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The shocking murders carried out by an unknown serial killer in London's East End during the autumn of 1888, haunted the public imagination at the time and have continued to exert a baleful influence ever since. But what was it like to live through those terrifying weeks? This audiobook looks at the crimes of Jack the Ripper through the eyes of Londoners, including the rumors that swept through the capital city, the alarms, the riots, the persecutions, the suspicions, and the sheer naked terror of the awful autumn when a killer stalked the streets.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE The original bestseller from the beloved author of UNDERLAND, LANDMARKS and THE LOST WORDS - Robert Macfarlane travels Britain's ancient paths and discovers the secrets of our beautiful, underappreciated landscape 'The Old Ways...

To Queen Victoria she was Aunt Julie; to Catherine the Great she was Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna, granddaughter-in-law. This is the story of Princess Juliane-Henriette-Ulrike of Saxe-Coburg, the Rebel Romanov. Born in 1781 in a small impoverished duchy of Germany, Julie's quiet life took a...

Helen Lewis argues that feminism’s success is down to complicated, contradictory, imperfect women who fought each other as well as fighting for equal rights. Too many of these pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for feel-good, inspirational heroines. It’s time to reclaim the history of feminism as a history of difficult women.

Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs, but this is not a simple chronological record. It is a comprehensive account, animated by Ackroyd's concern for the close relationship between the present and the past as well as by what he describes as the peculiar "echoic" quality of London whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.

The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world's surface. How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world's greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius...

Brought to you by Penguin. 'The world's foremost historian of Ukraine. . . the chronicler of a country on the front lines of a seismic European war' Financial Times On 24 February 2022, Russia stunned the world by launching an invasion of Ukraine. In the midst of checking on the family and...

The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule, and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination?

Bloomsbury presents The Devil's Bridge by Anthony Tucker-Jones, read by Roger May. This fascinating title offers a new look at Operation Market Garden and the Arnhem campaign from the perspective of the German forces who defended against the Allies. In the late summer of 1944...

On the night of 7 May 2015, Ed Balls thought there was a chance he would wake up the next morning as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Instead he woke up without a job. For two decades he had occupied a central position within Labour, rising from adviser to Cabinet Minister during the years in power and Shadow Chancellor in Opposition. Throughout one of the most tumultuous periods in recent British history, he made a point of speaking out, whatever the consequences.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Lady Georgiana Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was nearly as famous in her day. In 1774 Georgiana achieved immediate celebrity by marrying William Cavendish, fifth duke of Devonshire, one...

In this ground-breaking audiobook, Ian Mortimer portrays Henry in the pivotal year of his reign. Recording the dramatic events of 1415, he offers the fullest, most precise and least romanticised view we have of Henry and what he did. At the centre of the narrative is the campaign which culminated in the battle of Agincourt: a slaughter ground intended not to advance England’s interests directly but to demonstrate God’s approval of Henry’s royal authority on both sides of the Channel. 

The Pax Britannica trilogy is Jan Morris’s epic story of the British Empire from the accession of Queen Victoria to the death of Winston Churchill. It is a towering achievement: informative, accessible, entertaining and written with all her usual bravura. Heaven’s Command, the first volume, takes us from the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The story moves effortlessly across the world, from the English shores to Fiji, Zululand, the Canadian prairies and beyond. Totally gripping history!

During the 229-year period from 1485 to 1714, England transformed itself from a minor feudal state into what has been called "the first modern society" and emerged as the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. Those years hold a huge and captivating story. The English survived repeated epidemics and famines, one failed invasion and two successful ones, two civil wars, a series of violent religious reformations and counter-reformations, and confrontations with two of the most powerful monarchs on earth, Louis XIV of France and Philip II of Spain.

Brought to you by Penguin. 1 May 1945. The world did not know it yet, but the final week of the Third Reich's existence had begun. Hitler was dead, but the war had still not ended. Everything had both ground to a halt and yet remained agonizingly uncertain. Volker Ullrich's remarkable book takes...

Operation Gold is one of the most extraordinary—and least believed—Cold War operations ever attempted: a secret tunnel dug beneath divided Berlin so Britain and America could listen directly to Soviet communications. It sounds like the plot of a spy thriller, yet it happened in real life, in a city where every street corner had eyes, every building had informants, and every shadow seemed to belong to someone else. This book takes you into that world, where engineering became espionage, and where the ground itself became a battleground.

Between 1348 and 1715, western Europe was fraught with turmoil, beset by the Black Plague, numerous and bitter religious wars, and frequent political revolutions and upheavals. Yet the Europe that emerged from this was vastly different from the Europe that entered it. By the start of the 18th century, Europe had been revitalized and reborn in a radical break with the past that would have untold ramifications for human civilization.

Historians universally agree that Thucydides was the greatest historian who has ever lived, and that his story of the Peloponnesian conflict is a marvel of forensic science and fine literature. That such a triumph of intellectual accomplishment was created at the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece is, perhaps, not so surprising, given the number of original geniuses we find in that period. But that such an historical work would also be simultaneously acknowledged as a work of great literature and a penetrating ethical evaluation of humanity is one of the miracles of ancient history.

'A beautiful, beautiful book . . . archaeology is changing so much about the way we view the so-called Dark Ages … [Williams] is just brilliant at bringing them to light' Rory Stewart on The Rest is Politics From the bestselling author of Viking Britain, a new epic history of our forgotten...

'Really outstanding' Jonathan Dimbleby 'Extraordinary and utterly absorbing' Patrick Bishop 'Wonderful material' Saul David 'Profoundly thought-provoking' James Holland 'Impeccably researched' Spectator At 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945, the Japanese port city of Hiroshima was struck by the...