An exciting retelling of one of the moments that shook the world - Waterloo, one of the truly decisive battles of history. In 'Waterloo', Roberts provides not only a fizzing account of one of the most significant forty-eight hour periods of all time, but also a startling interrogation into the methodology of history - is it possible to create an accurate picture from a single standpoint? What we can say for certain about the battle is that it ended forever one of the great personal epics. The career of Napoleon was brought to a shuddering halt on the evening of 18 June 1815. Interwoven in the clear-cut narrative are exciting revelations brought to light by recent research: accident rather than design led to the crucial cavalry debacle that lost the battle. Amongst the all-too-human explanation for the blunder that cost Napoleon his throne, Roberts sets the political, strategic and historical scene, and finally shows why Waterloo was such an important historical punctuation mark. The generation after Waterloo saw the birth of the modern era: ghastly as the carnage here was, henceforth the wars of the future were fought with infinitely more ghastly methods of trenches, machine-guns, directed starvation, concentration camps, and aerial bombardment. By the time of the Great War, chivalry was utterly dead. The honour of bright uniform and tangible spirit of elan met their final dance at Waterloo.

One of our most eminent historians presents a powerful look at the buildup to and aftermath of one of the most decisive moments of World War II - Kristallnacht - not only for the Jewish population suddenly identified as a group to be destroyed, but also in terms of the international response it inspired and its larger implications. In 'Kristallnacht', Martin Gilbert seamlessly combines a moving account of the suffering of the victims of the Nazi regime with a sophisticated analysis of the gradual process which made the horrors of the Third Reich possible. Broadening his canvas, Gilbert also powerfully depicts how the rest of the world failed Europe's increasingly desperate Jewish population: in the aftermath to Kristallnacht almost every country was asked to help; most would not do so, despite the transport of a staggering 10,000 German Jewish children to Britain. This international indifference had direct implications for future German policy, while the events of Kristallnacht went on to radically influence the attitudes of governments - and people - outside Germany towards Nazism.

WINNER OF THE 1998 WHITBREAD BIOGRAPHY AWARD

Georgiana Spencer became the Duchess of Devonshire in 1774 and was the undisputed queen of fashionable society, an influential hostess and an important figure in the Whig party. Yet her story is one of cruel disappointments and personal suffering.

Adored as she was by the public at large, she was incapable of satisfying her husband, who preferred instead her best friend. Her extravagances brought insurmountable debts and ignominy; her search for love brought her pain and disgrace.

This is a penetrating, beautifully written account of one of the great figures of the late eighteenth century, an icon in nher own time and a fascinating foil for our own.

“I predict a great future for Amanda Foreman. She is a scholar who matches her learning to a sense of adventure and writes with engaging vitality.
MICHAEL HOLROYD

“Well-written, extensively researched and highly readable”
STELLA TILYARD, 'DAILY MAIL'

“Not only a pungent, intimate blend of biography and history, but a provocative contribution to our understanding of women in the past”
JENNY UGLOW,'The Independent'

“Georgiana Devonshire was much the most fascinating woman of the age, and Foreman has written a biography to match her”
IAN GILMOUR, 'London Review of Books'

“Sumptuously produced, accurate and eminently readable”
ECONOMIST

'No two nations have ever existed on the face of the earth which could do each other so much good or so much harm' President Buchanan, State of the Nation Address, 1859 A World on Fire tells, with extraordinary sweep, one of the least known great stories of British and American history. As America descended into Civil War, British loyalties were torn between support for the North, which was against slavery, and defending the South, which portrayed itself as bravely fighting for its independence. Rallying to their respective causes, thousands of Britons went to America as soldiers - fighting for both Union and Confederacy - racing ships through the Northern blockades, and as observers, nurses, adventurers, guerillas and spies. At the heart of this international conflict lay a complicated and at times tortuous relationship between four individuals: Lord Lyons, the painfully shy British Ambassador in Washington; William Seward, the blustering US Secretary of State; Charles Francis Adams, the dry but fiercely patriotic U.S. ambassador in London; and the restless and abrasive Foreign Secretary Lord John Russell. Despite their efforts, and sometimes as a result of them, America and Britain came within a whisker of declaring war on each other twice in four years. The diplomatic story is only one element in this gloriously multifaceted book. Using a wealth of previously unpublished letters and journals, Amanda Foreman gives fresh accounts of Civil War battles by seeing them through the eyes of British journalists and myriad soldiers on both sides, from flamboyant cavalry commanders to forcibly conscripted private soldiers. She also shows how the War took place in England, from the Confederacy's secret ship-building programme in Liverpool to the desperate efforts of its propagandists and emissaries - male and female - to influence British public opinion. She even shows how one of the most famous set-piece naval encounters of the War was fought, remarkably, in the English Channel. Foreman tells this epic yet intimate story of enormous personalities, tense diplomacy and torn loyalties as history in the round, captivating her readers with the experience of total immersion in this titanic conflict.