England Britain

In Royal Sisters, Anne Edwards, author of the best-selling Vivien Leigh: A Biography and Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor, has written the first dual biography of Elizabeth, the princess who was to become Queen, and her younger sister, Margaret, who was to be her subject. From birth to maturity, they were the stuff of which dreams are made.

Putting history into a perspective, this is an engaging, entertaining and educational trip through time, packing in equal parts fun and facts. Recently updated, British History For Dummies introduces listeners to recent events, including British actions in Afghanistan, and David Cameron's formation of Britain's first coalition Cabinet since World War II. But don't worry - British History For Dummies doesn't skimp on the old stuff! It's a riotous, irreverent account of the people and events that have shaped Britain.

A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston’s War captures the full range of Churchill’s endlessly fascinating character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and courageous, Hastings’s Churchill comes brashly to life as never before. Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war, Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential, when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing.

Pope John Paul II, as part of his effort to improve Catholic-Jewish relations, himself called for a clear-eyed historical investigation into any possible link between the Church and the Holocaust. An important sign of his commitment was the decision to allow the distinguished historian David I. Kertzer, a specialist in Italian history, to be one of the first scholars given access to long-sealed Vatican archives. The result is a book filled with shocking revelations.

It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.

Saint Gildas, also called Gildas the Wise (c. 494 or 516 - c. 570) was a prominent member of the Celtic Church in Britain. This work, "De Excidio Britanniae", is a long sermon condemning the acts of his contemporaries. The main thrust of his work is a complaint against paganism.

Strange Tales of Scotland all deal with a particular aspect of Scottish mysteries. You'll learn of the ghost that appeared at the wedding of King Alexander II, and of monsters such as the Shellycoat and Water-horse that were thought to inhabit Scotland’s lochs...Finally, we have a look at the legend of the phantom armies of Scotland; soldiers who refuse to fade away even centuries after their wars have been fought, and their causes faded in history. Welcome to the Strange Tales of Scotland.

Lusitania: She was a ship of dreams, a microcosm of the last years of the waning Edwardian Era and the coming influences of the 20th century. When she left New York on her final voyage, she sailed from the New World to the Old. Yet an encounter with a primitive German U-Boat sent her and her gilded passengers to their tragic deaths.

Though it's often forgotten today, Robert the Bruce was a bit shiftier, if only out of necessity. Robert the Bruce has become a figure of Scottish national legend, renowned as the man who threw off the shackles of English oppression. Prior to 1306, this Anglo-Scottish nobleman did little to cover himself in glory or to earn a reputation as a hero of the national cause. A member of one of Scotland's leading noble families, Bruce inherited his grandfather's claim to the right to be king of the Scots.

If history really belongs to the victor, what happens when there's more than one side declaring victory? That's the conundrum Norman Davies unravels in his groundbreaking book No Simple Victory. Far from being a revisionist history, No Simple Victory instead offers a clear-eyed reappraisal, untangling and setting right the disparate claims made by America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in order to get at the startling truth.

In The English and their History, the first full-length account to appear in one volume for many decades, Robert Tombs gives us the history of the English people and of how the stories they have told about themselves have shaped them, from the prehistoric 'dreamtime' through to the present day.

Hong Kong has always been many cities to many people: a seaport, a gateway to an empire, a place where fortunes can be dramatically made or lost, a place to disappear and reinvent oneself, and a melting pot of diverse populations from around the globe. A British Crown Colony for 155 years, Hong Kong is now ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. Here, renowned journalist Vaudine England delves into Hong Kong’s complex history and its people—diverse, multi-cultural, cosmopolitan—who have made this one-time fishing village into the world port city it is today.

The riveting history of a beautiful queen, a shocking murder, a papal trial - and a reign as triumphant as any in the Middle Ages. On March 15, 1348, 22-year-old Joanna I, queen of Naples, stood trial for the murder of her husband before the pope and his court in Avignon. Determined to defend herself, Joanna won her acquittal against overwhelming odds. Victorious, she returned to Naples and ruled over one of Europe's most prestigious courts for the next three decades - until she herself was killed.

When Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the 48 percent who wanted to stay and the 52 percent who wanted to go each accused the other of stupidity, fraud, and treason. In reality, the Brexit debate merely reran a script written ten thousand years earlier. Since 1900, however, thanks to rapid globalization, Britain has been overshadowed by American, European, and—increasingly—Chinese actors. Geography Is Destiny shows that the great question for the coming century is not what to do about Brussels; it's what to do about Beijing.

Most anyone who has received a basic education in world history knows the story of how "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Most also know that Christopher Columbus made first contact with the Americas while searching for a water route to Asia. However, far fewer people remember that the search for such a route continued for centuries after Columbus' death.

Some of the greatest heroes and villains in British history were thrown together in these turbulent times: Henry V, whose victory at Agincourt and prudent rule at home marked the high point of the medieval monarchy; Edward IV, who was handed his crown by the scheming soldier Warwick the Kingmaker, before their alliance collapsed into a fight to the death; and the last Plantagenet, Richard III, who stole the throne and murdered his own nephews, the Princes in the Tower.

If in the year 1411 you had been able to circumnavigate the globe, you would have been most impressed by the dazzling civilizations of the Orient. The Forbidden City was under construction in Ming Beijing; in the Near East, the Ottomans were closing in on Constantinople. By contrast, England would have struck you as a miserable backwater ravaged by plague, bad sanitation and incessant war. The other quarrelsome kingdoms of Western Europe - Aragon, Castile, France, Portugal and Scotland - would have seemed little better.

Sunday Times bestselling author Vernon Coleman travels through England, from Sidmouth in the south, to Buxton in the north. In this offbeat travel book with a difference the author is looking for evidence that England and the English are still alive, kicking and eccentric. He travels to Taunton, Wells, Lacock, Cheltenham, Hereford, Stratford upon Avon, Bakewell and Buxton. He visits Stroud, Gloucester and Eyam and meets some extraordinary characters. On the way he investigates cheese rolling and shin kicking and discovers the difference between a city and a town. He reveals the surprising ...

Scotland is a fascinating and ancient land filled with history. Not everything in Scotland is as it appears, however. Some Scots say this is a land haunted by spirits, a place of strange disappearances and unexplained phenomena. The Ghosts of Scotland: A Collection of Ghost Stories Across the Scottish Nation is a collection of such tales, just a few among the thousands of local legends and modern sightings that make Scotland one of the most haunted countries in the world.

Three brief histories of America, Canada, and England: nations divided in their history, peoples, and culture, yet bound by a willingness to sacrifice everything for independence, power, and prosperity. America, Canada, and England have been a backdrop to some of the fiercest battles and struggles for supremacy.