Books
Click on any of the books covers below to either buy or get more information on Amazon
From the Publisher
Yale University Press is a leading publisher of groundbreaking history books. Our list includes many award-winners, the authoritative Yale English Monarchs series and the much-loved Little Histories books. With our London office established in 1961, Yale is the only American university press with a full-scale publishing operation in Europe.
Book Reviews
In the 1950s and 60s, Word War Two was a recent memory for most families who had nearly all been involved in the struggle one way or another. At that time, escape stories and the daring exploits of servicemen who had been captured regularly appeared on shop bookshelves. Films were released like
Merchants, in the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are ubiquitous. One finds them represented on the stage, for example, in the works of Shakespeare and Jonson (‘let’s see him creep!’). The word itself conjures up a host of senses: the jingling of coins in purses, the ...
British Intelligence operations of the Second World War have been the frequent subject of both scholarly and creative attention, often appearing in popular culture in films such as The Imitation Game and A Call To Spy. Some might argue that there is little left to uncover on ...
It seems fitting given recent events, to examine the history of jihad in Northeast Africa through the lens of western interventionism. As Warren Dockter, author of Churchill and the Islamic World, puts it: Empire and ...
Most of us have probably never heard of Operation Foursquare, a top secret operation into Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War. On the night of 4th May 1945, an RAF plane takes off from Dijon in France, with four Czech soldiers on board, who have been given secret ...
Julian Corbett was born in 1854 and after becoming a barrister in 1877 he practised law until 1882. At that point he turned to writing as a career beginning with historical fiction often with a maritime theme. That led on to commissions to write a couple of biographies of historical figures ...
As a long-term Russophile with a grudge against the Bolsheviks I jumped at the chance to review this authoritative book, written through the unclouded lens of such an illustrious Russian historian. Collapse: The Fall of the ...
Penelope Corfield clearly has a knowledge of - and love for - her subject. The Georgians: The Deeds and Misdeeds of 18th Century Britain provides a comprehensive overview of the period, whilst garnishing the account ...
Charles Cornwallis, Lord Cornwallis, is remembered as one of the salient military leaders of the American Revolution, blamed for the British defeat at Yorktown that marked the beginning of the end of the Revolution. Yet as Richard Middleton´s masterful new biography illustrates, Cornwallis´ ...
On a Saturday in 2012, journalist Simon Kuper had the highly sought-after opportunity to interview the last surviving traitor of the Cold War, George Blake, in his dacha (home) outside Moscow. As it turned out, Kuper is believed to have been the last Western journalist to interview Blake. Kuper
As soon as I picked up this book I knew it was a brilliant idea, and wondered why no-one had thought to do it before. The answer lies in the book itself, which is that the amount of research taken is enormous. Writing as an amateur, and not a historian, it is a veritable feast for anyone who ...
By the close of 1943, the tides of the global war at sea had turned significantly in favour of the Allies. In the North Atlantic Doenitz’s wolf-packs were increasingly pulling back, relieving the pressure on Allied convoy lines. In the Mediterranean most of the inland sea was under the control ...
Interviews
Edmond Smith, what inspired you to write about these early entrepreneurs, the subject of your new book, Merchants?My PhD set out to explore how individual investors shaped the ...
Neil Faulkner, your book opens in 1851 with the explorer and missionary, David Livingstone, who encounters what turns out to be a huge slave trade that stretches from Africa to India. Whilst Britain had abolished slavery in 1833, what were the numbers that were involved in this ongoing ...
Andrew Lambert, your new book is based on Sir Julian Corbett. He was a fascinating man, with many interests outside of military strategy, but he’s not as well-known as he should be. Why is that?Despite his
Vladislav Zubok, Collapse is a brilliant book and incredibly comprehensive, but there are polar opposite narratives about this historical period which focus (for example) on the nefarious actions of the KGB in Eastern Europe. Did you deliberately avoid exploring the darker side
Richard Middleton, Charles, 1st Marquis Cornwallis is probably most well-known for his disastrous military leadership during the American War of Independence. Was he really a terrible commander? Cornwallis’s career as a field commander certainly began badly when he allowed
Ian Gentles, The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution is an updated edition of your earlier title, but it’s almost a different book – just how much has changed?The first edition has been condensed ...
