Bodley Head The Journey of Humanity. The Origins of Wealth and Inequality Galor Oded

The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: an imperishable account of the direct experience of individuals at 'the point of maximum danger' • It examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and behaviour generated by battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away • In this stunningly vivid reassessment of three battles, John Keegan conveys their reality for the participants, whether facing the arrow cloud of Agincourt, the levelled muskets of Waterloo or the steel rain of the Somme

A dramatic, immersive and thrillingly original account of a defining episode in the English Civil War • It was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war • A greater proportion of the British population died in the civil wars of the seventeenth century than in the world wars of the twentieth. Jessie Childs recovers the shock of this conflict by plunging us into one of its most extraordinary episodes: the siege of Basing House. To the parliamentarians, the royalist stronghold was the devil's seat. Its defenders called it Loyalty House • We follow artists, apothecaries, merchants and their families from the revolutionary streets of London to the Marquess of Winchester's mist-shrouded mansion. Over two years, they are battered, bombarded, starved and gassed

Robert A. Caro’s legendary, multi-award-winning biography of US President Lyndon Johnson is a uniquely riveting and revelatory account of power, political genius and the shaping of twentieth-century America • This first instalment tells of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country, revealing in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy and ambition that set LBJ apart. It charts his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as a Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate and his attainment, nonetheless, at the age of thirty-one of the power for which he hungered

'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. 'The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality...' • With the same disarming force, Power of Art jolts us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, as Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art for ever

A critical but fair political biography that tells the story of the life and the equally fascinating one of his legacy. This is Churchill for those who believe that the country has lost its way and who try to understand why - and Churchill and his legacy have a lot to answer for • A critical but fair political biography of Churchill that zooms in on crucial moments in his life and career that help us understand the man in his many contradictions • While in A.J.P. Taylor's words, Churchill was 'the saviour of his country', he was also a deeply flawed character, whose personal ambition would cloud his political judgement - and as a result he was often plain wrong. But the book's central argument goes beyond biography: argues that Churchill has cast a dark shadow over post-war British history and contemporary politics - from the 'Churchillian stance' of Tony Blair taking the country to war in Iraq to the delusion of a special relationship with the United States to the fateful belief in British exceptionalism: that the nation can once again stand alone in Europe

A solution to one of the most profound questions in physics - what is time? - with ground-breaking implications for the origin of the universe • In The Janus Point renowned physicist Julian Barbour presents a major new solution to one of the most profound questions in physics - what is time? - with ground-breaking implications for the origin and destiny of our universe • 'Both a work of literature and a masterpiece of scientific thought' Lee Smolin • Time is perhaps the greatest mystery in physics. Despite the fact that the fundamental laws of physics don't distinguish between past and future, we do. And so, for over a century, the greatest minds have sought to understand why time seems to flow in one direction, ever forward. In The Janus Point, Julian Barbour, author of the classic The End of Time, offers a radically new answer: it doesn't

World-renowned psychologist Paul Bloom presents a captivating scientific account of why a rich and meaningful life is rarely an easy one - and why we should embrace that fact • Why do we seek out painful experiences? From horror movies and roller-coaster rides to mountain-climbing, religious abstinence and - most painful of all - parenthood, humans are drawn irresistibly to activities that they know are going to hurt. Many people have something missing in their lives, and a whole 'happiness' business has grown up in response. In The Sweet Spot, psychologist Paul Bloom takes a different approach • Drawing on studies of the evolutionary value of play and the science of morality, he presents an alternative account of human behaviour in which our desire for meaning is far greater than our desire for happiness, and shows not only that chosen suffering - including pain, fear and sadness - can be a source of pleasure, but that suffering is an essential part of achieving a complete and fulfilling life

Are you a human? Do you have a mind? Then this book is for you • Nothing is more familiar and yet less understood than the human mind. It defines the experience of being human, and yet its workings contain some of the deepest mysteries ever encountered. Written by one of the world's greatest teachers of psychology, The Human Mind provides a masterful and riveting guide to all that we have learned since modern science began probing those mysteries • How does a three-pound lump of grey-ish meat give rise to conscious experience? • What is the function of emotions such as disgust, gratitude and shame? • How do our biases affect us and how can we overcome them? • How does the mind of a child differ from that of an adult? • How does memory work? What causes mental illness? • Are we rational? Are we all a little bit racist? • What makes us kind? What makes us cruel? • What makes us happy? • Many of these questions now have answers; many others don't yet; many widely accepted theories are probably wrong

An extraordinary and captivating story told in exquisite prose; this is the unmade documentary from the pioneer and legendary filmmaker who brought us the mutli-award-winning Grizzly Man • The great filmmaker Werner Herzog, in his first novel, tells the incredible story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who defended a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War II • In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts asked him, Whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former solider famous for having quixotically defended an island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the fighting was over. Herzog and Onoda developed an instant rapport and would meet many times, talking for hours and together unraveling the story of Onoda's long war

Venice, 1522. Sensitive intelligence arrives from the east confirming the European powers' greatest fear: the vastly rich Ottoman Sultan has amassed all he needs to wage total war - and his sights are set on Rome. With Christendom divided, Suleyman the Magnificent has his hand on their entrails • From the palace cloisters of Istanbul to the blood-soaked fields of central Europe to the sun-scorched coast of north Africa, The Lion House pioneers a bold new style of eye-witness history to tell a true story of power at its most glittering, personal and deadly: Suleyman's rise to become the most powerful man of the sixteenth century • Narrated through the eyes and actions of Suleyman's intimates, it animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those brought into orbit around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel-dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife

Driven to his deathbed by an incurable disease, the thirty-year-old impoverished gentleman Chulkaturin decides to write a diary looking back on his short life. After describing his youthful disillusionment and his family's fall from grace and loss of status, the narrative focuses on his love for Liza, the daughter of a senior civil servant, his rivalry with the dashing Prince N. and his ensuing humiliation. These pages helped establish the archetype of the "superfluous man", a recurring figure in nineteenth-century Russian literature.First published in 1850, 'The Diary of a Superfluous Man' was initially censored by the authorities, as some of its passages were deemed too critical of Russian society. This volume also includes two other masterly novellas, also touching on the theme of disappointed love: 'Asya' and 'First Love'

The great forces of population change - the balance of births, deaths and migrations - have made the world what it is today. They have determined which countries are superpowers and which languish in relative obscurity, which economies top the international league tables and which are at best also-rans • The same forces that have shaped our past and present are shaping our future. Illustrating this through ten illuminating indicators, from the fertility rate in Singapore (one) to the median age in Catalonia (forty-three), Paul Morland shows how demography is both a powerful and an under-appreciated lens through which to view the global transformations that are currently underway • Tomorrow's People ranges from the countries of West Africa where the tendency towards large families is combining with falling infant mortality to create the greatest population explosion ever witnessed, to the countries of East Asia and Southern Europe where generations of low birth-rate and rising life expectancy are creating the oldest populations in history