In this first in-depth study and catalogue raisonné of the work of Ivor Roberts-Jones (1913–1996), the authors explore the career of this exceptional British sculptor in a number of essays, beginning with a biographical sketch. The essay topics include Roberts-Jones’s most familiar work, the statue of Winston Churchill that stands in Parliament Square; other portraits of Churchill in Oslo, New Orleans and Prague; and the portrait heads; while the catalogue illustrates and comments on over 156 works, with sketches and variants.

In the historic centre of Lisbon stands a chapel commissioned by King John V, which was entirely constructed in Rome during the 1740s before being transported and reassembled at the Church of São Roque. This study of the building features contributions from experts on its architecture and outstanding decoration – sculpture, painting and mosaics – in addition to information about its collections of books, metalwork and textiles.

Eva Sereny's career took off in 1970 when she was hired as a 'Special Photographer' on the set of Catch-22, breaking the glass ceiling in what was then a male-dominated industry. She progressed to working behind the scenes on many of the films that shaped late 20th-century American and European cinema and captured some of the greatest stars of the age, including Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. This retrospective presents more than 100 rare images, interspersed with her memories and anecdotes.

Based on the historian Peter Kimpton’s collection of fashion postcards from Edwardian times, this well-illustrated guide documents the hat (and hatpin) fashions that defined that era and the designers – including Coco Chanel – who created them. The author also explores the darker side of the millinery industry, from the wholesale slaughter of exotic birds for their ornate feathers to the appalling conditions in the hat-making sweatshops of New York.

In words and photographs, Boris Friedewald traces the life of Salvador Dalí and the various incarnations of his moustache, from the art student dandy of the 1920s to the artist’s death in 1989; and he describes the afterlife of the moustache in popular culture and even haute couture.

One of the most celebrated graphic artists of contemporary comic books, Alex Ross was obsessed with the genre from early childhood and his breakthrough series Marvels in 1994 laid the groundwork for creating the unified Marvel Universe of the film franchise. This retrospective of Ross’s work tells the artist’s story and includes hundreds of drawings, paintings and photographs of characters including Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and Black Panther. Slightly off-mint. Felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

Christopher Columbus’s illegitimate son Hernando Colón dreamed of creating a universal library to rival his father’s achievement by bringing order to the vast amount of information that was becoming available in the burgeoning age of print. This biography follows Hernando on travels with his father in the New World; on visits to the great European figures of the age; and on his quest to assemble, organize and catalogue an unprecedented collection of 15,000 books, ephemera, printed images and music.

Reflecting on the pursuit of literary biography, James Atlas recalls his childhood and early compulsion to study the lives of other writers, including the American poet Delmore Schwartz and the novelist Saul Bellow. He also reflects on the work of historical biographers, from Plutarch’s Lives to Boswell’s Samuel Johnson and Richard Holmes’s Coleridge, offering an insight into a profession that usually remains in the shadows.

During the 1980s, Tina Brown spent eight years in New York as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. Her diaries tell the inside story of rivalries, scoops and groundbreaking covers – from the Reagan kiss to a naked, pregnant Demi Moore – that helped the magazine sell millions.

The Victorian Liberal writer and economist Walter Bagehot (1826–77) never wrote an autobiography, so Frank Prochaska has provided one for him. Drawing on Bagehot’s Collected Works and his own extensive research, he has woven together this ‘faux memoir’, often in the subject’s own words, to present an intimate portrait of the author of The English Constitution, from his Somerset childhood to the failing health brought on by overwork.

Volume 1 introduces Alexander MacDonald, An Àirce and the Clan Campbell, then presents biographies of the 31 Campbells mentioned in the song, analysing the poet’s verdicts.

Volume 2 profiles the ‘Campbells of the Ark’ whose surname was not Campbell, followed by chapters on people named in other Gaelic poems and a detailed study of the Argyllshire Militia.

Guy Kennaway’s surprisingly funny memoir describes what happened after his mother asked him to help end her life. As he reflects on their subsequent conversations, he discusses the moral, legal, practical and emotional issues raised by assisted dying.

