William Collins Soldiers. Great Stories of War and Peace

After nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane has gone home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It is a family story of war and love, and how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present • Wounds is a powerful memoir about Irish people who found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Rising, and in the pitiless violence of civil war in north Kerry after the British left in 1922 • It is the story of Keane’s grandmother Hannah Purtill, her brother Mick and his friend Con Brosnan, and how they and their neighbours took up guns to fight the British Empire and create an independent Ireland. And it is the story of another Irishman, Tobias O’Sullivan, who fought against them as a policeman because he believed it was his duty to uphold the law of his country

In three thousand years of history, China has spent at least eleven centuries at war. The Roman Empire was in conflict during at least 50 per cent of its lifetime. Since 1776, the United States has spent over one hundred years at war. The dream of peace has been universal in the history of humanity. So why have we so rarely been able to achieve it? • In A Political History of the World, Jonathan Holslag has produced a sweeping history of the world, from the Iron Age to the present, that investigates the causes of conflict between empires, nations and peoples and the attempts at diplomacy and cosmopolitanism. A birds-eye view of three thousand years of history, the book illuminates the forces shaping world politics from Ancient Egypt to the Han Dynasty, the Pax Romana to the rise of Islam, the Peace of Westphalia to the creation of the United Nations

In this extraordinary journey through twenty-six countries, Simon Mundy meets the people on the front lines of the climate crisis, showing how the struggle to respond is already reshaping the modern world - shattering communities, shaking up global business, and propelling a groundbreaking wave of cutting-edge innovation • How is China's green energy push driving a hazardous mining rush in Congo? • Why is a maverick scientist building a home for engineered mammoths in northeast Siberia? • Can an Israeli fake meat startup make a fortune while helping to save the Amazon? • Will Greenland's melting sea ice put its people at the centre of a global power struggle? • Who are the entrepreneurs chasing breakthroughs in fusion power, electric cars, and technology to suck carbon from the atmosphere? • As the impacts of climate change cascade across the planet and the global economy, who is battling to survive the worst impacts - and who is chasing the most lucrative rewards? • Telling unforgettable human stories from six continents, this is an account of disaster, of promise, of frantic adaptation and relentless innovation, of hope, of survival, and of the forces that will define our future

The beautiful aurorae, or northern lights, are the stuff of legends. The ancient stories of the Sami people warn that if you mock the lights they will seize you, and their mythical appeal continues to capture the hearts and imagination of people across the globe • Aurora explores the visual beauty, ancient myths and science of the northern lights and challenges the popular theory of how the lights are formed. Plasma physicist Melanie Windridge explains this extraordinary and evocative phenomenon, a scientific marvel unlike any other in which the powers of astronomy, geology, magnetism and atomic physics combine to create one of the wonders of the natural world • As Melanie travels in search of the perfect aurora, she uncovers the scientific realities of this plasmic phenomenon full of natural power

A social history of Labradors, and how they have become the world’s most beloved dogs, by writer, presenter and long-time dog lover Ben Fogle • Labradors are the most popular breed of dog in the world. Not only a great family companion, they also excel at hunting, tracking, retrieving, guiding and rescuing. But where did the breed originally come from? How did it develop? When did black, yellow and chocolate Labradors first appear? Did they really all come from Labrador in Canada and are they really all related to just one dog? • In this first history of the Labrador, Ben Fogle goes in search of what makes Labradors so special. Their extraordinary companionship, intelligence, work ethic and loyalty is captured by Ben as he weaves the story of the breed into his own story of his beloved Inca

Travelling the circumference of the truly gigantic Pacific, Simon Winchester tells the story of the world’s largest body of water, and – in matters economic, political and military – the ocean of the future • The Pacific is a world of tsunamis and Magellan, of the Bounty mutiny and the Boeing Company. It is the stuff of the towering Captain Cook and his wide-ranging network of exploring voyages, Robert Louis Stevenson and Admiral Halsey. It is the place of Paul Gauguin and the explosion of the largest-ever American atomic bomb, on Bikini atoll, in 1951. It has an astonishing recent past, an uncertain present and a hugely important future • The ocean and its peoples are the new lifeblood, fizz and thrill of America – which draws so many of its minds and so much of its manners from the sea – while the inexorable rise of the ancient center of the world, China, is a fixating fascination

