John Withington: 6 books

In October 1995, a blind, deaf, French grandmother broke a world record. Jeanne Calment became, so far as we know, the oldest human being who has ever lived when she reached the age of 120 years and 238 days. She went on to survive for nearly three more years—dying in 1997 at 122 years and 164 days....

From the flood that remade the earth in the Old Testament to the 1931 China floods that killed almost four million people, from the broken levees in New Orleans to the almost yearly rising waters of rivers like the Mississippi, floods have many causes: rain, melting ice, storms, tsunamis, failures...

Gales, cyclones, blizzards, tornados, and hurricanes—few things demonstrate the awesome power of nature like a good storm. Devastating, diverse, and sometimes appearing completely out of nowhere, storms are also a source of both scientific and aesthetic wonder. In this book, John Withington takes...

A comprehensive catalog of the most devastating and deadly events—natural or man-made—in human history.   If you follow the news it can seem like injury, sickness, and death are now constant, inescapable occurrences that threaten us every second of every day. But such catastrophic events—as...

From ancient wars to terrorist attacks, now updated to include the 2008-2009 banking crisis From AD61, when Queen Boudicca—outraged at her treatment at the hands of the Romans—marched on to the city and burned it to the gound, London has been hit by wave upon wave of destruction. This fascinating...

Britain's biggest military blunders and defeats throughout history, including Hastings, Somme, and Singapore Crecy, Agincourt, Blenheim, Trafalgar, Waterloo, El Alamein—war and history buffs know plenty about the great British military victories, often won against the odds. But what of the defeats...