A brand new book from the Sunday Times and internationally bestselling author of The Silk Roads 'Masterly mapping out of a new world order' - Evening Standard Revised and updated edition The New Silk Roads takes a fresh look at the relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the ancient trade routes today. The world is changing dramatically and in an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads, where ties are being strengthened and mutual cooperation established.
This prescient contemporary history provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. Following the Silk Roads eastwards from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, Peter Frankopan assesses the global reverberations of continual shifts in the centre of power - all too often absent from headlines in the west.
The New Silk Roads asks us to re-examine who we are and where we stand in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihoods depend.
The Silk Roads , a major reassessment of world history, has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ''A beacon of hope for a frighted world '' DANNY DORLING '' This is the book we need right now '' TELEGRAPH ''It''d be no surprise if it proved to be the Sapiens of 2020 '' GUARDIAN It''s a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we''re taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest.
Humankind makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too.
In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman takes some of the world''s most famous studies and events and reframes them, providing a new perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history. From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the Blitz, a Siberian fox farm to an infamous New York murder, Stanley Milgram''s Yale shock machine to the Stanford prison experiment, Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think - and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society.
For readers of Maggie Nelson and Leslie Jamison, a poignant, universal story of the forces that shape girls, and of an America where women are rarely free to define themselves.
In her dazzling new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be a girl and the realities of growing up female in a world that prioritizes the feelings, perceptions, and power of men at girls'' expense.
Febos was eleven when her body began to change, and almost overnight, the way people spoke to, looked at, and treated her changed with it. As she grew, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. But in her thirties, Febos began to question the stories she''d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she''d developed over years of trying to meet others'' expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.
Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, hurt, and grief women have long been taught to deny.
Fierce and breathtaking, written with Febos'' characteristic lyricism and searing insights, Girlhood is an anthem for women, a powerful exploration of the forces that seek to confine them, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood on a lifelong journey of discovery.>
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE VIRAL SENSATION TAKING ON THE BILLIONAIRES 'Listen out for Rutger Bregman. He has a big future shaping the future' Observer 'A more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell' New York Times 'The Dutch wunderkind of new ideas' Guardian In Utopia for Realists , Rutger Bregman shows that we can construct a society with visionary ideas that are, in fact, wholly implementable. Every milestone of civilisation - from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy - was once considered a utopian fantasy. New utopian ideas such as universal basic income and a fifteen-hour work week can become reality in our lifetime.
From a Canadian city that once completely eradicated poverty, to Richard Nixon's near implementation of a basic income for millions of Americans, Bregman takes us on a journey through history, beyond the traditional left-right divides, as he introduces ideas whose time has come.
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'Rich and funny' Julian Barnes, Guardian 'Poirier's hugely enjoyable, quick-witted and richly anecdotal book is magnifique ' The Times A captivating portrait of those who lived, loved, fought, played and flourished in Paris between 1940 and 1950 and whose intellectual and artistic output still influences us today.
After the horrors of the Second World War, Paris was the place where the world's most original voices of the time came - among them Norman Mailer, Miles Davis, Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin, Juliette Greco, Alberto Giacometti, Saul Bellow and Arthur Koestler. Fuelled by the elation of the Liberation, these pioneers hoped to find an alternative to the Capitalist and Communist models for life, art and politics - a Third Way.
Agnes Poirier transports us to a time when Paris was at the heart of all that was new and brave and controversial, skilfully weaving together a collage of images and destinies.
THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 'Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India . A book of beauty ' - Gerard DeGroot, The Times In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish in his richest provinces a new administration run by English merchants who collected taxes through means of a ruthless private army - what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation.
The East India Company's founding charter authorised it to 'wage war' and it had always used violence to gain its ends. But the creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional international trading corporation dealing in silks and spices and became something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business. In less than four decades it had trained up a security force of around 200,000 men - twice the size of the British army - and had subdued an entire subcontinent, conquering first Bengal and finally, in 1803, the Mughal capital of Delhi itself. The Company's reach stretched until almost all of India south of the Himalayas was effectively ruled from a boardroom in London.
The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world's most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting book to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.