From one of the most important economic thinkers of our time, a brilliant and far-seeing analysis of the current populist backlash against globalization and how revitalising community can save liberal market democracy • Raghuram Rajan, author of the 2010 FT & Goldman-Sachs Book of the Year Fault Lines, has an unparalleled vantage point onto the social and economic consequences of globalization and their ultimate effect on politics and society • In The Third Pillar he offers up a magnificent big-picture framework for understanding how three key forces – the economy, society, and the state – interact, why things begin to break down, and how we can find our way back to a more secure and stable plane • The ‘third pillar’ of the title is society. Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between the market and government, and leave social issues for other people

The theory of evolution by natural selection did not spring fully formed and unprecedented from the brain of Charles Darwin. Rather it has been examined and debated by philosophers the world over for thousands of years • This lively history traces the evolution of the idea of evolution, showing how it has changed and been changed by different societies over time. It will put 'Darwin’s Dangerous Idea' into its proper context, showing how it built on what went before and how it was developed in the twentieth century, through an understanding of genetics and the biochemical basis evolution. None of this diminishes the achievement of Darwin himself in perceiving the way evolution works at the level of individuals and species, but his contribution was one link in a chain that extends back into antiquity, and is still being forged today

From the bestselling author of Who Owns England?, a mesmerising chronicle of our forgotten rainforests – and an inspiring intervention to help restore them to the places they once were • In 2020, writer and campaigner Guy Shrubsole moved from London to Devon. As he explored the wooded valleys, rivers and tors of Dartmoor, Guy discovered a spectacular habitat that he had never encountered before: temperate rainforest. Entranced, he would spend the coming months investigating the history, ecology and distribution of rainforests across England, Wales and Scotland • Britain, Guy discovered, was once a rainforest nation • This is the story of a unique habitat that has been so ravaged, most people today don’t realise it exists. Temperate rainforest may once have covered up to one-fifth of Britain and played host to a dazzling variety of luminous life-forms, inspiring Celtic druids, Welsh wizards, Romantic poets, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s most loved creations

The fabled city of Timbuktu has captured the Western imagination for centuries. The search for this 'African El Dorado' cost the lives of many explorers but Timbuktu is rich beyond its legends. Home to many thousands of ancient manuscripts on poetry, history, religion, law, pharmacology and astronomy, the city has been a centre of learning since medieval times • When jihadists invaded Mali in 2012 threatening destruction to Timbuktu's libraries, a remarkable thing happened. A team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the precious manuscripts into hiding. Based on new research and first-hand reporting, Charlie English expertly tells this story set in one of the world's most fascinating places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable

After the war, the mysterious Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire pursues wealth, riches and the lady he lost to another man with stoic determination. When Gatsby finally does reunite with Daisy Buchanan, tragic events are set in motion. Told through the eyes of his detached and omnipresent neighbour and friend, Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald's succinct and powerful prose hints at the destruction and tragedy that awaits

"Катастрофа. Европа вступает в войну 1914" - это авторитетная хроника бедствия, постигшего Европу в 1914 году, когда континент перешел от очарования эдвардианской эпохи к трагедии тотальной войны • В 1914 году Европа погрузилась в первый ужасный акт самосожжения 20-го века - то, что тогда называлось Великой войной. Накануне его столетнего юбилея Макс Гастингс стремится объяснить, как возник конфликт и что выпало на долю миллионов мужчин и женщин в первые месяцы противостояния • Книга на английском языке • The Amazon History Book of the Year 2013 is a magisterial chronicle of the calamity that befell Europe in 1914 as the continent shifted from the glamour of the Edwardian era to the tragedy of total war • In 1914, Europe plunged into the 20th century's first terrible act of self-immolation - what was then called The Great War