An award-winning historian's examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance. Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era – tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft...

The past, present and future are full of tantalizing mysteries: questions about our own and other people's lives that we long to answer. Across history, human cultures have devised a wide range of methods to discover what might lie ahead or to unders...

Through a series of essays, photographs, and archival content, this book highlights the diverse young and old diaspora communities of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) around the world. Drawing on topics from the ten-year archive of Brownbook m...

An exhilarating new account of the English language, from British colonialism to the age of social media, emphasizing dynamism and democratization. Whose language is English? Although we often think of it as native to one place, today there are man...

A gripping new history of London during the Blackout – revealing the violent crime that spread across the capital under the cover of darkness. Fear was the unacknowledged spectre haunting the streets of London during the Second World War; fear not...

A new history of personal and community relationships across post-imperial Britain, from 1940s Cardiff to the millennial Midlands. Between the end of the Second World War and the early twenty-first century, Britain became multicultural. This vivid...

How can one European capital be responsible for most of the West's intellectual and cultural achievements in the twentieth century? Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to...

A fascinating exploration of the devious tricks and ingenious tools used by early modern spies – from ciphers to counterfeiting, invisible inks to assassination. Early modern Europe was a hotbed of espionage, where spies, spy-catchers, and conspira...

From Sappho and Suffragettes to t-shirts and TikTok, a fascinating journey through the history and politics of lesbian clothing. The way we dress can show or hide who we are; make us fit in, make us stand out, or make our own community. Yet "lesb...

A fascinating history of the profitable paradox of the American outdoor experience: visiting nature first requires shopping. No escape to nature is complete without a trip to an outdoor recreational store or a browse through online offerings. This...