When a number of Roman graves with decapitated skeletons were discovered near York, the popular explanation was that heads were ritually removed after death to prevent ghosts returning to haunt the living. Katie Tucker, the human remains archaeologist at the site, analysed the burials and found no evidence to support that theory. Her in-depth study of the archaeological and osteological aspects of human decapitation burials, particularly the evidence for trauma in the skeletal remains, argues that decapitation was the cause of death.

Although German gas attacks on the battlefields of the First World War were greeted with horror, the Allies responded by developing their own chemical weapons. In America, laboratories began engaging in chemical weapon research, eventually amalgamating into the Chemical Warfare Service. This history of the organization brings together the key scientists, politicians and military personnel involved in its establishment, and describes the numerous logistical and ethical challenges they faced in deploying gas against the Germans. Off-mint with felt-tip mark on upper trimmed edge.

This collection adds some of the most eloquent voices of the age to the body of eyewitness evidence of the First World War. Drawn from the manuscript collection of the Bodleian Library in Oxford and covering the first two years of the conflict, from the front line to the Cabinet Office, the correspondents and diarists include Margot Asquith, Lewis Harcourt, TE Lawrence, WB Yeats and a young Harold Macmillan.

Alfred Leete’s iconic image of Lord Kitchener pointing over the slogan ‘Your Country Needs You’ is a design classic which was widely imitated, for instance in the American designer James Montgomery Flagg’s Uncle Sam poster. James Taylor explores its influence on the propaganda posters of Allied countries in the First World War and beyond, while arguing that, since it originated as a magazine cover and postcard, its direct effect on enlistment was smaller than is commonly believed.

On a foggy morning in 1917, a large British mail ship travelling dangerously fast off the Isle of Wight collided with SS Mendi, a steamship carrying more than 600 members of the South African Native Labour Corps (SANLAC). The Mendi sank in 20 minutes, leaving few survivors. Drawing on recent archeological evidence from the wreck, the book reconsiders this terrible tragedy and tells the story of the SANLAC in the British war effort.

If much of the attention in Summer 1944 was on Normandy and the progress of the Allies through France, another enormous multinational army was also fighting doggedly further south and facing the last formidable barrier of German defensive positions, the Gothic Line, stretching from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean across mountainous northern Italy. This analysis of a year of fighting on the front tells the story through the varied experiences of 13 men and women from seven different countries.

In 1983 Justin Schmidt recorded the degree of pain he felt when stung by different venomous insects, resulting in the ‘Schmidt Pain Index’. With chapters on medicine, psychology, society, and the universe, this book examines 100 experiments, ranging from the peculiar (like Schmidt’s) to the groundbreaking (the creation of Dolly the sheep), and appraises their significance for practical science.

Remarkable for their creativity, the intrepid travellers in these tales include two prisoners of war whose escape from Turkey in 1917 was aided by a Ouija board, and Auguste Piccard, who explored the atmosphere via helium-filled balloon in 1931. Also featured are Grayson Perry’s pilgrimage to Bavaria with a teddy bear, and filmmaker Andrew Kötting’s tour of the world with a giant inflatable of his father.

This book is a history of humanity’s long struggle towards the answers to two questions: how old is Earth and how does it move within the solar system? But the author also uses that story to delineate a philosophy of science. As he explains the bold innovations of thinkers such as Copernicus, Galileo, Halley and Darwin, he emphasizes the importance of Enlightenment values in facing the threat from modern fundamentalist movements of East and West. Foreword by Tariq Ali.

The legacy of the English coaches who taught the world how to play football is preserved in the informal word for manager used in Italy, Spain and South America: ‘Mister’. From pioneers such as Fred Pentland and William Garbutt, who helped shape the Italian and Spanish game in the 1920s, to more recent exports, such as Roy Hodgson, this volume traces the history of England’s football missionaries.

Electrification is widespread in the southern countries of Europe and the locomotives in use are often built by local manufacturers, such as Škoda in the Czech Republic and Ansaldo Breda in Italy. The photographs in this collection range from Southern France, Spain and Portugal to former Eastern bloc states including Romania and Ukraine.

Bill Tarmey (1941–2012) played the lovable rogue Jack Duckworth in Coronation Street for 31 years until his character was killed off during the show's 50th anniversary in 2010. His story of growing up in post-war Manchester, singing in working men's clubs, and then finding his niche playing a rascal whose life uncannily mirrored his own will be cherished by all fans of Britain's longest-running soap.

