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This book offers a fresh perspective on the reign of Alexander the Great. It re-examines Alexander's military victories and personality, while also exploring the impact of his campaigns on the people he conquered. Alexander's story, Stephen Harrison argues, is one that includes the vital roles that other figures played in historical events. By considering the social and intellectual currents of the last two decades, Harrison highlights how changing contemporary ...

Now in paperback, The Globe traces humanity's quest to understand the true shape of the Earth. Ancient Greek philosophers identified it as spherical in the fourth century BCE, with this knowledge spreading via Rome, India, and Central Asia. The Catholic Church accepted a round Earth well before Columbus, yet Jesuit missionaries only persuaded the Chinese to abandon their square-earth cosmology in the seventeenth century. Challenging traditional views on intellectual history, ...

Sake, Japan’s iconic rice-based alcoholic drink, has been central to Japanese culture for over 1,300 years. Traditionally made with rice, water and koji mould, it was consumed in early brewpubs and was vital to samurai rituals and festivals. Sake’s story includes homebrewers like clan matriarchs, ancient princes and modern political activists who defied laws to keep homebrewing alive.Temples refined sake-making techniques, laying the foundation for a thriving industry that be...

An Irish Times Book of the Year 2025Liam Cagney is residing in a Berlin squat when one night he finds himself at Berghain. Fascinated by the strange techno and even stranger dance floor, he sets out to explore Berlin’s unique club culture in all its intensity. Berghain Nights is the result, the first major literary exploration of Berlin’s club scene.Blending essay and memoir, Berghain Nights features interviews with major electronic dance music artists like Ellen Allien, Rros...

Kim Il Sung ruled his country, North Korea, for longer and shaped it more profoundly than almost any other modern leader. He created a unique and seemingly bizarre and menacing political and social system, establishing a dynasty that has maintained it for two more generations. Yet he remains a curiously inaccessible, little understood figure, partly due to the closed and secretive nature of the state he founded. Michael J. Seth puts together what we know of Kim’s life from al...

One of New Scientist’s Best Popular Science Books of 2025Artists have captured the marvels of ocean life throughout history. From fine art to scientific illustrations, these portrayals help us to appreciate and interpret the diversity of shapes, colours and patterns of the remarkable organisms that inhabit the oceans of the world. In Ocean Art, marine biologist and writer Helen Scales takes readers on a tour of ocean art, looking for the most striking and meaningful depiction...

In 1600 English helmsman William Adams washed ashore in Japan and was interrogated by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s most powerful warlord and soon-to-be shogun. Far from executing Adams as a pirate, Ieyasu made him one of his most trusted advisers. This biography traces Adams’s rise from humble pilot to a position of immense influence in Japan’s foreign relations.It unravels the subsequent diplomatic manoeuvres of the Western powers in the shogun’s empire, and Adams’s eventual dow...

The Secret Sacred explores the hidden religious practices of the classical world. These cults, shrouded in secrecy, promised initiates a transformative afterlife. While many rituals remain mysterious, artworks and historical texts provide glimpses of their underlying beliefs.The book examines Greco-Roman religious traditions and their divergence into mystery cults, including Bacchic ceremonies depicted in frescoes, Orphic gold tablets guiding souls in the underworld and the E...