irvine Welsh, Ahdaf Soueif and Ali Smith shared their thoughts on various aspects of contemporary literature the challenges it faces and the directions it is taking. This book is in part an anthology of the best o...

New York Times 'Could hardly be a more timely parable for our day' Evening Standard 'An engrossing and vivid impression of those terrible days' Sunday Express 'Absorbing. . .an excellent account of the two most fantastic years in London's history' This book chronicles the horror and human suffering of two of the most terrible years in London's long and vivid history. 1665 brought the plague and cries of "Bring Out Your Dead" echoed the city. A year later, the ...

Samuel Pepyss London was a turbulent, boisterous city, enduring the strains caused by foreign wars, the Great Plague and the Great Fire, yet growing and prospering. The Restoration in 1660 brought the reopening of the theatres, with women appearing on the stage for the first time, and the period saw the development of English opera and the first public concerts. Pepys lived through a time of change in a city of contrasts, which maintained a sophisticated cultural scene, yet was a focus for...

Adam Nicolson tells the story of England through the history of fourteen gentry families – from the 15th century to the present day. This sparkling work of history reads like a real-life Downton Abbey, as the loves, hatreds and many times of grief of his chosen cast illuminate the grand events of history.We may well be ‘a nation of shopkeepers’, but for generations England was a country dominated by its middling families, rooted on their land, in their locality, with a healthy inte...

In London: The Autobiography the life of the capital is told, for the first time, by those who made it and saw it at first hand.From Roman times to the 21st century, Londoners and visitors to the city have recounted the extraordinary events, everyday life and character of this unique and influential city - from politics, culture, sport, religion, and reportage.This book brings to vivid life the human trial of the capital including invasions by the Vikings, ...

(This ebook does not include illustrations.)This social history records the daily life of the English people from the time of the Norman Conquest to our own.Based on diaries, letters, memoirs, official reports, the works of modern social historians and the literature of every period, it traces the development of English society over 900 years.The chapters range over life in the castles, palaces and monasteries, in the homes of rich merchants and in the hovels of pea...

Collecting texts taken from letters, diaries, literature, scientific journals and reports, Pandæmonium gathers a beguiling narrative as it traces the development of the machine age in Britain.Covering the years between 1660 and 1886, it offers a rich tapestry of human experience, from eyewitness reports of the Luddite Riots and the Peterloo Massacre to more intimate accounts of child labour, Utopian communities, the desecration of the natural world, ground-breaking scientific exper...

William Hogarth is a house-hold name across the country, his prints hang in our pubs and leap out from our history-books. He painted the great and good but also the common people. His art is comically exuberant, 'carried away by a passion for the ridiculous', as Hazlitt said.Jenny Uglow, acclaimed author of Elizabeth Gaskell, Nature's Engraver and In These Times, uncovers the man, but also the world he sprang from and the lives he pictured. He moved in th...

'Fascinating scholarship. Todd conveys Behn's vivacious character and the mores of the time' New York Times'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn; for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds,' said Virginia Woolf. Yet that tomb, in Westminster Abbey, records one of the few uncontested facts about this Restoration playwright, poet of the erotic and bisexual, political propagandist, novelist and spy: the date of her death,...