Историческая литература

A novel by Bernard Cornwell that follows the enormous success of his Arthurian trilogy (The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur) tells the tale of three brothers and of their rivalry that creates the great temple.One summer’s day, a stranger carrying great wealth in gold comes to the settlement of Ratharryn. He dies in the old temple. The people assume that the gold is a gift from the gods. But the mysterious treasure causes great dissension, both without from tribal rivalry, and within.The three sons of Ratharryn’s chief each perceive the great gift in a different way. The eldest, Lengar, the warrior, harnesses his murderous ambition to be a ruler and take great power for his tribe. Camaban, the second and an outcast from the tribe, becomes a great visionary and feared wise man, and it is his vision that will force the youngest brother, Saban, to create the great temple on the green hill where the gods will appear on earth.It is Saban who is the builder, the leader and the man of peace. It is his love for a sorceress whose powers rival those of Camaban and for Aurenna, the sun bride whose destiny is to die for the gods, that finally brings the rivalries of the brothers to a head. But it is also his skills that will build the vast temple, a place for the gods certainly but also a place that will confirm for ever the supreme power of the tribe that built it. And in the end, when the temple is complete, Saban must choose between the gods and his family.Stonehenge is Britain’s greatest prehistoric monument, a symbol of history; a building, created 4 millenia ago, which still provokes awe and mystery. Stonehenge: A Novel of 2000 BC is first and foremost a great historical novel. Bernard Cornwell is well known and admired for the realism and imagination with which he brings an earlier world to life. And here he uses all these skills to create the world of primitive Britain and to solve the mysteries of who built Stonehenge and why.‘A circle of chalk, a ring of stone, and a house of arches to call the far gods home’

‘The clearest and most detailed account of Stonehenge for a generation.’ Mail on SundayJohn North’s extraordinary book finally solves the riddle of Stonehenge.How? By carefully reassessing the archaeological evidence and reconstructing the heavens as they would have appeared thousands of years ago.As well as considering Stonehenge, John North draws evidence from prehistoric remains throughout Britain and northern Europe – the stone circles at Avebury, the White Horse at Uffington, the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex and the long barrows which are dotted over southern England.He shows how all these pieces fit together to establish the function of the stones themselves and what we can know of the religion that caused them to be erected in the first place.

Strange Days Indeed tells the story of how the paranoia exemplified by Nixon and Wilson became the defining characteristic of western politics and culture in the 1970s.Francis Wheen will vividly evoke the characters, events and atmosphere of an era in which the truth was far stranger than even the most outlandish fiction.

Cal Flyn was very proud when she discovered that her ancestor, Angus McMillan, had been a pioneer of colonial Australia. However, when she dug deeper, she began to question her pride. McMillan had not only cut tracks through the bush, but played a dark role in Australia's bloody history.In 1837 Angus McMillan left the Scottish Highlands for the other side of the world. Cutting paths through the Australian frontier, he became a feted pioneer, to be forever mythologised in status and landmarks. He was also Cal Flyn’s great-great-great-uncle. Inspired by his fame, Flyn followed in his footsteps to Australia, where she would face horrifying family secrets.Blending memoir, history and travel,Thicker Than Water’ evokes the startlingly beautiful wilderness of the Highlands, the desolate bush of Victoria and the reverberations on one from the other. A tale of blood and bloodlines, it is a powerful, personal journey into dark family history, grief and guilt.

Revolt and upheaval in medieval Britain by a brilliant new narrative historian. ‘Summer of Blood’ breaks new ground in its portrayal of the personalities and politics of the bloody days of June 1381.Breathing life into one of British history's most colourful yet under-explored episodes, Dan Jones recreates the dangerous world of the fourteenth century: a time when pain, squalor, misery and disease formed the fabric of daily life. Yet this was also an era of humanity, charity and social responsibility, one which people genuinely believed could be made better. Jones shows how this world was both profoundly different and remarkably similar to our own.The Peasants' Revolt of the summer of 1381, led by the mysterious Wat Tyler and the visionary preacher John Ball, was one of the bloodiest events in British history. To finance an unyielding war with France, a reckless and oppressive tax was imposed upon the English lower orders. Ravaged by war, plague and tyranny, England's villagers rose against their masters for the first time in history. Initial resistance in the Essex village of Brentwood swiftly inspired the desire for revenge in other communities. The outcome of their brave and tragic rising changed England forever.At the heart of the story is a fateful collision of servant and master, as the rural general Wat Tyler pitted his wits and ragtag army against the 14-year-old King Richard II and his advisors, all of whom risked their property, their positions and their lives in the desperate battle to save the English crown from destruction.‘Summer of Blood’ is the first full popular account in a century of one of the most famous rebellions in history.

