This is a discussion of the transformation of drug use (especially morphine and cocaine, which was once commonly available in any chemist's shop) into a national menace. It revolves around the death of Billie Carleton, a West End musical actress, in 1918. Its cast of characters includes Brilliant Chang, a Chinese restaurant proprietor and Edgar Manning, a jazz drummer from Jamaica. They were eventually identified as the villains of the affair and invested with a highly charged sexual menac...

A journey through Europe’s old towns, exploring why we treasure them—but also what they hide about a continent’s fraught history“[A] fascinating chronicle.”—Benjamin Balint, Wall Street JournalHistoric quarters in cities and towns across the middle of Europe were devastated during the Second World War—some, like those of Warsaw and Frankfurt, had to be rebuilt almost completely. They are now centers of peace and civility that attra...

Marek Kohn - 'one of the best science writers we have' (AC Grayling) - paints an important and eye-opening portrait of Britain and Ireland after a century of global warming.Author of A Reason for Everything and Four Words for Friend Marek Kohn projects one hundred years into the future when, based on the climate change evidence we have now, some parts of Britain will be like regions of today's Mediterranean. But...

A fascinating journey through Europe's old towns, exploring why we treasure them—but also what they hide about a continent's fraught historyHistoric quarters in cities and towns across the middle of Europe were devastated during the Second World War—some, like those of Warsaw and Frankfurt, had to be rebuilt almost completely. They are now centers of peace and civility that attract millions of tourists, but the stories they tell about places, peoples, and nations a...

"Roland provides a well-balanced overview ... extensively illustrated and with timely coverage of some of the latest theories and research."-Stephen P. Ryder, Editor, Casebook: Jack the RipperMore than a century after he stalked the streets of London's East End, Jack the Ripper continues to exert a macabre fascination on the popular imagination.After scrupulously re-examining official documents of the time, investigative journalist ...

It was the drugs that made him murder. He liked to experiment with fatal dosages to see how much they could take. Fascinated with death, he had watched his mother die when he was a child. Killing his elderly lady patients sustained his endless evil urges and nourished his insatiable impulse to recreate his mother’s death...Read about the shocking medical murders of Dr Harold Shipman, along with the horrific killings of Dr Thomas Neill Cream and Dr John Bodkin Adams in this 3 in 1 T...

An eye-opening and vital account of the future of our earth and our civilisation if current rates of global warming persist, by the highly acclaimed author of ‘High Tide’.Picture yourself a few decades from now, in a world in which average temperatures are three degrees higher than they are now. On the edge of Greenland, rivers ten times the size of the Amazon are gushing off the ice sheet into the north Atlantic. Displaced victims of North Africa's drought establish a new colony o...

WINNER OF THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014.Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo scandal, An English Affair is a sharp-focused snapshot of a nation on the brink of social revolution.Britain in 1963 – Harold Macmillan was the Prime Minister of a Conservative government, dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and, above all, old-fashioned morality. But a breakdown of social boundaries saw nightclub host...

The Weather Makers catapulted Tim Flannery’s name into global consciousness; now he is known as one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change. But he didn’t just come into his knowledge and interest overnight. With its selection of exhilarating essays and articles written over the past 25 years, An Explorer’s Notebook charts the evolution of a young scientist doing fieldwork in remote locations to the major thinker who has changed the way we all view our actions i...

In 1888 Jack the Ripper made the headlines with a series of horrific murders that remain unsolved to this day. But most killers are not shadowy figures stalking the streets with a lust for blood. Many are ordinary citizens driven to the ultimate crime by circumstance, a fit of anger or a desire for revenge. Their crimes, overshadowed by the few, sensational cases, are ignored, forgotten or written off. This book examines all the known murders in London in 1888 to build a p...

The ecologist and author of Do We Need Pandas? "presents a stimulating challenge to our perceptions of nature" and non-native species (George Monbiot).You may be surprised to learn that camels evolved and lived for tens of millions of years in North America—and also that the leek, national symbol of Wales, was a Roman import to Britain, as were chickens, rabbits and pheasants. These classic examples highlight the issues of "native" and "invasive" species. ...

Africa does not give up its secrets easily. Buried there lie answers about the origins of humankind. And yet, though vital clues still remain hidden, scientists have over the last century transformed our understanding about the beginnings of human life. In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows scientists' trail of discoveries about human origins, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies as well as their feats of skill and endurance. And he limns...