A succession of catastrophes in the middle years of the fourteenth century brought France to the brink of destruction. The bankruptcy of the French state and a bitter civil war within the royal family were followed by the defeat and capture of the King of France by the Black Prince at Poitiers. A peasant revolt and a violent revolution in Paris completed the tragedy. In a humiliating treaty of partition France ceded more than a third of its territory to Edward III of England. Not for sixty years would the English again come so close to total victory. France's great cities, provincial towns and rural communities resisted where its leaders failed. They withstood the sustained savagery of the soldiers and the free companies of brigands to undo most of Edward III's work in the following generation. England's triumphs proved to be brittle and short-lived.

Having won a scholarship to Oxford University, eighteen-year-old Melvyn Bragg leaves his hometown of Wigton to travel south and immerse himself in a new and golden world. There, he must find his place amongst the raucous public school boys and the students fresh from National Service, making new friends from varied backgrounds but never forgetting those at home. Over three formative years - as his tutors, his studies and the people around him all expand his horizons and his sense of what is possible - he takes his next steps into adulthood, surrounded by the old, imposing buildings and libraries (and protests and parties) of the 'city of dreaming spires'.In this moment of change, for a young man and for the nation, Bragg looks to the past and the future, and as he studies History in his tutorials, so he remembers the histories of family, friends and lovers that shaped his own story.Alive with insight and tenderness, Another World beautifully captures a decisive step in a remarkable life. PRAISE FOR BACK IN THE DAY:'A memoir bursting with affection . . . fascinating' Sunday Times'Masterly . . . I loved it' Observer'Utterly captivating' Daily Mail

A spellbinding tale about an ambitious young woman who must thwart an occult plot by time-traveling fascists during the chaos of the London Blitz—from “one of our most powerful writers of wayward historical fiction” (The Washington Post).Following the acclaim of his previous novels Golden Hill and Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford delivers a masterpiece of literary fantasy, hailed by Joe Hill as “a book that scoops up all the wonder and hope and pleasure of the Narnia novels, and pours it into a story for grown-ups.” It’s the summer of 1939, and the air in London is thick with the tension of impending war. Iris Hawkins, a fiery young financial secretary, has a chance encounter with Geoff, a genius engineer from the new technology of television. What was supposed to be one night of abandon draws her instead into a nightmare of otherworldly pursuit—into a reality where time bends, spirits can be summoned, and history hangs by a thread. Soon there are Nazi planes droning overhead. In a time when death falls randomly from above each night, when the streets are darker than the wildest forest and all the men are away in uniform, the defense of the city is in the hands of its women. But Iris has more to contend with than just the terrors of the Blitz. Over the rooftops of burning London, in the twisted passages between past and present, through the vast night sky and across the tiny screens of early television, a fascist fanatic is travelling with a gun in her hand, and only Iris can stop her from altering the course of history forever. Both a thrilling page-turner and a profound exploration of ambition, love, and the fight against tyranny, Nonesuch is a story that is as enchanting as it is urgent. Packed with twists, tension, and wonder, it is a triumph of storytelling.

This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism , The Age of Empire , and The Age of Extremes .

A cultural and intellectual balance-sheet of the twentieth century's age of revolutions This book reinterprets the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century revolutions by composing a constellation of "dialectical images": Marx's "locomotives of history," Alexandra Kollontai's sexually liberated bodies, Lenin's mummified body, Auguste Blanqui's barricades and red flags, the Paris Commune's demolition of the Vendome Column, among several others. It connects theories with the existential trajectories of the thinkers who elaborated them, by sketching the diverse profiles of revolutionary intellectuals--from Marx and Bakunin to Luxemburg and the Bolsheviks, from Mao and Ho Chi Minh to José Carlos Mariátegui, C.L.R. James, and other rebellious spirits from the South--as outcasts and pariahs. And finally, it analyzes the entanglement between revolution and communism that so deeply shaped the history of the twentieth century. This book thus merges ideas and representations by devoting an equal importance to theoretical and iconographic sources, offering for our troubled present a new intellectual history of the revolutionary past.

The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire and the Reformation was a long and hugely transformative period—one not easily chronicled within the scope of a few hundred pages. Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, and he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation. Tracking the entire sweep of the Middle Ages across Europe, Wickham focuses on important changes century by century, including such pivotal crises and moments as the fall of the western Roman Empire, Charlemagne’s reforms, the feudal revolution, the challenge of heresy, the destruction of the Byzantine Empire, the rebuilding of late medieval states, and the appalling devastation of the Black Death. He provides illuminating vignettes that underscore how shifting social, economic, and political circumstances affected individual lives and international events—and offers both a new conception of Europe’s medieval period and a provocative revision of exactly how and why the Middle Ages matter. “Far-ranging, fluent, and thoughtful—of considerable interest to students of history writ large, and not just of Europe.”—Kirkus Reviews, (starred review)

Five miles long and one mile high, carrying a million passengers to a new and promised land, the good ship Hope was the fulfilment of a philanthropist's dream. Yet a generation later, land has not been sighted and rust cakes her gigantic hull. In the bowels, sinister creatures proliferate and her motley cargo dance, degenerate or die...

In the stews of London’s East End, an outbreak of insanity sees ordinary men and women reduced to gibbering, incoherent wrecks; a mysterious creeping fog hides terrifying apparitions within that rob the wits of all who see them and even inspire suicide. Sherlock Holmes, in the infancy of his detecting career, deduces a connection between these sinister “shadows” and an Oriental drug lord who is bent on expanding his criminal empire. Yet there are even more sinister forces at work, as the great detective faces a challenge so fearsome and deadly that his career may be over almost as soon as it has begun.

This prizewinning book provides an intellectual history of the British working classes from the pre-industrial era to the twentieth century. Drawing on workers' memoirs, social surveys, library registers, and more, the author discovers how members of the working classes educated themselves, which books they read, and how their reading influenced them.

Bram Stoker Award-winner Sara Tantlinger delivers her CRADLELAND OF PARASITES, a harrowing and darkly gorgeous collection of poetry chronicling the death and devastation of one of history's greatest horrors: The Black Plague.

Enter into a wicked Eden of poisonous plants, radium kisses, and cosmic chaos. In this, her debut fiction collection, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Sara Tantlinger explores the poignant relationship between nature and horror, featuring four brand-new stories, including a Nathaniel Hawthorne-inspired novelette, "The Revenge of Rappaccini's Daughter." Just be sure to creep carefully through this garden. The flowers whisper, and the moon holds destructive secrets.