The Victorian period, viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire, burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, or humiliated the bankrupt rulers of the Ottoman Empire, it was clear that for Asia to recover a vast intellectual effort would be required

Steven D. Levitt studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing

This is a pre-trip guide for travellers planning their first trip to Latin America. The book gives individual profiles of all 21 Latin American countries, with a rundown of highlights and possible itineraries

In the summer of 2009, 2,000 men were digging trenches and boring holes and none of them, not the diggers, not the planners, not the engineers, really knew why. Some of them, the most important ones, knew they were linking the South Side of Chicago with northern New Jersey. And that they had to dig in a straight line, as straight as possible. Others just knew they were laying some sort of cable and that they had to keep it secret

The Korean War, which began with an unprovoked attack by North Korea in 1950, went on for three long years. Over 100,000 soldiers of the United Nations forces, including those of the Republic of Korea, were killed and three times that number wounded. United Kingdom casualties amounted to some 300 Officers and 4,000 Other Ranks. The Royal Engineers deployed a Field Squadron to Korea in the Autumn of 1950 and this was expanded to a Regiment the following year. Involved in fierce fighting, the Sappers suffered grievous casualties including 42 killed and several hundred wounded

With extraordinary access to the West Wing, Michael Wolff reveals what happened behind-the-scenes in the first nine months of the most controversial presidency of our time in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Fundamentalist movements are seen as the major threat to world peace today, a conclusion that has been impossible to ignore since the events in New Yourk on 11 September 2001. But what is fundamentalism

The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest throughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas