Biography: historical, political and military

One of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, Hans Holbein the Younger was also a complex and fascinating man who knew Erasmus, Thomas More, Henry VIII and many of the sixteenth century's wielders of power and influence.

The meeting of Voltaire, successful financier, famous poet and troublemaker, and the enchanting amateur physicist and countess milie du Ch telet, was a meeting of both hearts and minds.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY KATE WILLIAMSFrederick II of Prussia attempted to escape his authoritarian father as a boy, but went on to become one of history's greatest rulers.

When Jeanne-Antoinette was nine, she was told by a fortune teller that she would one day become the mistress of the handsome young Louix XV - from that day she was groomed to become 'a morsel fit for a King'.

The greatest of medieval monarchs, Charles the Great (742-814) towers over every notion we have of national heroes and semi-mythical champions.

From 1861 to 1908 a woman, the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi, born the daughter of a minor mandarin, held the supreme power in China.

Martin Luther changed Europe and, through Europe, the world.

'The book that redefined travel writing' Guardian Bruce Chatwin sets off on a journey through South America in this wistful classic travel book With its unique, roving structure and beautiful descriptions, In Patagonia offers an original take on the age-old adventure tale.

Teasing her family's past out of the fog of oblivion and lies, one of Germany's greatest writers asks about the secrets families keep, about the fortitude of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and about what becomes of the individual mind when the powers that be turn against it.

In this collection of profiles, essays and travel stories, Chatwin takes us to Benin, where he is arrested as a mercenary during a coup; to Boston to meet an LSD guru who believes he is Christ; to India with Indira Ghandi when she attempted a political comeback in 1978; and to Nepal where he reminds us that 'Man's real home is not a house, but the Road, and that life itself is a journey to be walked on foot'

It is the early 1950s.

In the early 1960s Anna Akhmatova encouraged Emma Gerstein to record her own memories of the renowned Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam.

Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, created the look of the chic modern woman: her simple and elegant designs freed women from their corsets and inspired them to crop their hair.

A TRUE STORY OF LIES, BEAUTY AND BLACKMAIL IN VICTORIAN LONDON_________________________Madame Rachel had everything.

Bernard Montgomery – für die einen ein genialer Taktiker, für die anderen ein unbeugsamer Perfektionist.

A masterful and forensic study of the last year of Nicholas II's reign, from a world-leading scholar of Russian history.

At the age of sixteen, Catherine Tylney Long became the wealthiest heiress in England, and the public found their 'angel'.

"e;Masterful .

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 is the first volume in William Manchester's epic three volume The Last Lion - the best-selling and definitive biography of one of Britain's pre-eminent prime ministers.

With an introduction by author Anne Enright.

A riveting double biography of Nazi Germany's most highly decorated women test pilots - Hitler's personal Valkyries.

On Ken Follett's Facebook page Pan Macmillan created a storybank, as a place for readers to upload their own, real-life stories of World War Two.

A vivid account of the love triangle between an American journalist and adventurer, a wealthy expatriate businessman and a Chinese poet in Shanghai in the late 1930s.

Now a major motion picture, directed by George Clooney.

In June of 1997, over a century and a half of British rule in Hong Kong came to an end.

John Sergeant's acclaimed memoir takes us from his somewhat eccentric childhood to his thirty years' service with the BBC.

The No.

Orde Charles Wingate.

From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake is the insider's guide to getting published successfully.

A brilliant reappraisal of one of the most charismatic and powerful politicians of the twentieth century, which by examing Churchill's career in the years leading up to the Second World War posits the notion that, had he only been in power earlier, that war could conceivably have been prevented.

As a small boy in Epping Forest, Jack Straw could never have imagined that one day he would become Britain's Lord Chancellor.

'To read this book is to understand Afghanistan as it exists today.

General Montgomery lead the 8th Army to victory at El Alamein in 1942, and as Chief of Land Forces in the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944 he received Germany's surrender in 1945.

A brilliant examination of Robert Mugabe dictatorship and the nature of modern tyranny, written by an award winning novelist and journalist.

Compelling, powerful, magnificent' THE TIMES In revealing encounters with monks, nuns, bishops and archbishops, in monasteries ancient and modern Victoria Clark measures the depth and width of the gulf now separating Europe's Orthodox East from the Catholic and Protestant West.

Richard Leakey spent years trying to save Africa's animals.

'A superb account of journalists, soldiers and the experience of modern battle, written by one of the greatest war reporters of our time' - Robert Harris, author of An Officer and a Spy'Gripping and compulsively readable' - Saul David, Sunday TelegraphMax Hastings grew up with romantic dreams of a life amongst warriors.

'A modern classic' - The Sunday Times'This story starts roughly in the 1970s, a few years after I was born, about the time when I began to have memories and my father's codename was already long established as "e;Andronic"e;, a name we learned about only last summer .

Moving beyond travelogue, V.

Titanic Thompson is the rollicking true story of one of the most charismatic characters in twentieth-century America.

'It's a story worthy of a blockbuster novel, and it's all true.

A dramatic, thought-provoking portrait of one of the most compelling figures in early Christianity which explores two thousand years of history, art, and literature to provide a close-up look at Mary Magdalen and her significance in religious and cultural thought.

Following the partitioning of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, Matthew Kelly's great grandmother and her two daughters were deported to the East.

Maurice Bavaud, geboren 1916 in Neuenburg, technischer Zeichner und Theologiestudent, kam aus bescheidenen Verhältnissen.

THIRTY YEARS AFTER THE FEMALE EUNUCH, GERMAINE GREER RETURNS TO THE SUBJECT OF FEMINISM, WITH THE BOOK SHE VOWED SHE WOULD NEVER WRITE.

At ninety years old, Mary Soames is the only surviving child of Winston and Clementine Churchill.

In this final volume of diaries, Tony Benn reflects on the compensations and the disadvantages of old age.

YEARS OF HOPE is a kind of 'prequel' to the published series of DIARIES, and will cover fully the peerage renunciation, as well as revealing his early career, touching on schooldays, RAF service during the war, early involvement with politics etc.

The Benn Diaries, embracing the years 1940-1990, are already established as a uniquely authoritative, fascinating and readable record of political life.