A powerful account of the life of Tamerlane the Great (1336-1405), the last master nomadic power, one of history’s most extreme tyrants, and the subject of Marlowe’s famous play. Marozzi travelled in the footsteps of the great Mogul Emperor of Samarkland to write this wonderful combination of history and travelogue.The name of the last great warlord conjures up images of mystery and romance: medieval warfare on desert plains; the clash of swords on snow-clad mountains; the charge of elephants across the steppes of Asia; the legendary opulence and cruelty of the illiterate, chess-playing nemesis of Asia. He ranks alongside Alexander as one of the world’s great conquerors, yet the details of his life are scarcely known in the West.He was not born to a distinguished family, nor did he find his apprenticeship easy – at one point his mobile army consisted only of himself, his wife, seven companions and four horses – but his dominion grew with astonishing rapidity. In the last two decades of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, he blazed through Asia. Cities were razed to the ground, inhabitants tortured without mercy, sometimes enemies were buried alive – more commonly they were decapitated. On the ruins of Baghdad, Tamerlane had his princes erect a pyramid of 90,000 heads.During his lifetime he sought to foster a personal myth, exaggerating the difficulties of his youth, laying claim to supernatural powers and a connection to Genghis Khan. This myth was maintained after his death in legend, folklore, poetry, drama and even opera, nowhere more powerfully than in Marlowe’s play – he is now as much a literary construct as a historical figure. Justin Marozzi follows in his path and evokes his legacy in telling the tale of this fabulously cruel, magnificent and romantic warrior.

A gripping account of the epic hunt for Hitler’s most terrifying battleship – the legendary Tirpitz – and the brave men who risked their lives to attack and destroy this most potent symbol of the Nazi’s fearsome war machine.Tirpitz was the pride of Hitler’s navy. To Churchill, she was ‘the Beast’, a menace to Britain’s supply lines and a threat to the convoys sustaining Stalin’s armies. Tirpitz was said to be unsinkable, impregnable –no other target attracted so much attention.In total 36 major Allied operations were launched against her, including desperately risky missions by human torpedoes and midget submarines and near-suicidal bombing raids. Yet Tirpitz stayed afloat. It was not until November 1944 that she was finally destroyed by RAF Lancaster Bombers flown by 617 Squadron – the Dambusters – in a gruelling mission that tested the very limits of human endurance.The man who led the raid – Willie Tait – was one of the most remarkable figures of the war, flying missions almost continuously right from the start. Until now his deeds have been virtually unknown. With exclusive co-operation from Tait’s family, Patrick Bishop reveals the extraordinary achievement of a man who shunned the spotlight but whose name will be renowned for generations to come.The book is a magnificent, accessibly written wartime adventure, perfect for fans of Ben Macintyre’s ‘Agent Zigzag’ or ‘Operation Mincemeat’.

Celebratory, witty and incredibly insightful, Harry Bingham explores the eccentricities and customs of the British nation in a bid to answer a question which has everyone debating – Who are we?For the British, ‘Who are we?’ is an oddly difficult question. Although our national self-assessment usually notes a number of good points (we’re inventive, tolerant and at least we’re not French), it lists a torrent of bad ones too. Our society is fragmented and degenerate. Our kids are thugs, our workers ill-educated, our public services abysmal. We drink too much. Our house prices are crazy, our politicians sleazy, our roads jammed, our football team rubbish. When ‘The Times’ invited readers to suggest new designs for the backs of British coins, one reader wrote in saying, ‘How about a couple of yobs dancing on a car bonnet or a trio of legless ladettes in the gutter?’Is there really nothing to be proud of? British inventors have been responsible for myriad marvels we now take for granted, from the steam engine to the world wide web. British medical and public health innovations – vaccination, integrated mains sewerage, antiseptic surgery – have saved far more lives than all other medical innovations put together. And why stop there? The British empire covered a quarter of the earth’s surface but used an army smaller than that of Switzerland to exert its rule. The world speaks our language. Our scientists have won vast numbers of Nobel Prizes. The evolution of ‘habeas corpus’, trial by jury and the abolition of torture aren’t purely British in inspiration, but owe more to us than to anyone else. Our parliamentary democracy has been hugely influential in spreading ideals of liberty and representative government round the world.If the modern world is richer, freer, more peaceful, more democratic and healthier than it was, then Britain has played a leading role in that transformation. This book is about just that. Taking a particular interest in the many things that we did first, or best, or most, or were the only ones ever to do, this book focuses especially on those of our oddities that spread across the world – everything from football to the rule of law.