A definitive and thrilling new account of the last great dynasty of ancient Egypt, from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra.
When Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt, he overthrew the hated Persian overlords and was welcomed as a saviour. He repaid them by showing due reverence to their long-held traditions. After his death, as the Greek empire broke up and his closest advisers squabbled over the spoils, a Macedonian general named Ptolemy seized the Egyptian throne, ushering in a new dynasty that would last for 300 years.
What followed was as dramatic and compelling as any period in Egyptian history. The unique blend of Greek and Egyptian cultures led to an unprecedented flowering of learning, as the new city of Alexandria became home to the Great Library, the largest in the ancient world, that attracted the brightest minds. Wars, incest, double-dealing, foreign empires and huge wealth all followed, but the rise of the Roman empire would eventually bring the Ptolemaic era crashing to a close.
Helped by the latest archaeological discoveries and using original papyrus documents, Toby Wilkinson uncovers a story that can only now be fully told. From courtly life to the role of women, from international trade to the tensions between native Egyptians and incoming Greeks, all aspects of life are here. Filled with surprising insights, vivid descriptions and larger-than-life characters, and written in the author''s compelling narrative style, The Ptolemies will appeal to all lovers of history, archaeology, art and culture.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2018 Holding her first grandchild in her arms in 2003, Mary Robinson was struck by the uncertainty of the world he had been born into. Before his fiftieth birthday, he would share the planet with more than nine billion people - people battling for food, water, and shelter in an increasingly volatile climate. The faceless, shadowy menace of climate change had become, in an instant, deeply personal.
Mary Robinson's mission would lead her all over the world, from Malawi to Mongolia, and to a heartening revelation: that an irrepressible driving force in the battle for climate justice could be found at the grassroots level, mainly among women, many of them mothers and grandmothers like herself. From Sharon Hanshaw, the Mississippi matriarch whose campaign began in her East Biloxi hair salon and culminated in her speaking at the United Nations, to Constance Okollet, a small farmer who transformed the fortunes of her ailing community in rural Uganda, Robinson met with ordinary people whose resilience and ingenuity had already unlocked extraordinary change.
Powerful and deeply humane, Climate Justice is a stirring manifesto on one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of our time, and a lucid, affirmative, and well-argued case for hope.
"Don''t talk about politics" is a common piece of advice. Like religion, money and sex, it''s a subject that causes arguments, creates division and leaves everyone feeling awkward. In fact, as this radical, groundbreaking work of sociology shows: talking about politics is pointless. We spend our lives watching political arguments unfold on social media and the news on a daily basis, and yet despite all the speeches, opinion pieces and protests, most people will not change their political views over the course of their lifetime. We might believe in the power of rational debates and impassioned demonstrations, but as Sarah Stein Lubrano argues, as much as we like to think that they convince people - they don''t.
Everything that we''re doing now in politics is wrong. If we want to reduce prejudice and get people engaging more in democracy, we need to get rid of all our old ideas. Sarah Stein Lubrano brings together psychology, neuroscience and political theory to ask that all-important question, what actually does change our minds? This is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand how we think, and the unknown factors that do influence our beliefs. From friendship to community organizing and social infrastructure, it explores a rich history of powerful political movements that have changed the world to show you how you can do the same today, leaving you feeling encouraged and confident so that you can engage in politics positively and productively.>
'A beautifully written, eminently readable and uniquely important challenge to conventional wisdom' J. D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy 'A page-turner and revelation, Political Tribes will change the way you think' Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants In Political Tribes , Amy Chua argues that we must rediscover an identity that transcends the tribalism we see in politics today. Enough false slogans of unity, which are just another form of divisiveness. When people are defined by their differences to each other, extremism becomes the common ground. It is time for a more difficult unity that acknowledges the reality of our group differences and fights the deep rifts that divide us.
*NOW WITH A FUN PUB QUIZ* Make room Herodotus, stand down Bede, pipe down Pepys - there''s a new history book in town.
From the chart-topping podcast The Rest is History, a whistle-stop tour through the past - from Alexander the Great to Tolkien, the Wars of the Roses to Watergate. The nation''s favourite historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook take on the most curious moments in history, answering the questions we didn''t even think to ask:
- Did the Trojan War actually happen?
