{"title":"Books on Modern Europe","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"the-hare-with-amber-eyes-the-1-sunday-times-bestseller-by-edmund-de-waal-9780099539551","title":"The Hare With Amber Eyes : The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller","description":"\u003cp\u003e**Winner of the Costa Biography Award**\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEdmund de Waal uncovers the history of a family through a turbulent century through 264 objects. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. 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Rory Stewart\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A journey of self-discovery and a pilgrimage of peace... A remarkable book by a remarkable man.' Michael Morpurgo\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'An incredible journey that will move and inspire.' Bear Grylls\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Anthony Seldon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47096540660010,"sku":"9781838957421","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/products\/9781838957421.jpg?v=1700750868"},{"product_id":"the-unwomanly-face-of-war-by-svetlana-alexievich-9780141983530","title":"The Unwomanly Face of War","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"A must read\" - Margaret Atwood\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"It would be hard to find a book that feels more important or original\" - Viv Groskop, Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExtraordinary stories from Soviet women who fought in the Second World War - from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Why, having stood up for and held their own place in a once absolutely male world, have women not stood up for their history? Their words and feelings? A whole world is hidden from us. 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With the dawn of Perestroika, a heavily censored edition came out in 1985 and it became a huge bestseller in the Soviet Union - the first in five books that have established her as the conscience of the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Svetlana Alexievich","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47532247482666,"sku":"9780141983530","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/unwomanly.jpg?v=1707943184"},{"product_id":"young-stalin-by-simon-sebag-montefiore-9781474614825","title":"Young Stalin","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinner of the Costa Biography Award\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes a Stalin? Was he a Tsarist agent or Lenin's bandit? Was he to blame for his wife's death? When did the killing start? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBased on revelatory research, here is the thrilling story of how a charismatic cobbler's son became a student priest, romantic poet, prolific lover, gangster mastermind and murderous revolutionary. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCulminating in the 1917 revolution, Simon Sebag Montefiore's bestselling biography radically alters our understanding of the gifted politician and fanatical Marxist who shaped the Soviet empire in his own brutal image. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the story of how Stalin became Stalin.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Simon Sebag Montefiore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47532332745002,"sku":"9781474614825","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/youngstalin.jpg?v=1707945068"},{"product_id":"east-west-street-winner-of-the-baillie-gifford-prize-by-philippe-qc-sands-9781474601917","title":"East West Street : Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe British Book Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2017\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSunday Times Top 10 Bestseller\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen he receives an invitation to deliver a lecture in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, international lawyer Philippe Sands begins a journey on the trail of his family's secret history. 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And how did they lose it all?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMontefiore's gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance, and peopled by a cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and poets. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWritten with dazzling literary flair, drawing on new archival research, the romanovs is at once an enthralling chronicle of triumph and tragedy, love and death, a universal study of power, and an essential portrait of the empire that still defines Russia today.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Simon Sebag Montefiore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47545300975914,"sku":"9781474600873","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/Romanovs.jpg?v=1708173036"},{"product_id":"a-village-in-the-third-reich-how-ordinary-lives-were-transformed-by-the-rise-of-fascism-by-julia-boyd-9781783966639","title":"A Village in the Third Reich : How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed By the Rise of Fascism","description":"\u003cp\u003eA Waterstones Paperback of the Year 2022\n\u003cbr\u003eA New Statesman Book of the Year 2022\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Fascinating. You'll learn more about the psychological workings of Nazism by reading this superbly researched chronicle than you will by reading a shelf of wider-canvas volumes on the rise of Nazism.\" Daily Mail\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"An utterly absorbing insight into the full spectrum of responses from ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.\" The Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Boyd is an outstanding micro-historian.