If in the year 1411 you had been able to circumnavigate the globe, you would have been most impressed by the civilizations of the Orient. The Forbidden City was under construction and the Ottomans were closing in on Constantinople. The idea that the West would have come to dominate the rest would have struck you as wildly fanciful.

In this incredible companion to the second and third seasons of Netflix's acclaimed series The Crown, renowned biographer and the show's historical consultant Robert Lacey takes us through the real history that inspired the drama. Covering two tumultuous decades in the reign of Elizabeth II, Lacey looks at the key social, political and personal moments and the effect they had not only on the royal family, but also on the world around them. From the...

"Black Sun is fascinating and has fearsome authenticity." --Frederick Forsyth, #1 New York Times bestselling author "Thrilling and suspenseful." --Simon Sebeag Montefiore, New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs "To call the novel chilling is an understatement." --Booklist (starred review) It is the dawn of the 1960s. In order to investigate the gruesome death of a brilliant young physicist, KGB officer Major Alexander Vasin must leave Moscow...

From one of the best-loved and bestselling authors of all time comes and irresistible tale of swashbuckling pirates in the New World - a classic story of adventure and betrayal. Jamaica, in 1665 a lone outpost of British power amid Spanish waters in the sunbaked Caribbean. Its capital, Port Royal, a cuthroat town of taverns, grog shops and bawdy houses - the last place imaginable from which to launch an unthinkable attack on a nearby Spanish stronghold....

A riveting, thought-provoking and very timely account of the idea and the reality of quarantine around the world, examining not only the history but the implications of a system that our lives rely on.

Four Hundred Souls is an epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, told by ninety leading Black voices -- co-curated by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the million-copy bestseller How To Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire. The story begins with the arrival of twenty Ndongo people on the shores of the first British colony in mainland America in 1619, the year before the arrival of...

Ursula Kuczynski Burton was a spymaster, saboteur, bomb-maker and secret agent. Codenamed 'Agent Sonya', her story has never been told - until now. Born to a German Jewish family, as Ursula grew, so did the Nazis' power. As a fanatical opponent of the fascism that ravaged her homeland, Ursula was drawn to communism as a young woman, motivated by the promise of a fair and peaceful society. From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland,...

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency-a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest...