History Press: 2525 books

Brummie Kid is a fascinating recollection of the experience of growing up in the slums of Nechells and Aston. All the harshness of daily life is remembered here by local author Graham Twist. Despite hard living conditions and a distinct lack of money, a strong community spirit prevailed and families...

Prophet John Wroe (1782-1863), found fame through his many predictions, his preaching and the establishment of the Christian Israelite Church in the early 1820s. Under Wroe the Christian Israelites were surrounded by scandal and controversy. The best known of these is when Wroe publicly announced...

Because they were situated near the Mason-Dixon line, Shepherdstown residents witnessed the realities of the Civil War firsthand. Marching armies, sounds of battle and fear of war had arrived on their doorsteps by the summer of 1862. The Maryland Campaign of September 1862 brought thousands of wounded...

Two sisters: born nine years apart to a mad French king during the turbulent years of the Hundred Years War, the bitter series of conflicts that set the House of Plantagenet against the House of Valois. Catherine de Valois, the beautiful young bride of Henry V, conducted a passionate love affair with...

In 1914, the East London Federation of Suffragettes, led by Sylvia Pankhurst, split from the WSPU. Sylvia's mother and sister, Emmeline and Christabel, had encouraged her to give up her work with the poor women of East London—but Sylvia refused. Besides campaigning for women to have an equal right...

Elizabeth I is perhaps England's most famous monarch. Born in 1533, the product of the doomed marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was heir to her father's title, then disinherited and finally imprisoned by her half sister Mary. But in 1558, on Mary's death, she ascended the throne and...

The Berlin Airlift represents one of the most dramatic humanitarian efforts of the postwar era and was a strikingly successful example of British and American cooperation. It was also an event that made a major contribution towards turning a wartime enemy into a Cold War ally. Helena Schrader commemorates...

The secret manuals of the oral tradition of the Iga and Koka Ninja, feared and respected across Japan for centuries—now in paperbackThrough patient and scholarly detective work, Antony Cummins and the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team have unearthed a Shinobi treasure. The 18th-century military...

Founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1944 when it became clear Germany would be invaded, the Werewolf guerrilla movement was given the task of slowing down the Allied advance to allow time for the success of negotiations, or "wonder weapons." Staying behind in territory occupied by the Allies,...

The Crusades continue to exert a fascination as a story of perceived gallantry and battles against impossible odds. Yet what is less often considered is their effect on the Holy Land, and in particular the response of the Muslim world to the invasions of west European Crusaders. By a previously divided...

Why is Constantine a giant? Because he gave Christians freedom of religion, yet also because he radically and thoroughly changed society, in particular church-state relations, thereby creating the opportunity for the Christian community to experience exponential growth. His changes in government,...

A poem: "General Shute." The General inspecting the trenches, exclaimed with a horrified shout, 'I refuse to command a Division, Which leaves its excreta about.', But nobody took any notice, No one was prepared to refute, That the presence of shit was congenial, compared to the presence...

The extraordinary story of the warrior bishop who commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry and helped plan the Norman Conquest Odo, the younger half-brother of William the Conqueror, was ordained Bishop of Bayeux while still in his teens. He played a pivotal role in the planning and implementation...

On January 30, 1607, a huge wave, over 7 meters high, swept up the River Severn, flooding the land on either side. The wall of water reached as far inland as Bristol and Cardiff. It swept away everything in its path, devastating communities and killing thousands of people. Historian and geographer...