A new narrative history of the Viking Age, interwoven with exploration of the physical remains and landscapes that the Vikings fashioned and walked: their rune-stones and ship burials, settlements and battlefields.To many, the word ‘Viking’ brings to mind red scenes of rape and pillage, of marauders from beyond the sea rampaging around the British coastline in the last gloomy centuries before the Norman Conquest. It is true that Britain in the Viking Age was a turbulent, violent place. The kings and warlords who have impressed their memories on the period revel in names that fire the blood and stir the imagination: Svein Forkbeard and Edmund Ironside, Ivar the Boneless and Alfred the Great, Erik Bloodaxe and Edgar the Pacifier amongst many others. Evidence for their brutality, their dominance, their avarice and their pride is still unearthed from British soil with stunning regularity.But this is not the whole story.In Viking Britain, Thomas Williams has drawn on his experience as project curator of the British Museum exhibition of Vikings: Life and Legend to show how the people we call Vikings came not just to raid and plunder, but to settle, to colonize and to rule. The impact on these islands was profound and enduring, shaping British social, cultural and political development for hundreds of years. Indeed, in language, literature, place-names and folklore, the presence of Scandinavian settlers can still be felt, and their memory – filtered and refashioned through the writings of people like J.R.R. Tolkien, William Morris and G.K.Chesterton – has transformed the western imagination.This remarkable book makes use of new academic research and first-hand experience, drawing deeply from the relics and landscapes that the Vikings and their contemporaries fashioned and walked: their runestones and ship burials, settlements and battlefields, poems and chronicles. The book offers a vital evocation of a forgotten world, its echoes in later history and its implications for the present.

The object of this book is to introduce readers to a whole range of military history which has all the drama, dangers, horrors and excitement that we associate with Stalingrad or the Somme. Battles are acute moments of history whenever and wherever they have been fought. Through them we can understand how warfare and world history have evolved.Choosing just one hundred battles from recorded human history is a challenge. Not just because it is necessary to cover almost 6,000 years of history, but because men have fought each other almost continuously for millennia. Anyone who knows anything about the history of war may be disappointed at what has had to be left out. However, each of the 100 memorable battles described shows both how the nature of armed combat has changed over human history, and also how, despite changes in technology, organisation or ideas, many things have remained the same.It is an old adage that you can win a battle but lose a war. The battles featured here almost always resulted in victory for one side or another, but the victor did not necessarily win the war. Some battles are decisive in that broader historical sense, others are not. The further back in time, the more likely it is that an enemy could be finished off in one blow. The wars of the modern age, between major states, have involved repeated battles until one side was battered into submission. Some of the great generals of the recent past – Napoleon, Robert E Lee, Erich von Manstein – have been on the losing side but are remembered nonetheless for their generalship.Some on the winning side have all but disappeared from the history books or from public memory. Equally, in many battles, the issue is not victory or defeat, but what the battle can tell us about the history of warfare itself. New weapons, new tactics, new ways of organising armed forces can have a sudden impact on the outcome of a battle. But so too can leadership, or the effects of a clever deception, or raw courage. That is why the book has been divided up into clear themes which apply equally to the battles of the ancient world as they do to the battles of today.As Professor Richard Overy laments: “Battle is not a game to plug into a computer but a piece of living history, messy, bloody and real. That, at least, has not changed in 6,000 years.”

The dramatic and little-known story of how, in the summer of 1920, Lenin came within a hair's breadth of shattering the painstakingly constructed Versailles peace settlement and spreading Bolshevism to western Europe.In 1920 the new Soviet state was a mess, following a brutal civil war, and the best way of ensuring its survival appeared to be to export the revolution to Germany, itself economically ruined by defeat in World War I and racked by internal political dissension.Between Russia and Germany lay Poland, a nation that had only just recovered its independence after more than a century of foreign oppression. But it was economically and militarily weak and its misguided offensive to liberate the Ukraine in the spring of 1920 laid it open to attack. Egged on by Trotsky, Lenin launched a massive westward advance under the flamboyant Marshal Tukhachevsky.All that Great Britain and France had fought for over four years now seemed at risk. By the middle of August the Russians were only a few kilometres from Warsaw, and Berlin was less than a week's march away. Then occurred the 'Miracle of the Vistula': the Polish army led by Jozef Pilsudski regrouped and achieved one of the most decisive victories in military history.As a result, the Versailles peace settlement survived, and Lenin was forced to settle for Communism in one country. The battle for Warsaw bought Europe nearly two decades of peace, and communism remained a mainly Russian phenomenon, subsuming many of the autocratic and Byzantine characteristics of Russia's tsarist tradition.