By thoroughly re-examining all available evidence, this investigation into the arson attack on the German parliament building in 1933, four weeks after Hitler’s appointment as Reich chancellor, seeks to resolve the controversy over who started the Reichstag fire. It debunks claims that it was the Nazis themselves, and concludes that Marinus van der Lubbe, a communist sympathiser, was the lone perpetrator of a crime that arguably led to the worst atrocities of the 20th century.

From his childhood in Pontypridd to his performance at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert in 2012, this volume follows the life and career of Tom Jones (b.1940) in over 100 photographs. Accompanied by a description of his experiences, image and musical style, there are formal portraits, stills from his stage and television career, and photographs with stars including Elvis, Cher, and his fellow judges on the BBC series The Voice.

Fast-paced and wise-cracking, this first book of the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard trilogy introduces Magnus, son of the Norse god Frey, currently homeless in Boston. Young adult.

Patrick Grant, the director of the men’s clothing house E Tautz, presents profiles and photographic portraits of 81 men with nothing in common but ‘uncommon-ness’. They are divided into four groups: the ‘Artists’ all made their living in the arts and include film directors, architects, writers and painters; the ‘Heroes’, who include Mohammed Ali and Ernest Shackleton, all achieved something outstanding by physical prowess or courage; the ‘Libertines’ lived life recklessly; and the ‘Stylists’, though not necessarily well-dressed, lived their lives with style.

Following the pattern of medieval bestiaries, Brendon’s book illuminates the life and work of Winston Churchill through animals, from the Albatross he invoked in an important parliamentary speech in 1935, to his fondness for Zoos, despite his aversion to captivity. As well as the pets, menagerie and game that played significant roles in his life, the Bestiary explores Churchill’s frequent and often memorable use of animal imagery, such as likening himself to the lion’s roar, in writings and speeches.

The location and even the very existence of the Holy Grail have been shrouded in mystery for centuries. In this book the authors present the texts of parchment documents recently discovered in Egypt, revealing that the relic passed through the hands of kings and reached the Iberian peninsula in the mid eleventh century, having previously been preserved in Jerusalem. This evidence is combined with material from other sources to identify the Grail as a chalice now kept at León in northern Spain.

As part of Operation Grapple, Britain’s H-bomb testing programme, the light fleet carrier HMS Warrior set off from Portsmouth in February 1957 for Christmas Island in the South Pacific. In the Gunroom were ten junior officers (including the author) who weeks later would witness the detonation of Britain’s first thermonuclear device. This month-by-month account of their voyage, which examines the logistics behind the testing, describes their naval duties and celebrates their unfaltering comradeship.

The influence of Freud’s revolutionary ideas extends to art, literature and the language of everyday life. With clear and concise explanations of Freud’s technical terminology, this guide to his theories begins with a short biography, then explains how he developed each of the central concepts of psychoanalysis.

Ancient Romans often treated animals in ways that we consider cruel, but in many respects their attitudes were similar to our own. Ferris proposes ‘a way to understand Roman culture through analysing the society’s relationship with animals’. Using literary, visual and archaeological evidence, he shows how animals were kept for farm work and as household pets; how they were slaughtered for food, as sacrifices and as public entertainment; and how Romans presented animals in mythology and as attributes of deities.

The competing species of Terrans, Zerg and Protoss, from the StarCraft games, as well as their weaponry, vehicles and equipment, are profiled in this illustrated manual, presented as an official Terran Dominion Marine Corps Combat Handbook.

From Windsor Castle to the Great Wall of China, and from Japanese mussel gatherers to market traders in Algeria, this volume contains over 400 hand-tinted photographs in a survey of the world as it was in 1900. Jürgen Sorges’ introduction describes the tremendous pace of progress over the late 19th century and, with hindsight, sees in these wonderful images of wide open spaces, streets without cars, unspoilt mountainsides and low-rise cities a world ‘dancing on the edge of the abyss’.

From rumours of war in July 1914 to its aftermath in 1919, this well-researched and illustrated study explores the impact of the First World War on the city of Bath and surrounding area. Combining letters from the front lines with stories from the home front, and covering topics such as rounding up ‘aliens’, the War Hospital and food shortages, the author builds up a vivid picture of wartime Bath. The book ends with lists of the city’s military and naval casualties.