\" iNews\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHidden deep in the Bavarian mountains lies the picturesque village of Oberstdorf - a place where for hundreds of years people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even this remote idyll could not escape the brutal iron grip of the Nazi regime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Travellers in the Third Reich comes A Village in the Third Reich: an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Germany under Hitler, shining a light on the lives of ordinary people. Drawing on personal archives, letters, interviews and memoirs, it lays bare their brutality and love; courage and weakness; action, apathy and grief; hope, pain, joy and despair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWithin its pages we encounter people from all walks of life - foresters, priests, farmers and nuns; innkeepers, Nazi officials, veterans and party members; village councillors, mountaineers, socialists, slave labourers, schoolchildren, tourists and aristocrats. We meet the Jews who survived - and those who didn't; the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime; and a blind boy whose life was judged \"not worth living\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires, of shattered dreams - but one in which, ultimately, human resilience triumphs. These are the stories of ordinary lives at the crossroads of history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Exceptional... Boyd's book reminds us that even the most brutal regimes cannot extinguish all semblance of human feeling\" Mail on Sunday\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Masterly. [an] important and gripping book. [Boyd is] a leading historian of human responses in political extremis.\" The Oldie\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Gripping. vividly depicted. [a] humane and richly detailed book\" Spectator\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Vivid, moving stories leave us asking 'What would I have done?'\" Professor David Reynolds, author of Island Stories\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"An absorbing, thoroughly recommended read\" Family Tree magazine\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Laying bare the tragedies, the compromises, the suffering and the disillusionment. Exemplary microhistory.\" Roger Moorehouse, author of First to Fight\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Compelling and evocative\" All About History\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"The rise of Nazi Germany through the prism of one small village in Bavaria. [...] Astonishing\" Jane Garvey on Fortunately with Fi and Jane\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"incredibly engaging\" History of War magazine\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Intensely detailed, exhaustively researched and rendered in almost cinematographic detail, Julia Boyd's A Village In The Third Reich is deeply evocative, redolent of those times and truly revelatory. I learned so much. This is a book I will need to return to again and again, to relearn, refresh and remember. A triumph.\" Damien Lewis, author of The Flame of Resistance\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Julia Boyd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47605915287850,"sku":"9781783966639","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/VILLAGEINTHETHIRD.jpg?v=1709045802"},{"product_id":"a-peoples-tragedy-the-russian-revolution-centenary-edition-with-new-introduction-by-orlando-figes-9781847924513","title":"A People's Tragedy : The Russian Revolution – centenary edition with new introduction","description":"\u003cp\u003eUnrivalled in scope and brimming with human drama, A People's Tragedy is the most vivid, moving and comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution available today. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A modern masterpiece' Andrew Marr\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOpening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People's Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIllustrated with over 100 photographs and now including a new introduction that reflects on the revolution's centennial legacy, A People's Tragedy is a masterful and definitive record of one of the most important events in modern history. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'The most moving account of the Russian Revolution since Doctor Zhivago' Independent\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orlando Figes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48487028719914,"sku":"9781847924513","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9781847924513.jpg?v=1716210724"},{"product_id":"russia-revolution-and-civil-war-1917-1921-by-antony-beevor-9781474610162","title":"Russia : Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921","description":"\u003cp\u003eA masterpiece of history 'daily telegraph'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBetween 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. 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Phillips has a good ear for historical anecdotes and writes with empathy and acuity about the people and places he encounters' Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Timothy Phillips","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48487036485930,"sku":"9781783785780","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9781783785780.jpg?v=1716210809"},{"product_id":"goodbye-eastern-europe-an-intimate-history-of-a-divided-land-by-jacob-mikanowski-9780861547326","title":"Goodbye Eastern Europe : An Intimate History of a Divided Land","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn epic history of the 'other' Europe, a place of conflict and coexistence, of faith and folklore. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Do not rush to bid farewell to eastern Europe until reading this book. 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And an invitation to not forget. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ea spectator book of the year 2023\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'An insightful chronicle. distilling more than a decade of research, [Mikanowski] carefully argues that if something marks out Europe's eastern half, it is not homogeneity but wild, glorious diversity.' -Economist\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A lively and sweeping history.' -Washington Post\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Goodbye Eastern Europe is a thematic history of a divided half-continent, a goulash of imperial histories, shifting frontiers and heartbreaking family stories, spiced with myth and poet-martyrs, and deeply satisfying on the palate. vital and informed.' -TLS\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jacob Mikanowski","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48487036977450,"sku":"9780861547326","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780861547326.jpg?v=1716210814"},{"product_id":"the-origins-of-totalitarianism-by-hannah-arendt-9780241316757","title":"The Origins of Totalitarianism","description":"\u003cp\u003eHow could such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we, too, live in dark times' Washington Post\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHannah Arendt's chilling analysis of the conditions that led to the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes is a warning from history about the fragility of freedom, exploring how propaganda, scapegoats, terror and political isolation all aided the slide towards total domination. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A non-fiction bookend to Nineteen Eighty-Four' The New York Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'The political theorist who wrote about the Nazis and the 'banality of evil' has become a surprise bestseller' Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hannah Arendt","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48487037272362,"sku":"9780241316757","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780241316757.jpg?v=1716210818"},{"product_id":"bloodlands-the-book-to-help-you-understand-today-s-eastern-europe-by-timothy-snyder-9780099551799","title":"Bloodlands : THE book to help you understand today’s Eastern Europe","description":"\u003cp\u003eA powerful and revelatory history book about the bloodlands - the lands that lie between Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany - where 14 million people were killed during the years 1933 - 1944. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the middle of Europe, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered fourteen million people in the bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow. In a twelve-year-period, in these killing fields - today's Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Western Russia and the eastern Baltic coast - an average of more than one million citizens were slaughtered every year, as a result of deliberate policies unrelated to combat. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this book Timothy Snyder offers a ground-breaking investigation into the motives and methods of Stalin and Hitler and, using scholarly literature and primary sources, pays special attention to the testimony of the victims, including the letters home, the notes flung from trains, the diaries on corpses. The result is a brilliantly researched, profoundly humane, authoritative and original book that forces us to re-examine one of the greatest tragedies in European history and re-think our past.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Timothy Snyder","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48487037993258,"sku":"9780099551799","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780099551799.jpg?v=1716210828"},{"product_id":"the-last-days-of-the-ottoman-empire-by-ryan-gingeras-9780141992778","title":"The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire","description":"\u003cp\u003eA tour de force of accessible scholarship' The Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Impressive ... It is a complicated story that still reverberates, and Gingeras narrates it with lucid authority' New Statesman\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Ottoman Empire had been one of the major facts in European history since the Middle Ages. Stretching from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, the Empire was both a great political entity and a religious one, with the Sultan ruling over the Holy Sites and, as Caliph, the successor to Mohammed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYet the Empire's fateful decision to support Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 doomed it to disaster, breaking it up into a series of European colonies and what emerged as an independent Saudi Arabia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRyan Gingeras's superb new book explains how these epochal events came about and shows how much we still live in the shadow of decisions taken so long ago. Would all of the Empire fall to marauding Allied armies, or could something be saved? In such an ethnically and religiously entangled region, what would be the price paid to create a cohesive and independent new state? \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe story of the creation of modern Turkey is an extraordinary, bitter epic, brilliantly told here.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ryan Gingeras","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48487041237290,"sku":"9780141992778","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780141992778.jpg?v=1716210868"},{"product_id":"the-basque-history-of-the-world-by-mark-kurlansky-9780099284130","title":"The Basque History Of The World","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Basques are Europe's oldest people, their origins a mystery, their language related to no other on Earth. Even though few in population and from a remote and rugged corner of Spain and France, they have had a profound impact on the world. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhilst inward-looking, preserving their ancient language and customs, the Basques also struck out for new horizons, pioneers of whaling and cod fishing, leading the way in exploration of the Americas and Asia. They were among the first capitalists and later led Southern Europe's industrial revolution. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMark Kurlansky, the author of the acclaimed Cod, blends human stories with economic, political, literary and culinary history to paint a fascinating picture of an intriguing people.