A bestseller in hardback, this is a highly-praised and much-needed biography of the first Duke of Wellington, concentrating on the personal life of the victor of Waterloo, and based on the fruits of modern research. Christopher Hibbert is Britain’s leading popular historian.Wellington (1769–1852) achieved fame as a soldier fighting the Mahratta in India. His later brilliant generalship fighting the French in Spain and his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo earned him a dukedom and the award of Apsley House (No. 1, London) and a large estate in Hampshire.His second career saw him make his mark as a politician with commanding presence. Appointed Commander-in-Chief for life, he became Prime Minister in 1827 and presided over the emancipation of Roman Catholics and the formation of the country’s first police force.Privately, he was unhappily married, and had several mistresses (including two of Napoleon’s) and many intimate friendships with women. The private side of the public man has never been so richly delineated as in this masterly biography.

From one of our greatest living writers, comes a remarkable memoir of a forgotten England.'The war went. We sang in the playground, «Bikini lagoon, an atom bomb’s boom, and two big explosions.» David’s father came back from Burma and didn’t eat rice. Twiggy taught by reciting “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and the thirteen times table. Twiggy was fat and short and he shouted, and his neck was as wide as his head. He was a bully, though he didn’t take any notice of me.’In Where Shall We Run To?, Alan Garner remembers his early childhood in the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge: life at the village school as ‘a sissy and a mardy-arse'; pushing his friend Harold into a clump of nettles to test the truth of dock leaves; his father joining the army to guard the family against Hitler; the coming of the Yanks, with their comics and sweets and chewing gum. From one of our greatest living writers, it is a remarkable and evocative memoir of a vanished England.

[Previously published as ‘Went The Day Well’]A sweeping political, social, military and cultural overview of the United Kingdom on the eve, and then the day, of the greatest battle fought by British arms.Midnight, Sunday, 17 June 1815. There was no town in England that had not sent its soldiers, hardly a household that was not holding its breath, not a family, as Byron put it, that would escape ‘havoc’s tender mercies’ at Waterloo, and yet at the same time life inevitably went on as normal.As Wellington’s rain-sodden army retreated for the final, decisive battle, men and women in England were still going to the theatre and science lectures, still working in the fields and the factories, still reading and writing books and sermons, still painting their pictures and sitting in front of Lord Elgin’s marbles as if almost five thousand did not already lie dead. After ten hours of savage fighting, Waterloo would be littered with the bodies of something like 47,000 dead and wounded. Meanwhile, as the day unfolded, a whole nation, countryside and town, artisan and aristocrat, was brought together by war.From Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author David Crane, Went the Day Well is a breathtaking portrait of Britain in those moments. Moving from England to the battle and back again this vivid, stunning freeze-frame of a country on the single most celebrated day in its modern history shows Crane’s full range in tracing the endless, overlapping connections between people’s lives. From private tragedies, disappointed political hopes, and public discontents to grandiloquent public celebrations and monuments, it answers Wellington’s call as he rallied his troops to ‘Think what England is thinking of us now’.

The greatest literary sensation of recent times – and now the inspiration for a major BBC series, starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis and directed by Peter Kosminsky.In this staggeringly brilliant novel, Hilary Mantel brings the opulent, brutal world of the Tudors to bloody, glittering life. It is the backdrop to the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell: lowborn boy, charmer, bully, master of deadly intrigue and, finally, most powerful of Henry VIII’s courtiers.Both winners of the Man Booker Prize and already hugely successful stage plays, WOLF HALL and its sequel BRING UP THE BODIES have now been transformed into a BBC television series starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, bringing history to life for a whole new audience.

‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies’, the first two instalments in Hilary Mantel’s Tudor trilogy, have gathered readers and praise in equal and enormous measure. They have been credited with elevating historical fiction to new heights and animating a period of history many thought too well known to be made fresh.Through the eyes and ears of Thomas Cromwell, the books’ narrative prism, we are shown Tudor England, the court of King Henry VIII. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events.In ‘Wolf Hall’ we witness Cromwell’s rise, beginning as clerk to Cardinal Wolsey, Henry’s chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. He is soon to become his successor. By 1535, when the action of ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ begins, Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry, his fortunes having risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife. Anne’s days, though, are marked. Cromwell watches as the king falls in love with silent, plain Jane Seymour, sensing what Henry’s affection will mean for his queen, for England, and for himself.

