An astonishing memoir from the Holocaust survivor who oversaw the world’s first genocide trials and has advised the ICC on crimes in Israel and Gaza. When the Second World War began, Theodor Meron was a Jewish-born boy of just 9. He survived ghettos, camps and unimaginable atrocities, but lost most of his family, finding sanctuary in British Palestine after the Holocaust.Now, more than eight decades later, Judge Meron is a recognised world leader in both the scholarship and p...
A fascinating study of the British Empire’s Middle Eastern intelligence section during the First World War, drawing on government files and secret publications. In the midst of the First World War, an extra- ordinary intelligence unit operated from Cairo’s Savoy Hotel, combining the skills of archaeologists, academics and soldiers to revolutionise how Britain gathered information and shaped events in the Middle East. Overshadowed by Lawrence of Arabia, the Arab Bureau’s true ...
A Spectator 'Book of the Year' A new, full history of slavery in Africa, from the Pharaohs to the present. Slavery has ravaged African societies since at least 2,500 BCE, from Egypt to the Cape; from Mauritania to Somalia. Most writing covers just one fraction of this history: the horrors of the trans.Atlantic slave trade. Yet Indian Ocean slavery was equally sizeable, and far longer.lived. Historians often neglect the continent's internal practices, too..Ethiopian kingdo...
Selected as a 'Book of the Year' by the Guardian and Spectator ‘The Gaza I knew, and whose length and breadth I’ve travelled, has ceased to exist.’ Jean-Pierre Filiu, acclaimed historian of Gaza, is intimately familiar with the land’s people and places; he speaks the local dialect. But nothing prepared him for what he encountered there in December 2024. This is his unforgettable, unbearably intimate account of one month in a place shattered by Israel’s all-out war.When the hi...
A gripping social and political chronicle of Syria before and after revolution, as the global shockwaves continue rippling. For decades, Syrians longed for an ordinary life. When Bashar Assad was unexpectedly toppled in December 2024, they celebrated the fall of a dynastic dictatorship.But as they strive for post-Assad justice, they must grapple with the legacy of a freedom fight begun many years before. When Hafez Assad's violent rule ended in 2000, many believed his son her...
In this book, Armen Sarkissian, former president of Armenia, argues that small states can navigate the complex challenges of the twenty-first century in smarter ways than 'greater' powers. For smallness — often regarded as a weakness — can be a strength. It may induce insecurity in states, but also endows them with an instinct for survival.Large states are ponderous; small states can be agile and adaptive. Drawing on his deep experience as a scientist, businessman, diplomat a...
City of Kashmir offers readers a journey into the 2,000-year history of Srinagar, exploring its written history, legends and oral traditions to take a living pulse. In exploring the city's geography, it maps the daily rituals of life and the accompanying material culture, as well as the crafts for which Srinagar is justly famed worldwide. Based on twenty years' research in Srinagar as a heritage consultant, Sameer Hamdani's narrative is shaped and populated by glimpses of the...
The epic story of Helsinki--founded by Sweden, refashioned by Russia, forever shaped by the sea. Over 475 years, the Finnish capital has gone from a sleepy fishing village to a thriving Nordic metropolis, globally renowned for its architecture, design and quality of life. This intricate and expansive new history lays bare the perils--and occasional perks--of Helsinki's position on the Baltic Sea, sandwiched between East and West.In flowing prose and fascinating anecdotes, Hen...
'There's something to disagree with on every page. But this makes the book more enjoyable and interesting, not less; it offers valuable provocation.' — The New Yorker'Elegant.' — The Wall Street JournalAre we confronting a new culture—global, online, individualistic? Or is our existing concept of culture in crisis, as explicit, normative systems replace implicit, social values?Olivier Roy’s new book explains today’s fractures via the extension of individual political and sexu...
A leading Central European journalist investigates how political and intellectual elites in Europe’s democracies underestimate and enable the continent’s authoritarians—from the Cold War onwards. ‘Putin has obviously deceived everyone.’ These were the words of Manuela Schwesig, First Minister of the German state Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania, after the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She was trying to explain why her federal government had been so closely implicated in ...
From northern Europe’s earliest inhabitants to the search for security in the twenty-first century, Kalnins sweeps through the full story of a remarkable Baltic state. The history of the Latvian people begins some four and a half millennia ago with the arrival of the proto-Baltic Indo-Europeans to northern Europe. One branch of these migrants coalesced into a community which evolved a distinctive and remarkably robust culture and language, and which eventually developed into ...
An indispensable guide to Greenland—why it matters, who covets it and why this wilderness of 56,000 inhabitants could become the next global flashpoint. Greenland is no ordinary island. From its discovery by Norsemen to its contemporary strategic significance, it has been a frontier for human exploration and empire, today emerging as a facilitator of geoeconomic competition.This book delves into the rich history and complex politics of Greenland, revealing how this icy expans...
A Spectator 'Book of the Year'A new, full history of slavery in Africa, from the Pharaohs to the present. Slavery has ravaged African societies since at least 2,500 BCE, from Egypt to the Cape; from Mauritania to Somalia. Most writing covers just one fraction of this history: the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.Yet Indian Ocean slavery was equally sizeable, and far longer-lived. Historians often neglect the continent's internal practices, too--Ethiopian kingdoms ens...
One of the Financial Times' Books to Read in 2025 One of Foreign Policy's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 A darkly brilliant, wide-angled vision of our chaotic, globalised world, where present crises resonate with past tyrannies—from a bestselling geopolitical expert. We are entering a new era of global cataclysm; a deadly mix of war, climate change, great-power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, and the end of empire. In Waste Land, renowned world affairs author Robert...
Through its millennium-long existence, Gaza has often been bitterly disputed, yet enduringly neglected. Squeezed between the Negev and Sinai deserts on the one hand and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, Gaza was contested by the Pharaohs, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Fatimids, Mamluks, Crusaders and Ottomans. In 1917, the British Empire fought for months to conquer Gaza, before establishing its mandate for Palestine.In 1948, 200,000 Palestinians sought refug...
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography | Goldsmith Book Prize 2025 Winner (Trade) | A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 | A BBC History Magazine Book of the YearWith Orwell claimed by all sides of the culture wars, returning to his own world and words offers sharp and surprising lessons for today’s crises. Seventy-five years after 1984 first published, George Orwell is back. Progressives denounce ‘Orwellian’ untruths by Trump, Johnson, Putin et al, while conserva...
Russia is intent on attacking beyond Ukraine. Can Europe defend itself?While Ukraine holds back Russia’s onslaught, Moscow has been working hard at rebuilding its army for the next invasion. But for the past 30 years, Britain and Europe have been running down their armed forces and defence industries, thinking that war would never come.Most of the continent banked an increasingly illusory ‘peace dividend’ while outsourcing defence to the United States. Now, change in the US a...
Marie Curie's insatiable passion for science allowed her to achieve the unthinkable, in doing so becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person ever to win Nobel Prizes in two disciplines. Curie is most famous for her pioneering work in the field of radioactivity and for discovering two new elements, polonium and radium. However, Curie not only broke scientific barriers but defied the gender expectations of her time amidst a male-dominated scientific commun...
Longlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2024 Artificial intelligence is being used, on a massive scale, to decide who gets hired, fired and promoted. Through whistleblower exclusives, leaked internal documents and astonishing real-world practices, journalist Hilke Schellmann reveals the secret rise of AI in the world of work. Testing them herself, she discovers that many algorithms making these high-stakes calculations do more harm than good...