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mark Kurlansky","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48487045955882,"sku":"9780099284130","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780099284130.jpg?v=1716210916"},{"product_id":"last-days-in-old-europe-trieste-79-vienna-85-prague-89-by-richard-bassett-9780141979991","title":"Last Days in Old Europe : Trieste '79, Vienna '85, Prague '89","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith these vivid, wistful memoirs, he joins the great chroniclers of Europe - the Prousts, Zweigs, Lampedusas, Leigh-Fermors and Bassanis - and shows how some of the things those writers loved persisted as late as 1989.' (Economist)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSelected as a Book of the Year in the TLS and Spectator\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1979 Richard Bassett set out on a series of adventures and encounters in central Europe which allowed him to savour the last embers of the cosmopolitan old Hapsburg lands and gave him a ringside seat at the fall of another ancien regime, that of communist rule. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom Trieste to Prague and Vienna to Warsaw, fading aristocrats, charming gangsters, fractious diplomats and glamorous informants provided him with an unexpected counterpoint to the austerities of life along the Iron Curtain, first as a professional musician and then as a foreign correspondent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe book shows us familiar events and places from unusual vantage points: dilapidated mansions and boarding-houses, train carriages and cafes, where the game of espionage between east and west is often set. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere are unexpected encounters with Shirley Temple, Fitzroy Maclean, Lech Walesa and the last Empress of Austria. Bassett finds himself at the funeral of King Nicola of Montenegro in Cetinje, plays bridge with the last man alive to have been decorated by the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef and watches the KGB representative in Prague bestowing the last rites on the Soviet empire in Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMusic and painting, architecture and landscape, food and wine, friendship and history run through the book. The author is lucky, observant and leans romantically towards the values of an older age. 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An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Above all, it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic, near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReviews:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Formidable ... one of the most impressive and stimulating studies of the period ever published' Max Hastings, Sunday Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Easily the best book ever written on the subject ... A work of rare beauty that combines meticulous research with sensitive analysis and elegant prose. The enormous weight of its quality inspires amazement and awe ... Academics should take note: Good history can still be a good story' Washington Post\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A lovingly researched work of the highest scholarship. It is hard to believe we will ever see a better narrative of what was perhaps the biggest collective blunder in the history of international relations' Niall Ferguson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'[Reading The Sleepwalkers], it is as if a light had been turned on a half-darkened stage of shadowy characters cursing among themselves without reason ... [Clark] demolishes the standard view ... The brilliance of Clark's far-reaching history is that we are able to discern how the past was genuinely prologue ... In conception, steely scholarship and piercing insights, his book is a masterpiece' Harold Evans, New York Times Book Review\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Impeccably researched, provocatively argued and elegantly written ... a model of scholarship' Sunday Times Books of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Superb ... effectively consigns the old historical consensus to the bin ... It's not often that one has the privilege of reading a book that reforges our understanding of one of the seminal events of world history' Mail Online\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A monumental new volume ... Revelatory, even revolutionary ... Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable' Boston Globe\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Superb ... One of the great mysteries of history is how Europe's great powers could have stumbled into World War I ... This is the single best book I have read on this important topic' Fareed Zakaria\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A meticulously researched, superbly organized, and handsomely written account' Military History\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Clark is a masterly historian ... His account vividly reconstructs key decision points while deftly sketching the context driving them ... A magisterial work' Wall Street Journal\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'This compelling examination of the causes of World War I deserves to become the new standard one-volume account of that contentious subject' Foreign Affairs\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A brilliant contribution' Times Higher Education\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Clark is fully alive to the challenges of the subject ... He provides vivid portraits of leading figures ... [He] also gives a rich sense of what contemporaries believed was at stake in the crises leading up to the war' Irish Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'In recent decades, many analysts had tended to put most blame for the disaster [of the First World War] on Germany. Clark strongly renews an older interpretation which sees the statesmen of many countries as blundering blindly together into war' Stephen Howe, Independent Books of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAbout the author:\n\u003cbr\u003eChristopher Clark is Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St Catharine's College. He is the author of The Politics of Conversion, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Iron Kingdom. Widely praised around the world, Iron Kingdom became a major bestseller. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Christopher Clark","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49156750475562,"sku":"9780141027821","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780141027821.jpg?v=1724321446"},{"product_id":"greece-biography-of-a-modern-nation-by-roderick-beaton-9780141986524","title":"Greece : Biography of a Modern Nation","description":"\u003cp\u003eShortlisted for the Cundill History Prize 2020 and the Runciman Award 2021\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA Financial Times Book of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life' Victoria Hislop\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe think we know ancient Greece, the civilisation that shares the same name and gave us just about everything that defines 'western' culture today, in the arts, sciences, social sciences and politics. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYet, as Greece has been brought under repeated scrutiny during the financial crises that have convulsed the country since 2010, worldwide coverage has revealed just how poorly we grasp the modern nation. 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Dominic Sandbrook\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Thrillingly unique, knowledgeable, perceptive and profound' Ian Dunt\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe history of Europe told through twenty-nine key borders that define the past, present and future of our continent\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEurope's internal borders have rarely been 'natural'; they have more often been created by accident or force. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn Borderlines, political historian Lewis Baston journeys along twenty-nine key borders from west to east Europe, examining how the map of our continent has been redrawn over the last century, with varying degrees of success. The fingerprints of Napoleon, Alexander I, Castlereagh, Napoleon III and Bismarck are all there, but today's map of Europe is mostly the work of the Allies in 1919 and Stalin in 1945. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTo journey to the centre of the story of Europe, Baston takes us to its edges, bringing to life the fascinating and often bizarre histories of these border zones. We visit Baarle, the town broken into thirty fragments by the Netherland-Belgium border, and stop in Ostritz, the eastern German town where Nazis held a rock festival. We meander the back lanes of rural Ireland, and soak up the atmosphere in the coffee houses of the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. Through these borderlands, Baston explores how places and people heal from the scars left by a Europe of ethnic cleansing and barbed wire fences, and he searches for a better European future - finding it in unexpected places. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'An eye-opening read that combines Baston's travels along Europe's fault lines with incredible insights on how they got there in the first place.' Katja Hoyer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Beautiful. A true gem... [his] unique take on human nature through the history and heritage of the borderlands ends up being deeply moving.' - Irish Independent\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Extraordinarily perceptive and original' Anthony Seldon\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Refreshing and important' Rafael Behr\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Lewis Baston","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49156778230058,"sku":"9781399723763","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9781399723763.jpg?v=1724321674"},{"product_id":"at-the-existentialist-cafe-freedom-being-and-apricot-cocktails-by-sarah-bakewell-9780099554882","title":"At The Existentialist Cafe : Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails","description":"\u003cp\u003eShortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eParis, near the turn of 1932-3. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. 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With Darnton’s eloquent prose, the emotional depth of the period comes alive, offering a reading experience that is as educational as it is profoundly moving. Explore the revolutionary emotions that not only defined a nation but also laid the groundwork for contemporary society.\u003c\/p\u003e    \u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Robert Darnton","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49328533766442,"sku":"9780713996562","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780713996562.jpg?v=1727425364"},{"product_id":"the-spanish-civil-war-reaction-revolution-and-revenge-by-paul-preston-9780007232079","title":"The Spanish Civil War : Reaction, Revolution and Revenge","description":"\u003cp\u003eUpdated edition\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA rousing and full-blooded account of the Spanish Civil War and the rise to prominence of General Franco.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNo modern conflict has inflamed the passions of both civilians and intellectuals as much as the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. 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Figes mobilizes a cast of serf harems, dynasties, politburos, libertines, filmmakers, novelists, composers, poets, tsars and tyrants ... superb, flamboyant and masterful\" - Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Financial Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Awe-inspiring ... Natasha's Dance has all the qualities of an epic tragedy\" - Mail on Sunday\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"It is so much fun to read that I hesitate to write too much, for fear of spoiling the pleasures and surprises of the book\" - Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Magnificent ... Figes is at his exciting best\" - Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Breathtaking ... The title of this masterly history comes from War and Peace, when the aristocratic heroine, Natasha Rostova, finds herself intuitively picking up the rhythm of a peasant dance ... One of those books that, at times, makes you wonder how you have so far managed to do without it\" - Independent on Sunday\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Thrilling, dizzying ... I would defy any reader not to be captivated\" - Literary Review\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOrlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Peasant Russia, Civil War, A People's Tragedy, Natasha's Dance, The Whisperers and Just Send Me Word. 