NF: History, Geography and Politics

We wouldn't have Bluetooth or Wi-Fi today without the ingenuity of an actress once described as "the most beautiful woman in the world."And we might have had mobile messaging as early as 1901, were it not for the fickleness of a banker.From celebrated prodigies...

Jude L. Fernando explores the paradoxical relationship between NGOs and capitalism, showing that supposedly progressive organisations often promote essentially the same policies and ideas as existing governments.The book examines how a diverse group of NGOs have shaped state formation in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka....

Who do our politicians work for? The public, or big business? If you want to understand why British politics isn't working, the first place to start is here.Parliament Ltd reveals the financial interests that British politicians would rather you didn't hear about. From banks and...

The highly successful Retronaut blog looks at the past as it has never been looked at before. Here, in the second of a new series of Retronaut books, the site's founder, Wolfgang Wild, brings you a thought-provoking collection of photographs from our hidden history....

The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) remains one of the most catastrophic and complicated political movements of the twentieth century. Almost no visual documentation of the period exists and that which does is biased due to government control over media, arts and cultural institutions. Red-Color...

When Will Hunt was sixteen years old, he discovered an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His first tunnel trips inspired a lifelong fascination with exploring underground worlds, from the derelict subway stations and sewers of New York City to sacred caves, catacombs, tombs, bunkers and ancient underground cities in more...

Never before have our cities been as important as they are now. The drivers of innovation and growth, they are essential to the prosperity of nations. But they are also destructive, plunging us into housing crises and deepening inequality. How can we keep the...

What is sewn into a pilot's uniform when they receive their wings? In what year did the first female jet pilot join the RAF? Why were former Lightning pilots called WIWOLS? For the answers to all these questions and more, take off into this fascinating miscellany...

Ever wondered what a 'Penny Dreadful' is? Or what the Tower of London ravens have for tea? And who. or what, is St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe? Take a butcher's hook at The Cherished Library's London, A Very Peculiar History Quiz Book and you'll find a wealth...

To humans, the heart has always been more than flesh and blood. Rising above its biological function, it has, instead, become the symbol of our emotions. Fear, sadness, anger, love, restlessness, discernment, foreboding, pleasure, longing, comfort, pride, despair - all that signifies passion and...

The definitive story of the greatest art theft in history.In a secret meeting in 1981, a low-level Boston thief gave career gangster Ralph Rossetti the tip of a lifetime: the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was a big score waiting to happen. Though its collections...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania“Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR“Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. MartinOn May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner...

What makes a hero? Who better to answer that question than Lee Child... In his first work of nonfiction, the creator of the multimillion-selling Jack Reacher series explores the endurance of heroes from Achilles to Bond, showing us how this age-old myth is a...

The real story of the Hillsborough disaster, told by the people who were there.On April 15, 1989 the world witnessed one of the worst football disasters occur at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield: 96 people were crushed to death and another 766 injured in...

Armchair General brings British history to the reader by making a battle the focal point of an easy read 700 word per day narrative. Each day of the calendar year is the anniversary of a British battle or siege, Viking through to the War...

Lady Anne Barnard lived at the heart of Georgian society, yet was never fully part of it. The Prince of Wales counted among many friends and she was brilliant in company. But she was seen as an eccentric - an outsider.What defined this poet...

In November 2013 91-year old Yorkshireman RAF veteran and ex-carpet salesman Harry Leslie Smith's Guardian article - 'This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time' - was shared almost 60,000 times on Facebook and started a huge debate. 'The sepia tone...

Brought up as female for fifteen years, Jon can remember feeling different from other girls since he was only five years old.But it will take years of depression, incessant bullying, self-harm and isolation before he discovers why.When Jon eventually confides to his mother that...

For more than 300 years, Kensington Palace has played host to a colourful cast of kings, queens, wayward children, royal aunts and uncles, distant cousins and assorted aristocratic hangers-on. This remarkable building has served as the stage for some of the most dramatic and...

Spectator book of the year: "An eclectic mix of social history and elegy, ironic comedy and indelible Englishness. It is about the pub as theatre." Laura Thompson’s grandmother Violet was one of the great landladies. Born in a London pub, she became the first...