This introduction to fine lingerie offers the buyer advice on choosing suitable styles, taking correct measurements, and caring for delicate items. There are lists of the world's best designers, manufacturers and museums of lingerie and an explanation of terms relating to cut and fabric.

After seeing an advert for a writing course ‘in Carmarthenshire’s beautiful Upper Towy Valley’, Jason Robbins finds himself on a bogus course in the gloom of remote Heron House, where the torments of the past intrude into the present.

Diane Ackerman may rue the destruction of the natural world, yet she is thrilled by human ingenuity and here contemplates nascent technologies – including those for body heat recycling, 3D-printed human tissue and carbon capture – that may yet save our planet and our species. Slightly off-mint.

From Saul and Augustine of Hippo to Muhammad Ali and George W Bush, why have people throughout history changed their faith? Jacoby considers religious conversion from a secular perspective, challenging the idea that it is a purely spiritual journey. She examines the social and economic framework within which conversion takes place – whether through theocratic coercion, for political advantage or by interreligious marriage – and reflects on the ‘religious marketplace’ of modern America, where changes of faith are especially common. Slightly off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

The year 1616 brought such notable events as the arrival of a samurai in the Vatican, the Inquisition’s investigation of Galileo, the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes, the visit of Matoaka (‘Pocahontas’) to London, and the first stage appearance of Father Christmas. In this illustrated history of the year Christensen interweaves stories from around the world, highlighting themes relating to the global economy, international travel, women’s emerging roles and developments in art and science as the modern age was being born.

Made famous by the long-term studies conducted by Jane Goodall, the chimpanzees of the Gombe National Park by Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania have revealed previously unknown behaviours, such as the use of tools and meat-eating, and have shown that the apes have complex social relationships and individual personalities. This large-format photographic study captures the chimps over a period of more than ten years and contains notes on the history of the community and the lineages of its prominent dynasties.

From the ancient Italian and Spanish universities of Bologna and Salamanca, to the ultramodern Rolex Learning Centre, part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology opened in 2010, the architecture of universities has reflected a striving for cultural and intellectual excellence. In this selection of 23 universities from 15 countries, Guillaume de Laubier presents photographic studies of their facades, libraries, ceremonial halls and teaching buildings, while writer Jean Serroy outlines the history of each institution and its architecture.

Despite the A–Z of the title, this book takes a thematic approach as it tells the stories behind a selection of Scottish names of far-flung places. Starting with the explorers and pioneers who opened up wilderness lands, from Sir Alexander Mackenzie in Canada to Dundee Island in Antarctica, chapters describe the Scottish traders and migrants to North America, Australia and New Zealand who named places after themselves, their heroes or their homeland.

This wide-ranging and extensively illustrated survey explores every aspect of London’s politics, not only in its position as the capital of the nation, seat of the monarchy and home of Parliament, but in all its diversity. Richard Tames charts the development of the city’s often contentious local government, its long-standing function as a magnet for exiled revolutionaries, and its role as an arena of conflict for strikers, suffragettes, Fenians and fascists.

This collection of 39 tales of expeditions celebrates the spirit of exploration in the 21st century. Covering seven different terrains and with a final section looking at lost civilizations, these illustrated accounts, most of which are first-hand, include stories of skiing solo to the South Pole, crossing the deserts of Egypt on foot, and seeking out the long-sought source of the Mekong River.

Lord Kitchener recognized the need for recruitment on an unprecedented scale in 1914 and his call for 'the First Hundred Thousand' was quickly met by enthusiastic volunteers. Local regiments were then created, encouraging brothers, friends and workmates to join up in companionable 'pals' battalions, but eventually the government was forced to introduce conscription. This study of these early volunteer soldiers, dubbed by the original regulars of 1914 as Kitchener's Mob, includes illustrations of recruitment literature, archive photographs and military memorabilia.

Amy Leach’s debut collection of creative non-fiction displays a remarkable fusion of enchanting poetic language, quirky humour and factual information relating to the natural world and our communion with it. From lilies and peas, frogs and beavers to the moon, constellations and exploding stars, each of these 26 short pieces is filled with what Olivia Laing has called a ‘tumultuous, incantatory rejoicing in the astonishing multiplicity of the Earth’.

