Richard Smyth: 5 books

Birdsong is woven into culture, emotions, and landscape. It is the soundtrack to our world, shaping experiences of place and belonging. We have tried to capture this fleeting, ephemeral beauty, and the feelings it inspires, for millennia. In this rich and insightful account, Richard Smyth asks what...

This is the hidden history of an invention that we use every day but seldom dare to speak of. In medieval China it was cutting-edge technology. For 19th-century Americans it was a newfangled alternative to dried corncobs and the Sears & Roebuck catalogue. Wits in Georgian London preferred pages...

From the bizarre true story of a victorian haunting to the weirdest events of the Blitz examined and a tragic Yorkshire murder at Calverly Hall, Leeds has one of the darkest histories on record. From the fatal Dripping Riot of 1865, sparked by the theft of two pounds of congealed fat, to the violin-playing...

Hundreds of incredible true facts and anecdotes from England's amazing historyDid you know that Mary Queen of Scots was a mighty 5' 11" tall? Her cousin Elizabeth I, by contrast, was a miniscule 5' 4". Even with the heaviest bows, an English archer could fire six arrows a minute—or up...

This book creates a user-friendly, accessible guide to the complex area of sanctions law. In particular, the book examines how sanctions restrictions work in practice, and what the implications are for multinational businesses operating across numerous sanctions regimes. To this extent, the book considers...