Every man who served in the Great War is now deceased, but they have left behind them an enormous collection of oral history, which captures the authentic voices of the front line soldiers.
WINNER OF THE MILITARY HISTORY MATTERS AWARD 'Hart is a historian and author at the peak of his powers' Richard van EmdenThe best way to understand what it was like to fight in the Second World War is to see it through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it.
On the night of 28 March 1942 the Royal Navy and British commandos assaulted the German-held French Atlantic port of Saint-Nazaire in one of the most audacious raids of the Second World War.
On the eve of the war in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen: two fleets of dreadnoughts gigantic 'castles of steel' able to hurl massive shells at an enemy miles away were ready to test their terrible power against each other.
From colonial disputes, secret treaties with former foes, high-wire diplomacy, and tit-for-tat building of the terrifyingly powerful dreadnought battleships.
1914 dawned with Britain at peace, albeit troubled by faultlines within and threats without: Ireland trembled on the brink of civil war; suffragette agitation was assuming an ever more violent hue; and suspicions of Germany's ambitions bred a paranoia that was expressed in a rash of 'invasion scare' literature.
Even those who know a great deal about the Easter Rising may not know that there were temporary ceasefires in the St Stephen's Green area, to allow the park attendants to feed the Green's ducks.
The Knights Templar are one of the most secretive and powerful religious orders in history: for over two centuries they were the elite fighting force of the Crusades.
Human history - from the empires of the ancient world to the superpowers of the 21st century - has been inextricably shaped by conflict and the weapons that have been used to wage it.
Chil Rajchman, a Polish Jew, was arrested with his younger sister in 1942 and sent to Treblinka, a death camp where more than 750,000 were murdered before it was abandoned by German soldiers.
MERGEFIELD AI_Copy In 1933, Jews and, to a lesser extent, political opponents of the Nazis, suffered an unprecedented loss of positions and livelihood at Germany's universities.
A harrowing tale of courage and sacrifice at the limits of human endurance ';A stirring story a brilliant exposition of narrative non-fiction: moving, harrowing, as gripping as any well-paced thriller.
From the Magna Carta to the Falklands, the years that have made Britain, for better and for worseDid the longbow secure victory at Agincourt or are the English just better in mud?
The first book to redress the myth of British incompetence during the American Revolution, revealing a unique account of the Empire's most stunning lossIn 1781 the British Empire suffered its most devastating defeat in a war that most believed Britain ought to have won.
At Warburg, Germany, in 1941, four British PoWs find an unexpected means of escape from the horrors of internment when they form a birdwatching society, and embark on an obsessive quest behind barbed wire.
Of all the extraordinary individual accounts that have come out of the Second World War and its aftermath, few can compare with that of Eric Pleasants, a member of the 'bastard' British wing of Hitler's SS - the British Free Corps.
Extraordinary maritime heroes of the late 18th and early 19th centuries stride across these pages - some, like Warren, Pellew, Cochrane and Collingwood, are still renowned; others are almost unknown today, yet their brilliant exploits deserve to be pulled from under the long shadow of the greatest naval figure of all, Horatio Nelson.
Retelling the most spectacular cock-ups in military history, this graphic account has a great deal to say about the psychology of military incompetence and the reasons even the most well-oiled military machines inflict disaster upon themselves.
Into the eye of danger with the men who put the 'special' in special forcesThe once shadowy activities of special forces have grown into an increasingly exposed element of 21st century warfare and anti-terrorist activity.
From the start of the 20th century to the most recent major offensives, here are fifty accounts of the battles that made the modern world, described in superb detail by historians and writers including John Keegan, Alan Clark, John Strawson, Charles Mey, John Pimlott, and John Laffin.
The true, heart-wrenching story of Rezs Kasztner, a Hungarian lawyer and journalist, who rescued thousands of Jews during the last days of the Second World War - and the ultimate price he paid.
In his account of World War II, historian Jon Lewis has selected 300 first-hand accounts, from Heinz Guderian rolling his panzer tank into Poland to VJ Day in London and New York.
Back in the day when men were men and Britain ruled the world, the two great world powers went head to head over control of central Asia - from the Caucasus to Kabul.