Margaret Willes, what inspired you to write about this subject, a book not about the cathedral, but about its surrounding area?My first memory of St Paul's Churchyard was emerging from the Underground into an area of devastation. It was probably in 1953, when my father ...
Victor Stater, in your introduction you describe the Popish Plot as ‘preposterous’. Are we talking QAnon levels, or a more sane conspiracy theory such as the assassination of JFK?I’d say there are elements of both—the idea that Charles II might be assassinated in order to ...
Ronald, you wrote Queens of the Wild during 2020, when Covid struck the land, and we were all confined to our homes. Did this experience bring any historical examples to mind when writing the book – a time ...
In the First World War mass casualties were suffered in the sluggish trench warfare of the Western Front. Did we see enough involvement by the politicians to attempt to limit those losses?During the First World War British politicians made various but only sporadic ...
Your book opens with the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745 when the British, despite superiority of firepower, were defeated by Saxe’s use of the terrain and positioning of his forces. The use of topography by senior officers would seem to be rather an obvious ‘innovation’ – commanders had ...
Tony Spawforth, surely the impact on our world today by the Greeks is significantly limited - after all the Romans would surely claim the ancient influence, if there is any?In many ways the Romans were simply conduits for the older and greater Greek civilisation that they ...
Articles
In August 1941, British and Russian forces invaded Iran and Reza Shah’s abdication was followed by his son Mohammad Reza’s succession. In the 37 years that separate the Allied invasion from the revolution of 1979, three distinct phases may be distinguished.1941 to 1953 was a period of ...
Within the pages of Women of SOE, there are many incredible stories reflecting every human trait from heroism to cowardice, bravery to fear, love to betrayal, loyalty to selfishness. The book's aim is to show these women (and the men they worked ...
In my new biography of Empress Matilda, I have emphasised Matilda’s capacity for collaboration with the men surrounding her, revealing her concomitant skill of persuasion and negotiation. Nevertheless, it is clear from her life story that there were moments that these skills did not produce the
When we think of the Crusades, the first things that come to mind are 12th-century characters such as Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, locked in combat for control of the Holy Land. The average medieval person, though, would have had a much richer understanding which included Crusades to ...
In 2025, the Stockton and Darlington Railway celebrated its 200th anniversary. The bicentenary celebrations were promoted by a multi-disciplinary team from the local authorities, museum partners and other experts, and were a welcome reminder how this innovative system made possible the modern ...
In April 1521, three famous subjects of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V were risking their lives on three different continents. Martin Luther was standing before the emperor in person at the Diet of Worms, where he defied all the powers of Europe in the name of conscience and the Word of God. ...
‘We are oppressed and not oppressors’
Letter from the Old Man of the Mountain to Saladin
Amongst the minor groups that most contemporaries in the medieval Middle East would initially have nominated as ‘least likely
The pair of Anglican archbishops at Canterbury and York have been pillars of England’s ecclesiastical establishment for centuries, going back long before the Church of England itself. However, for a brief period between 787 and 803 England had a third archbishopric, in Lichfield, set up under ...
‘Rumour is always more terrifying when it concerns the deaths of the powerful’, wrote the Roman senator and historian Cornelius Tacitus in the early 2nd century CE. His statement can be equally applied to monarchs and potentates, both dynastic and elected, who, by continuing to draw breath, ...
States have already pushed assassination even further to the fore since the publication of Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination in the summer of 2025. However, if we look underneath the headlines, then the trends which had been well ...
On 20 November 1945 twenty-one defendants flanked by US guards were brought along the covered walkway from the prison cells, up the stairs, through a door behind the prisoners’ box and into the courtroom. This was the opening day of the Nuremberg Trials, where