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But the eventual victory of the Red Army, and the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa, was the first defeat of Hitler's territorial ambitions in Europe, and the start of his decline. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn extraordinary story of tactical genius, civilian bravery, obsession, carnage and the nature of war itself, Stalingrad will act as a testament to the vital role of the soviet war effort. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'He reveals the full awfulness and human cost of the conflict with scholarly verve and deep sympathy' Ben Macintyre\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A superb re-telling. Beevor combines a soldier's understanding of war's realities with the narrative techniques of a novelist' Orlando Figes, Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A brilliantly researched tour de force of military history' Sarah Bradford, The Times\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Antony Beevor","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54960731357557,"sku":"9780141032405","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780141032405.jpg?v=1738225080"},{"product_id":"the-pursuit-of-italy-a-history-of-a-land-its-regions-and-their-peoples-by-david-gilmour-9780141043418","title":"The Pursuit of Italy : A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe book that explains the whole extraordinary course of Italian history like no other in English.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Pursuit of Italy traces the whole history of the Italian peninsula in a wonderfully readable style, full of well-chosen stories and observations from personal experience, and peopled by many of the great figures of the Italian past, from Cicero and Virgil to Dante and the Medici, from Cavour and Verdi to the controversial political figures of the twentieth century. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe book gives a clear-eyed view of the Risorgimento, the pivotal event in modern Italian history, debunking the influential myths which have grown up around it. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGilmour shows that the glory of Italy has always lain in its regions, with their distinctive art, civic cultures, identities and cuisine and whose inhabitants identified themselves not as Italians, but as Tuscans and Venetians, Sicilians and Lombards, Neapolitans and Genoese. 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Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEach of Vermeer's paintings tells a story. In one, a military officer leans toward a laughing girl; in another, a woman stands by a window and weighs silver; in a third, fruit spills from a porcelain bowl onto a lavish Turkish carpet. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHiding in plain sight, these details hint at the intricate threads that bound Vermeer's world together - the officer's hat is made from North American beaver, bought with silver extracted from the mines of Peru, while beaver pelts were traded in their thousands for the Chinese porcelain so beloved by the Dutch in the Golden Age. From a view of Delft, Vermeer gives us the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs a new Vermeer exhibition opens at the Rijksmuseum, the largest of its kind in history, Vermeer's Hat offers a fascinating perspective on how the burgeoning forces of trade and commerce shaped Vermeer's masterpieces.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Timothy Brook","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55203928768885,"sku":"9781846681202","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9781846681202.jpg?v=1743096798"},{"product_id":"reformation-europes-house-divided-1490-1700-by-diarmaid-macculloch-9780140285345","title":"Reformation : Europe's House Divided 1490-1700","description":"\u003cp\u003eA masterpiece ... In its field it is the best book ever' Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWinner of the Wolfson Prize for history, Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700 charts a seismic shift in European culture that marked the beginning of the modern world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Reformation tore the western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's history brilliantly re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars and politicians, from the zealous Martin Luther nailing his Theses to the door of a Wittenburg church to the radical Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order; from Thomas Cranmer, martyred for his reforms, to the ambitious Philip II, unwavering in his campaign against Europe's 'heretics'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWeaving together the many strands of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, ranging widely across Europe and even to the new world, MacCulloch also reveals as never before how these upheavals affected everyday lives - overturning ideas of love, sex, death and the supernatural, and shaping the modern age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Magisterial and eloquent' David Starkey\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'A triumph of human sympathy' Blair Worden, Sunday Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'From politics to witchcraft, from the liturgy to sex; the sweep of European history covered here is breathtakingly panoramic. This is a model work of history' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Monumental ... Reformation is set to become a landmark' Lisa Jardine, Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDiarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His Thomas Cranmer won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. He is also the author of A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Diarmaid MacCulloch","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55203935027573,"sku":"9780140285345","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0812\/4075\/2426\/files\/9780140285345.jpg?v=1743097107"}],"url":"https:\/\/sherlockandpages.com\/collections\/books-on-modern-europe.oembed?page=5","provider":"Sherlock \u0026 Pages","version":"1.0","type":"link"}