A brilliant new reading of the Bayeux Tapestry that radically alters our understanding of the events of 1066 and reveals the astonishing story of the survival of early medieval Europe’s greatest treasure.This edition does not include illustrations.The Bayeux Tapestry was embroidered (it’s not really a tapestry) in the late eleventh century. As an artefact, it is priceless, incomparable – nothing of it’s delicacy and texture, let alone wit, survives from the period. As a pictorial story it is delightful: the first feature-length cartoon. As history it is essential: it represents the moment of Britain’s last conquest by a foreign army and celebrates the Norman victory over the blinded Saxon Harold. Or does it?In this brilliant piece of detective interpretation, Andrew Bridgeford looks at the narrative contained within the tapestry and has discovered a wealth of new information. Who commissioned it? Who made it? Who is the singular dwarf named as Turold? Why, in a work that celebrates a Norman conquest is the defeated Harold treated so nobly? Is Harold indeed the victim of the arrow from the sky? And who is the figure depicted in the tapestry who, at the moment of crisis for the Normans rallies the army just at the point when it mistakenly believes William is dead and it will be defeated?Using the tapestry, the book retells with vivid characterisation the story of the remaking of England in and after 1066. It is a compelling story, as is the tale of the extraordinary survival of the tapestry itself: history has rarely been writ so large, with such fine detail and yet been so veiled in mystery.

The Sunday Times bestselling account of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and eventual retreat from Moscow, events that had a profound effect on the subsequent course of Russian and European history.The saga of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and catastrophic retreat from Moscow has both fascinated military historians and captured the imagination of millions on an emotional and human level. 1812 tells the story of how the most powerful man on earth met his doom, and how the greatest fighting force ever assembled was wiped out. Over 400,000 French and Allied troops died on the disastrous Russian campaign, with the vast majority of the casualties occuring during the frigid winter retreat. Adam Zamoyski tells their story with incredible detail and sympathy, drawing on a wealth of first-hand accounts of the tragedy to create a vivid portrait of an unimaginable catastrophe.By 1810 Napoleon was master of Europe, defied only by Britain and its naval power. His intention was to destroy Britain through a total blockade, the Continental System. But Tsar Alexander of Russia refused to apply the blockade, and Napoleon decided to bring him to heel.The brutality of the following military campaign and the importance of its ramifications on Russian, French, German and, indeed, European history and culture cannot be understated. Adam Zamoyski’s epic, enthralling narrative is the definitive account of the events of that dramatic year.

Based on a true story, mystery and intrigue in pre-Civil War New YorkThe sensational murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell in his lower Manhattan home made front-page news across the United States in 1857. «Who killed Dr. Burdell?» was a question that gripped the nation. 31 Bond Street, a debut novel by Ellen Horan, interweaves fiction with actual events in a clever historical narrative that blends romance, politics, greed and sexual intrigue in a suspenseful drama.The story opens when an errand boy discovers Burdell's body in the bedroom of his posh Bond Street home. The novel's central characters are Dr. Harvey Burdell, a dentist and unscrupulous businessman; his lover, the ambitious, Brooklyn-born Emma Cunningham; the District Attorney, Abraham Oakey Hall (later to become mayor of New York); and Henry Clinton, a prominent defense lawyer. The enigmatic relationship between Emma and Dr. Burdell makes her the prime suspect, and her trial is nothing less than sensational. Will she hang? Were her teenaged daughters involved? What did the servants know? Who was the last person to see Burdell alive? During the trial, the two lawyers fight for truth, justice and their careers.This novel is set against the background of bustling, corrupt New York City, just four years before the Civil War. The author intertwines two main narratives: the trial through the perspective of the defense attorney Henry Clinton, and the story of the lovely young widow Emma Cunningham whose search for a husband brings her into the arms and home of Dr. Burdell.

Bite-sized stories from one of the masters of contemporary fiction.Thanks to social media, the world is getting ever more adept at writing concisely. However, Brian Aldiss was writing in this style long before twitter. In this collection of stories, Aldiss returns to the mini-saga tradition that ran for 6 years in The Telegraph, offering 50 brand-new 50-word narratives that will delight readers of any genre.