Ever since Beau Brummell strutted onto the scene in 1799, the Dandy has been an enduring icon of British culture. This illustrated history of characters including Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Noël Coward and the Chaps of the 21st century collects anecdotes, correspondence, speeches and articles to look beyond the finery and wit of Dandies and examine their place in Britain’s history.

Beyond the horrors of the Western Front, the First World War sent Britons to the far corners of the globe and affected all aspects of life on the home front. This portfolio of contemporary photographs, documents, letters and ephemera (first published as The Worst Ordeal in 1994) takes the broadest view of the conflict – from the experiences of soldiers, sailors and airmen and their families to dealing with strikes, volunteer work, rationing, conscientious objectors and the Irish rebellion at home.

When men from the Great Western Railway’s audit division left to fight in the First World War, they began to correspond with staff back home in the Paddington office where their letters were compiled into monthly ‘newsletters’. Twelve of these newsletters are arranged chronologically in this touching collection, in which a group of colleagues bound together by work, yet scattered across France, Belgium, the Dardanelles, Greece, India and Egypt, pour out their thoughts and reflections about life on the front.

From 1917 to 1945, Paul Ginsborg views great events and transitions through the lens of family life, examining the role of families (and radical alternatives to families) in the social and political life of the nation-state. The book focuses on five nations: revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union; Turkey in the transition from Ottoman Empire to republic; Italy under Fascism; Spain during and after the Civil War; and Germany from the failure of the Weimar Republic to the Nazi state.

Between 1933, when the Nazis came to power, and the end of the Second World War in 1945, displacement, enforced emigration and deportation became commonplace for families, particularly Jewish families, across Europe. Based on a collection of postcards, envelopes and other ephemera, and covering post from alien internment camps, refugee organizations, refugees in China and Japan, and displaced persons after 1945, this book explores how postal communication – often the only remaining link between separated family members – was achieved in wartime.

The events of the months between the fall of Germany in May 1945 and the surrender of Japan in August would dictate the world order for generations. Combining archive material and original interviews with eyewitnesses, this people's history tells the story of civilians, soldiers, victors and vanquished across the globe during a fateful summer – from the VE celebrations in London and the continued fighting in the Pacific to the elation of VJ Day and the terrible aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

‘The stomach governs the world,’ wrote Winston Churchill, and that idea is borne out in this guide to ten historic meals. From Bonnie Prince Charlie’s lavish repast before the Battle of Culloden to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty Dinner, each chapter discusses the meal’s attendants, significance and aftermath, and provides a full recipe guide including historically accurate drink pairings.

Despite early optimism that the First World War would be swiftly concluded and cause little disruption to British life, the long struggle in fact turned British industry on its head, encouraging technological and organizational advances and a rethinking of traditional gender roles as women took the place of men in the factories. This book examines how different industries coped with the demands of the war and the heroic efforts made by ordinary men and women to keep industry moving.

Kristie Macrakis begins by describing how she unearthed a formula for invisible ink in the Stasi archives, which inspired her to pen this history of secret writing, from the simple but ingenious techniques used in ancient Greece and Rome to the newest opportunities for concealment provided by computer files and DNA microdots. In an appendix she offers a selection of recipes for invisible inks derived from such everyday ingredients as porridge and tonic water.

An Olivier award-winning performer, accredited hypnotherapist and the first artist in residence at the British Library, Christopher Green presents an illustrated history of hypnosis, covering both the reputable side of the subject – brain imaging, clinical trials, hypnotherapy etc – and the smoke and mirrors of stage ‘mesmerists’ and hypnotists. ‘I love hypnosis’, writes Green, ‘I don’t know of any other subject that is at once so erudite and yet so trashy’.

Physician John Elliotson and his friend Thomas Wakley, founding editor of The Lancet, were well-known medical pioneers in Victorian London. Yet when Elliotson championed the new ‘science’ of mesmerism, which purported to dull surgical pain, their friendship – and Elliotson’s credibility – were severely tested. Against a backdrop of Victorian lecture theatres and hospital wards, the two distinguished men publicly clashed over a technique which, for all its successes and failures, is still little understood.

In judging ‘crimes of passion’, where should we draw the line between the ‘mad’ and the ‘bad’? This question featured prominently at several sensational trials between 1870 and 1914 as lawyers began to argue with psychiatrists over the inner lives of murderers. Focusing on three such trials in different countries, this book uses court and asylum records, letters and newspaper accounts to highlight the social debates prompted by the mind doctors’ new concepts of insanity.

Although the numbers of immigrants seeking naturalization in pre-revolutionary France were insignificant, the process of becoming ‘naturalized foreigners’ – they never attained the full legal status of French ‘naturals’ – offers a unique perspective on the policies and practices of citizenship and nationality. Sahlins’ social, political and legal history of early immigration explores these processes of naturalization before and after the 1789 Revolution.

New York Times correspondent Robert F Worth gives his analysis of the contemporary Middle East in this investigation of how the optimism of the Arab Spring of 2011 disintegrated into civil wars, brutal repressions and the rise of Islamic State. Illuminating the conflicts and contradictions through people caught between loyalties to family, sect, country or religion, the narrative focuses on Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Tunisia.

The art dealer John Hunt (1900–76) helped to shape the medieval collections of museums around the world and was Sotheby’s principal advisor on medieval art. This biography reveals not only the extent of Hunt’s published work on archaeological and historical topics but also his cultural benefactions to Ireland, the adopted homeland where he spent the 1950s restoring the crumbling 15th-century Bunratty Castle. The final chapter covers the investigation into recent allegations that Hunt had links to the Nazis.

First published in 1902, this is a biography of Anna Amalia (1739-1807), Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, who acted as regent for her son Karl August from 1759 to 1775, and became a great patron of art and literature. With a new introduction.

Henry Cockburn (1779–1854) was a judge of the Court of Session and a leading personality in 19th-century Edinburgh, best remembered now for his posthumous literary works, Memorials of His Time (1856), Journal (1874) and Circuit Journeys (1888). This selection of 180 letters written by Cockburn provides new information about his career as judge, Whig activist, family man and pioneer of building conservation. With introduction, notes and index.

In 1901, George Moore, the celebrated author of Esther Waters , returned to his native Dublin at the height of the Irish Literary Revival. First published in 1911, his monumental Hail and Farewell! profiles the movement’s leading figures, including WB Yeats, Lady Gregory and JM Synge, charts the development of the Abbey Theatre, and illuminates the literary, artistic and musical tastes of the period. This new edition provides notes explaining many references familiar to the book’s original readers but now obscure.

In 1891, the first issue of The Strand magazine appeared; it was an immediate and massive success, mainly due to the debut of Sherlock Holmes in its pages. In this study of the relationship between Holmes's creator and the magazine, Mike Ashley first sketches the early career paths of Conan Doyle, the publisher George Newnes and editor Greenhough Smith before exploring their extraordinary achievement and Doyle’s subsequent 40-year association with The Strand up to his death in 1930.

Published by Sam Fogg, the renowned gallery dealing in ancient and medieval artefacts and texts, this catalogue describes 86 Chinese books ranging in date from the 1st to the 19th centuries and divided into sections of manuscripts from Dunhuang, sacred texts, works of literature and history, science, illustrated books and two books from Korea. Each work is represented by one or more reproductions of pages, together with descriptive details and a scholarly commentary.

Through the relationship between research scientist Margot Sharpe and her patient, the charismatic but tortured amnesiac Elihu Hoopes, this poignant, unsettling novel explores the line between science, ethics and obsession, and probes the darkest corners of the human psyche.

Birds in the order Pelecaniformes share biological traits such as feeding predominantly on fish and incubating only a limited clutch of eggs (one or two) by the transmission of heat from the foot webs. This meticulous study, first published in 1993, provides a worldwide survey of the 32 species of cormorants and shags, two species of darters and seven species of pelicans, examining their biology, behaviour, plumage, distribution and ecology, and including colour photographs and anatomical drawings.

Primates, carnivores and hoofed animals share basic expressive similarities such as the use of ears and eyes to show excitement, alarm or aggression. This book explains how such actions can be interpreted and reveals how an understanding of environment can make sense of behaviour. Starting with a primer on how such core motivations as feeding, breeding and avoiding predators influence conduct and demeanour, the book is in sections dealing with animals in different regions, and is illustrated with detailed line drawings.

