American-cut pages

When Woodrow Wilson included Arab self-determination in his template for a new world after the First World War, many in the Middle East saw the United States as a beacon of hope. Today, mutual distrust could not run deeper. This riveting, detailed and nuanced account of US-Arab relations since the 19th century unearths a forgotten history of lost opportunities, and demonstrates how the establishment of the state of Israel, the Cold War, and the oil crisis soured a once-promising relationship.

Claire Cock-Starkey's miscellany of Georgian pastimes – and addictions – covers everything from cards in the drawing room to wagers on cock-fighting and the ruination of gambling-addicted aristocrats.

Based on research among unpublished letters, diaries, minute books and business records, this study of Punch takes the reader inside the most successful and influential of comic magazines and brings to life the table-talk, jokes and gossip of its close-knit community of writers, artists and proprietors. Leary emphasizes the role of this talk in the understanding of 19th century print culture, shedding new light on the careers of Dickens, Thackeray and many other writers and journalists.

Illuminated manuscripts are an invaluable resource for understanding medieval and early modern life in castles, palaces and ordinary households, both urban and rural. Reproducing 140 little-known illuminations, mostly from the British Library’s collections, this book shows how these miniatures reflect medieval domestic interiors and how they provide information on topics ranging from the security of dwelling places to creature comforts such as heating and lighting, hygiene, beds and bedrooms, and the display of wealth and treasured possessions.

The creation of maps is often a serious business in which accuracy takes precedence over the imagination. Drawing on the British Library collection, this delightful book presents 100 unusual maps in which the equation is reversed and fantasy comes to the fore. Here are nations portrayed as humans or animals – the British bulldog, the ‘Lion of the Low Countries’, the Russian bear; satires on contemporary politics; fictional countries; and maps as board games or jigsaw puzzles.

The complexity of towns has stretched cartographers' ingenuity throughout history. After discussing the particular challenges of making town maps, including purpose, scale and printing, this richly illustrated volume, the printed companion to the online Catalogue of British Town Maps, surveys the history of urban mappings from the late Middle Ages to around 1900, then looks in turn at the specific uses of town maps, from depicting property ownership to fire insurance and town planning.

In chapters devoted to each monarch – Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I – this is a narrative account of the Tudor period, told through 42 letters and documents in the British Library’s collections. From Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s autograph inscriptions in a prayer book, to a letter from Elizabeth I to James VI of Scotland in 1603, each item is illustrated in colour, fully transcribed and accompanied by a commentary setting it in historical context.

Reviled as a tyrant and canonized as a martyr, Charles I remains one of the most controversial of English monarchs. Basing her research on previously unseen royal correspondence, Leanda de Lisle follows the tragic career of a flawed king, sets the Civil War in the context of the wider European conflict of the Thirty Years' War, and highlights the crucial and often underestimated role of Charles’s wife Henrietta Maria.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, the Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar presents a portrait of Putin, the ‘man who accidentally became king’ and the machinations of his court. Described as ‘a milestone’ by the Financial Times, the book covers the years 1999 to 2015, revealing the inner workings of the Kremlin and the power struggles of oligarchs and officials as it traces Putin’s metamorphosis from ‘Vlad the Lionheart’ to ‘Vlad the Terrible’.

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