- What was the most disastrous party in history?
- Was Richard Nixon more like Caligula or Claudius?
- How did a hair appointment almost blow Churchill''s cover?
- Why did the Nazis believe they were descended from Atlantis?
Whether it is sending historical figures to Casa Amor in a series of Love Island, ranking history''s most famous eunuchs and pigeons (including Winkie, the unsung hero of the Second World War), or debating the meaning of greatness, there is nothing too big or too small for Tom and Dominic to unpick.
So run your Egyptian milk bath, strap up your best Spartan sandals, and prepare for a journey down the highways and byways of the human past. . .>
The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world.
On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over great swathes of the richest country in India in a formal Act of Submission to a private corporation, the East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most valuable object on the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.
The history of the Koh-i-Noor that was then commissioned by the British may have been one woven together from gossip of Delhi bazaars, but it was to become the accepted version. Only now is it finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology that has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation told through an impressive slice of south and central Asian history. It ends with the jewel in its current controversial setting: in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.
@00000327@'The most formidable spy in history' IAN FLEMING@00000133@ @00000327@'His work was impeccable' KIM PHILBY@00000133@ @00000327@'The spy to end spies' JOHN LE CARRe@00000133@ Born of a German father and a Russian mother, Richard Sorge moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. In the years leading up to and during the Second World War, he became a fanatical communist - and the Soviet Union's most formidable spy.
Combining charm with ruthless manipulation, he infiltrated and influenced the highest echelons of German, Chinese and Japanese society. His intelligence proved pivotal to the Soviet counter-offensive in the Battle of Moscow, which in turn determined the outcome of the war itself.
Drawing on a wealth of declassified Soviet archives, this is a major biography of one of the greatest spies who ever lived.
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2017 The gripping, fascinating account of a shocking murder case that sent late Victorian Britain into a frenzy, by the number one bestselling, multi-award-winning author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher 'Her research is needle-sharp and her period detail richly atmospheric, but what is most heartening about this truly remarkable book is the story of real-life redemption that it brings to light' John Carey, Sunday Times Early in the morning of Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his twelve-year-old brother Nattie set out from their small, yellow brick terraced house in east London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, leaving the boys and their mother at home for the summer.
Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning family valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. During this time nobody saw or heard from their mother, though the boys told neighbours she was visiting relatives. As the sun beat down on the Coombes house, an awful smell began to emanate from the building.
When the police were finally called to investigate, what they found in one of the bedrooms sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read.
In The Wicked Boy , Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality - it is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case, but also a compelling account of its aftermath, and of man's capacity to overcome the past.
In corners of the globe where fault-lines seethe into bloodshed and civil war, foreign correspondents have, for hundreds of years, been engaged in uncovering the latest news and - despite obstacles bureaucratic, political, violent - reporting it by whatever means available. It's a working life that is difficult, exciting and undeniably glamorous.
We Chose to Speak of War and Strife brings us pivotal moments in our history - from the Crimean War to Vietnam; the siege of Sarajevo to the fall of Baghdad - through the eyes of those who risked life and limb to witness them first hand, and the astonishing tales of what it took to report them.
These stories celebrate an endangered tradition. Where once despatches were trusted to the hands of a willing sea-captain, telegraph operator or stranger in an airport queue prepared to spirit a can of undeveloped film back to London, today the digital realm has transformed the relaying of the news - even if the work of gathering it in the field has changed little.
Weaving the tales of the greats of yesterday and today, such as Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, Don McCullin and Marie Colvin, with extraordinary accounts from his own lifetime on the frontlines, this is a deeply personal book from a master of the profession, the most distinguished foreign correspondent of our time.
The Sunday Times Bestseller We live in a time of unprecedented upheaval, with questions about the future, society, work, happiness, family and money, and yet no political party of the right or left is providing us with answers. Rutger Bregman, a bestselling Dutch historian, explains that it needn't be this way.
Bregman shows that we can construct a society with visionary ideas that are, in fact, wholly implementable. Every milestone of civilization - from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy - was once considered a utopian fantasy. New utopian ideas such as universal basic income and a 15-hour work week can become reality in our lifetime.