Beginning with a history of the breed from the first-ever 'yellow retriever' hunting dog (called Nous), to the companions, medical-detection dogs and 'canine partners' of today, this is a complete guide to owning, training and caring for golden retrievers. There are also chapters on 'gundog life' for those who want to work golden retrievers and on every aspect of responsible breeding, including advice on how to say goodbye to the puppies as they go to new homes.

The relationship between humans and cetaceans – whales, dolphins and porpoises – has changed dramatically over the centuries. Where once a lost or stranded whale was hacked to death, now desperate attempts would be made to save it. In this Natural History Museum book, Sarah Lazarus describes the history of whaling; 20th-century efforts to limit the industry; the dire threat of polluted oceans; and the relatively recent interest in ‘close encounters’ with whales and dolphins.

‘Music has, quite literally, saved my life.’ After experiencing sexual abuse, addiction and a devastating mental breakdown, James Rhodes found solace in listening to music and has since become a renowned concert pianist. In this memoir, by turns shocking, witty and outspoken, he describes his emotional turmoil, discusses the great composers and performers who mean the most to him, reflects on the state of classical music today and conveys his passionate belief in music’s power to transform all our lives.

This volume collects material from books, essays, interviews and album notes written by the co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine. Full of his insights into a variety of genres and musicians, it also highlights wider cultural trends of the mid 20th century.

In the years before the Russian Revolution, many of the country’s leading dramatists rejected the realism of their predecessors in favour of a symbolism inspired by Ibsen and Maeterlinck. This unique anthology brings to life the heady fin-de-siècle Russian theatre with translations of plays by Blok, Sologub and Kuzmin, alongside polemical essays by Briusov, Bely and others. A general introduction and insightful prefaces set the writers and their work in their cultural and historical context.

Like modern art, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s work is famously difficult to decipher. Accordingly, this study takes an original approach, peering at the man through a prism of ideas, stories and associations drawn not only from Lacan’s theoretical influences, including Hegel, Freud and Saussure, but also from his emotional and professional life. The result is a pleasing matrix of ideas revealing Lacan to be as wilful as he is complex.

The Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth (1928–2016) was one of the most influential social theorists of the 20th century. This biography by his friend and colleague Thomas Hylland Eriksen – himself a distinguished ethnographer – charts the development of Barth’s groundbreaking ideas on ethnicity in his untiring fieldwork. In its exploration of big issues such as unity and diversity, culture and relativism, art and science, the book compellingly communicates the magic of ethnography to the non-specialist reader.

In 1939 Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), a disciple of Freud, fled from Nazi Germany to America, where he continued to pursue research into the climate, the effects of radiation and new therapeutic techniques. Presenting material from his diaries, letters and laboratory notebooks, this fourth volume of autobiographical writings covers the final decade of his life, when he was harassed and eventually jailed by the US authorities, who burned his research and banned the use of his experimental orgone energy accumulator.

Over the centuries, the ideal ruler as described by Machiavelli in The Prince has mostly been seen as a ruthless tyrant, but Philip Bobbitt argues that this is a misunderstanding arising from mistranslations, political agendas and interpreters overlooking Machiavelli’s earlier work. In his commentary on The Prince, Bobbitt presents Machiavelli as ‘the clear-sighted prophet of a new constitutional order with its basis in the union of strategy and law’.

Focused on Gothic buildings within the Paris Basin, but with occasional excursions, The Creation of Gothic Architecture aims to provide an overall chronology through the study of every available example of the various architectural elements, primarily using photographs, with commentaries, and supported by documents where they exist. Comprising Volumes 1 and 2, the first part of the study dates buildings between 1170 and 1250 using a single repeatable type of decoration – foliage – and drawing on 288 documents. No jacket.

(Slightly off-mint) May smell slightly musty due to long storage.

A tangled web of international alliances fuelled the politics of 1914 and, when war broke out, confidence in decisive military action soon faded as a stalemate became established on the Western Front. Here bestselling author Max Hastings examines the political and military manoeuvres of 1914, using the accounts of leaders and generals as well as ordinary people, to assess how Europe was drawn into war and review the first few months of action. American-cut pages and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge. Slightly off-mint.

