Modern Britain

When a husband killed his wife he was charged with committing murder, and if found guilty he was hanged. When a wife killed her husband she was charged with petty treason, a crime that was analogous with high treason, and if found guilty she was burned at the stake. Unlike murder, petty treason was indefensible and there could be no plea for manslaughter or self-defence.

From the Stone Age to the 21st century, The History of Britain chronicles the epic story of this small but turbulent kingdom. Divided into major historical periods, this book covers both well-known and obscure events. Find out about the Norman invasions, the execution of Charles I, the uprisings in Dark Age Wales, the birth of tabloid newspapers in Victorian Britain, and much more. Fully revised and updated to include the latest political developments, this fascinating book helps listeners to navigate this vast and enthralling history.

Over the span of two hundred years, Great Britain established, governed, lost, and reconstructed an empire that embraced three continents and two oceanic worlds. The British ruled this empire by correlating incoming information about the conduct of subjects and aliens in imperial spaces with norms of good governance developed in London. Officials derived these norms by studying the histories of government contained in the official records of both the state and corporations and located in repositories known as archives.

Acclaimed travel writer Oliver Smith sets out to radically reframe our idea of ‘pilgrimage’ in Britain by retracing sacred travel made across time, from murmurs of ritual journeys in the depths of Ice Age to new pilgrimages of the 21st century. He embarks on an epic adventure across sacred British landscapes – climbing into remote sea caves, sleeping inside Neolithic tombs, scaling forgotten holy mountains and once marooning himself at sea.

There are very few national relationships quite as complicated and enigmatic as the one that exists between the English and the Irish. For two peoples so interconnected by geography and history, the depth of animosity that is often expressed is difficult at times to understand. Modern Ireland: The History of the Emerald Isle from the Middle Ages to Today analyzes the tumultuous events that marked Irish history over the centuries, particularly Ireland’s relations with England.

Apocalyptic millennialism is one of the most powerful strands in evangelical Christianity. It is not a single belief, but across many powerful evangelical groups there is general adhesion to faith in the physical return of Jesus in the Second Coming, the affirmation of a Rapture heavenward of "saved" believers, a millennium of peace under the rule of Jesus and his saints and, eventually, a final judgement and entry into deep eternity. A key figure in this process was John Nelson Darby.

In 1948 the former troop ship Windrush made the 30-day journey across the Atlantic from Jamaica. The arrival of its 500 passengers, the first generation of Caribbean migrants in the UK, was the initial step in the formation of a new identity: the black Briton. Fifty years later, Mike and Trevor Phillips spoke to those on the Windrush itself, as well as those who followed, to tell the story of Britain in the second half of the twentieth century through the eyes of the outsiders who became insiders.

Richard Carr’s Charlie Chaplin places politics at the centre of the filmmaker’s life as it looks beyond Chaplin’s role as a comedic figure to his constant political engagement both on and off the screen. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources from across the globe, Carr provides an in-depth examination of Chaplin’s life as he made his way from Lambeth to Los Angeles. From his experiences in the workhouse to his controversial romantic relationships and his connections with some of the leading political figures of his day, this book sheds new light on Chaplin’s private life.

Hashi Mohamed came to Britain aged nine, a refugee from the Somali civil war. He attended some of Britain's worst schools and was raised exclusively on state benefits. Yet today he is a successful barrister, with an Oxford degree and a CV that includes appearances on the BBC. Hashi explores what his own experience can tell us about social mobility in Britain today.

This entertaining volume provides a concise history of one of the world's premiere cities. Acclaimed author A.N. Wilson starts at the beginning, when London was founded by the Romans, and continues to contemporary times, hitting all the historical highlights along the way. London is the perfect starter book for anyone wishing to understand this great city a little better, and even seasoned London fans will find new information here.

Long before Manchester gave the world titans of industry, comedy, music and sport, it was the cosmopolitan Roman fort of Mamucium. But it was as the ‘shock city’ of the Industrial Revolution that Manchester really made its mark on the world stage. A place built on hard work and innovation, it is no coincidence that the digital age began here too, with the world’s first stored-program computer, Baby. A city as radical as it is revolutionary, Manchester has always been a political hotbed.

Professor David Wilson is renowned for deciphering the hidden motives of murderers and the context in which crimes took place. In The History of Modern Britain in 20 Murders, he zooms out to look at the big picture, examining what multiple murders across a range of eras can tell us about our past...and our present.

The mixed population is the fastest-growing group in the UK today, but the mainstream conversation around mixedness is stilted, repetitive and often problematic. At a time when ethnically ambiguous models fill our Instagram feeds and our high street shop windows, and when children of interracial relationships are lauded as heralding in the dawn of a post-racial utopia, journalist Natalie Morris takes a deep dive into what it really means to be mixed in Britain today.

En El mapa fantasma se cuenta la historia de la aterradora epidemia de cólera que envolvió Londres en 1854 y sus dos héroes poco probables: el anestesista doctor John Snow y el afable clérigo, el reverendo Henry Whitehead, quienes derrotaron la enfermedad mediante una combinación de conocimiento local, investigación científica y elaboración de mapas.

From Vanessa Bell's Studland Beach, one of the first modernist paintings in Britain, to Paul Nash's work bearing the scars of his experience in the trenches and Martin Parr's photographs of seaside resorts in the 1980s that tackle ideas of class and deprivation, Looking to Sea embraces ideas from modernism and the sublime, the impact of the world wars and colonialism, to issues crucial to our world today like the environment and nationhood. Looking to Sea is an astonishingly perceptive portrait of the twentieth century.

History is swamped by patriotic myths about the aerial combat fought between the RAF and the Luftwaffe over the summer of 1940. In his gripping history of the Battle of Britain, Len Deighton drew on a decade of research and his own wartime experiences to puncture these myths and point towards a more objective, and even more inspiring, truth.

No other group of animals has had such a complex and lengthy relationship with humankind as birds. They have been kept in cages as pets, taught to speak and displayed as trophies. More practically, they have been used to tell the time, predict the weather, foretell marriages, provide unlikely cures for ailments, convey messages and warn of poisonous gases. When There Were Birds is a social history of Britain that charts the complex connections between people and birds, set against a background of changes in the landscape and evolving tastes, beliefs and behaviours.

The two boys never fitted in. Seventeen, the worst age, nothing to do but smoke weed; at least they have each other. The day they speed off on a moped with a stolen mobile, they're ready to celebrate their luck at last. Until their victim comes looking for what's his - and ready to kill for it. On the other side of Kent's wealth divide, DS Alexandra Cupidi faces the strangest murder investigation of her career. A severed limb, hidden inside a modern sculpture in Margate's Turner Contemporary. No one takes it seriously - not even the artwork's owners.

An unidentified cadaver is found in a freezer in an unoccupied luxury house. No-one seems to know or care who it is or who placed it there. When DS Alexandra Cupidi is handed the case, she can have no idea it will lead her to a series of murderous cover-ups and buried secrets. Namely the discovery of the skeleton of public-school boy, Trevor Wood, beneath a housing development.

Winston Churchill captivated the world with his voice and his writings. His books and speeches ooze with patriotism and faith in a just God. But he wasn’t always known for his oratory skills, his faith, or his ability to captivate. In fact, as a child, he was small for his age, accident-prone, and frequently sick. To make matters worse, he was stubborn and self-centered, had a lisp, and did poorly in school. Born to an aristocratic family, young Winston was whisked off to boarding school at an early age, ignored by his parents, and left in the care of a nanny, Elizabeth Everest.