This guide to a revolutionary yet achievable utopia is supported by multiple studies, lively anecdotes and numerous success stories. From a Canadian city that once completely eradicated poverty, to Richard Nixon's near implementation of a basic income for millions of Americans, Bregman takes us on a journey through history, beyond the traditional left-right divides, as he introduces ideas whose time has come.
Longlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2016 The world's most intractable problems solved: ambitious lessons in leadership and hope from free-thinkers and innovators who have tackled our biggest challenges From immigration reform to energy resources, from political paralysis to inequality and extremism, we are beset by a raft of huge and seemingly insurmountable issues. The daily newspapers, the rolling 24-hour television news, portray a world in terminal decline.
What goes under-reported are the success stories. Here, taking ten of the most knotty issues we face today, Jonathan Tepperman examines unsung individuals' bold and innovative attempts against all odds and expectations to solve some of the important problems governments have struggled with for decades. Each chapter tells the story of one government that's found a way to avoid the snares that entangle most of the others. The solutions described in the book aren't speculative: they've all already been tried, and they work.
Controversial, provocative but always stimulating, Tepperman here offers a powerful, data-driven case for optimism. Written with flair and an infectious exuberance, The Fix is a book to restore hope to the pessimistic, and offer both practical advice and inspiration in a time of relentless bad news.
One of the most important politics books of the year, To Obama is a record of a time when politics intersected with empathy.
A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. There is Peggy, a patriotic grandmother who thinks the President is trying to lead the country into socialism; James, who on the morning after the 2016 election tells the President to start packing; and Dawn, who writes to say that he made it possible for a very jaded generation to begin to hope and believe in the good.
They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation, in their darkest times of need, with anger, fear and respect. To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship with the American people, and at how this extraordinary dialogue shaped an era-defining presidency.
From the author of How Paris Became Paris , a sweeping history of high finance, the origins of high fashion, and a pair of star-crossed lovers in 18th-century France.
Paris, 1719. The stock market is surging and the world's first millionaires are buying everything in sight. Against this backdrop, two families, the Magoulets and the Chevrots, rose to prominence only to plummet in the first stock market crash. One family built its name on the burgeoning financial industry, the other as master embroiderers for Queen Marie-Therese and her husband, King Louis XIV. Both patriarchs were ruthless money-mongers, determined to strike it rich by arranging marriages for their children.
But in a Shakespearean twist, two of their children fell in love. To remain together, Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot fought their fathers' rage and abuse. A real-life heroine, Louise took on Magoulet, Chevrot, the police, an army regiment, and the French Indies Company to stay with the man she loved.
Following these families from 1600 until the Revolution of 1789, Joan DeJean recreates the larger-than-life personalities of Versailles, where displaying wealth was a power game; the sordid cells of the Bastille; the Louisiana territory, where Frenchwomen were forcibly sent to marry colonists; and the legendary 'Wall Street of Paris,' Rue Quincampoix, a world of high finance uncannily similar to what we know now. The Queen's Embroiderer is both a story of star-crossed love in the most beautiful city in the world and a cautionary tale of greed and the dangerous lure of windfall profits. And every bit of it is true.
'Simply, utterly brilliant. Bursting with humility and humanity' THE SECRET BARRISTER 'A survival guide for the Trump era' GUARDIAN Multi-million-dollar fraud. Terrorism. Mafia criminality. Russian espionage. For eight years Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, successfully prosecuted some of the most high-profile crimes in America. Along the way he gained notoriety as the 'Sheriff of Wall Street', was banned from Russia by Vladimir Putin and earned the distinction of being one of the first federal employees fired by Trump.
In Doing Justice Bharara takes us into the gritty, tactically complex, often sensational world of America's criminal justice system. We meet the wrongly accused and those who have escaped scrutiny for too long, the fraudsters and mobsters, investigators and interrogators, snitches and witnesses. We learn what justice is and the basics of building a case, and how judgement must be delivered not only with toughness, but with calmness, care and compassion.
This is not just a book about the law. This is a book about integrity, leadership, decision-making and moral reasoning - and one that teaches us how to think and act justly in our own lives.