Alexander von Kluck, commander of the First German Army, was blamed for the crucial failure of the German offensive in the West in August and September 1914, which led to years of trench warfare. Based on official records and his own Army Orders, Kluck's account of that momentous campaign presents events as seen from First Army headquarters and gives the General's explanations for his actions. First published in 1923; reissued with a new introduction by Mark Pottle.

During the First World War the Daily Mail published letters from soldiers and civilians as well as reports from the front line and comment by literary figures such as John Galsworthy, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy. This volume mixes these elements from the paper's archive with private diaries, correspondence and photographs from the battle and home fronts to give a valuable contemporary perspective on the war.

As well as the mascots, carrier pigeons and horses used by the army during the First World War, all manner of animals provided solace and interest for servicemen. Quoting letters, diaries and memoirs, van Emden follows the course of the war year by year, describing soldiers' experiences with animals, from entraining heavy horses in Birmingham to birdwatching at the front; and he also surveys the state of wildlife on the ‘murdered earth’ of the Western Front.

After the 1918 Armistice and until his death in 1928, Douglas Haig was hailed as a British national hero; by the mid 1930s, his reputation lay in ruins, with Lloyd George’s war memoirs in particular portraying him as an incompetent general. In this major biography, based on Haig’s writings, official documents and the writings of contemporaries, Professor Sheffield offers a more rounded portrait, and combines conventional biography with an examination of Haig’s role within the British Army of the First World War.

Originally published under a pseudonym in 1922, this memoir of a private soldier in the London Rifle Brigade is closely based on the letters he sent home throughout the First World War, from enlistment and initial training in 1914 to the final Allied advance in the weeks leading up to the Armistice. It documents the experiences of an important but often overlooked branch of the British Army, first in the trenches then in the transport section.

From the day in November 1915 when he left for France until a few hours before he died on the first day of the Somme, Captain May of the Manchester Pals secretly filled seven pocket books with a diary for his wife, in which he vividly recorded his moments of terror and anticipation, friendship and frustration in the trenches. May's great-nephew has edited the complete diary and the family correspondence that followed his death.

Major Georg Paul Neumann was a former German Air Force officer who had served in the First World War, and produced his outstanding survey of Germany's air services in 1920. Drawing on his own and others' experiences, he compiled a full and accurate account of the force that began as the Imperial German Army Air Service in 1910 and ended the war as the Luftstreitkräfte. Translated by JE Gurdon; edited and introduced by Bob Carruthers. Eyewitnesses from the Great War series.

With the rival armies entrenched in France and Belgium during the First World War, Rotterdam, in neighbouring Holland, became the centre of espionage. A background in fraud or deception was considered a suitable qualification to be an agent (which the German and British military establishment considered a less than honourable pursuit) and local Dutch operatives were drawn from the criminal underworld. This book explores the shady characters and sometimes amateurish activities of these fledgling spy networks in Holland.

Official censorship meant that reports of the First World War published in the Manchester Guardian were limited, but from today's perspective they give a sense of what British society was thinking and reading about at the time. This collection of articles from the paper's archive also allows us a wider view of contemporary attitudes, with reports on the music hall, the impact of Charlie Chaplin, the 'Country Diary' and international events such as the Easter Rising and the Russian Revolution.

The Europeana 1914–18 project (www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en) encourages people across Europe to share family histories, documents and artefacts relating to the First World War, and has produced a host of valuable material revealing forgotten adventures, hardships, tragedies and romances. The 32 stories collected in this volume, drawn from Europeana and other sources, tell the tales of ordinary people caught up in great events, from a conscripted French pacifist to a Welsh soldier injured in the last days of the war.

After having been rejected on medical grounds several times as a volunteer, Fen Noakes was conscripted in June 1917 and sent to France in October to join the 4th Battalion east of Arras. The memoir that he wrote in 1934, ‘while the memory is still comparatively undimmed’, together with the letters written from the Front to his mother, provide an articulate and very detailed account of living and fighting through the final year of the war.

Month by month, the authors use a collection of around 250 photographs and reproductions to follow events during the final year of war, from the arrival of American troops and guns in January to the German surrender in November. The final chapters examine many aspects of the immediate aftermath, including the battlefields where 'peace visitors' toured the devastation, the ongoing treatment of wounded men, and the funeral of the Unknown Soldier in London.