Paul Kennedy’s international bestseller is a sweeping account of five hundred years of fluctuating economic muscle and military might. Kennedy’s masterwork begins in the year 1500, at a time of various great centres of power including Minh China, the Ottomans, the rising Mughal state, the nations of Europe. But it was the latter which, through competition, economic growth and better military organisation, came to dominate the globe – until challenged later by Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Now China, boosted by its own economic prowess, rises to the fore. Throughout this brilliant work, Kennedy persuasively demonstrates the interdependence of economic and military power, showing how an imbalance between the two has historically led to spectacular political disaster. Erudite and brilliantly original, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the politics of power.

In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of ancient Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements around 5400 BC, to the eclipse of Babylon by the Persians in the sixth century BC. He chronicles the rise and fall of dynastic power during this period; he examines its numerous material, social and cultural innovations and inventions: The wheel, civil, engineering, building bricks, the centralized state, the division of labour, organised religion, sculpture, education, mathematics, law and monumental building. At the heart of Kriwaczek's magisterial account, though, is the glory of Babylon - 'gateway to the gods' - which rose to glorious prominence under the Amorite king Hammurabi, who unified Babylonia between 1800 and 1750 BC. While Babylonian power would rise and fall over the ensuing centuries, it retained its importance as a cultural, religious and political centre until its fall to Cyrus the Great of Persia in 539 BC.

Set during the doomed splendour of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Radetzky March tells the story of the celebrated Trotta family, tracing their rise and fall over three generations. Theirs is a sweeping history of heroism and duty, desire and compromise, tragedy and heartbreak, a story that lasts until the darkening eve of WWI, when all is set to fall apart. A rich and luminous masterpiece, moving, compassionate, witty and dramatic, The Radetzky March is one of the great reading pleasures of 20th-century literature. .

Set during the doomed splendour of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Radetzky March tells the story of the celebrated Trotta family, tracing their rise and fall over three generations. Theirs is a sweeping history of heroism and duty, desire and compromise, tragedy and heartbreak, a story that lasts until the darkening eve of WWI, when all is set to fall apart. A rich and luminous masterpiece, moving, compassionate, witty and dramatic, The Radetzky March is one of the great reading pleasures of 20th-century literature.

Set during the doomed splendour of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Radetzky March tells the story of the celebrated Trotta family, tracing their rise and fall over three generations. Theirs is a sweeping history of heroism and duty, desire and compromise, tragedy and heartbreak, a story that lasts until the darkening eve of WWI, when all is set to fall apart. A rich and luminous masterpiece, moving, compassionate, witty and dramatic, The Radetzky March is one of the great reading pleasures of 20th-century literature. .

Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At twenty, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn.Now, aged thirty-one, she runs a second-hand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing - until she's called to return to New York to see her dying father.Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.

Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At twenty, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn.Now, aged thirty-one, she runs a second-hand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing - until she's called to return to New York to see her dying father.Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.

The Tin Drum presents Hitler's rise and fall through the eyes of the dwarfish narrator whose magic powers become symbolic of the dark forces dominating the German nation in the period. Like Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, Grass's novel explores the dark roots of power and creativity. An early advocate of 'magic realism'. Gunter Grass is the most powerful and celebrated novelist to appear in post-war Germany. His home city of Danzig is a powerful presence in this novel.

The sensational story of the rise and fall of one of the most notorious families in history, by the author of The Medici. The Borgias have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthless megalomania, avarice and vicious cruelty - all have been associated with their name. But the story of this remarkable family is far more than a tale of sensational depravities, it also marks a decisive turning point in European history. The rise and fall of the Borgias held centre stage during the golden age of the Italian Renaissance and they were the leading players at the very moment when our modern world was creating itself. Within this context the Renaissance itself takes on a very different aspect. Was the corruption part of this creation, or vice versa? Would one have been possible without the other? From the family's Spanish roots and the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia, to the lives of his infamous offspring, Lucrezia and Cesare - the hero who dazzled Machiavelli, but also the man who befriended Leonardo da Vinci - Paul Strathern relates this influential family to their time, together with the world which enabled them to flourish, and tells the story of this great dynasty as never before.

This richly illustrated hardback chronicles the rise and fall of the ancient Greek and Roman empires, accompanied by full-colour images of artefacts, artwork, maps and more. From palace-based societies in Minoan Crete to the Germanic invasion of Rome, this beautiful jacketed hardback tells the story of these classical civilisations, covering their political development, the rise of the city state and the growth of their empires. Also included are insights into the architectural, artistic and cultural impact of early Greece and Rome and vignettes of key political and cultural figures. Accompanied by feature boxes, maps and superb photographs this is a fascinating introduction to the two great empires that shaped the modern world.

Spinning out of the events of Batman: Knightquest: The Crusade Vol. 1, the epic story of Bruce Wayne's rise and fall continues! Jean-Paul Valley's career as the Caped Crusader continues as Bruce Wayne remains missing in action. Our new hero struggles with the demons wrestling inside him, pushing him to some extremes and thus compromising Batman's image. When the Joker reappears, Batman must face the Clown Prince of Crime while coping with an internal struggle between the demands of his mission and his own humanity.

Spinning out of the events of Batman: Knightquest: The Crusade Vol. 1, the epic story of Bruce Wayne's rise and fall continues! Jean-Paul Valley's career as the Caped Crusader continues as Bruce Wayne remains missing in action. Our new hero struggles with the demons wrestling inside him, pushing him to some extremes and thus compromising Batman's image. When the Joker reappears, Batman must face the Clown Prince of Crime while coping with an internal struggle between the demands of his mission and his own humanity.

Vol. 1 includes American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand. 'America was never innocent.' Thus begins the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy. It's James Ellroy's pop history of the 1960s, his window-peeper's view of government misconduct, his dirty trickster's take on the great events of an incendiary era. It's a tour de force of the American idiom, and an acknowledged masterpiece. American Tabloid gives us John F. Kennedy's rise and fall from an insider's perspective. We're there for the rigged 1960 election and for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. We're the eyes and ears and souls of three rogue cops who've signed on for the ride and come to see Jack as their betrayer. And we're there in Dallas in 1963 where it all comes to a brutal end. The Cold Six Thousand the cover-up for the Kennedy assassination begins. This time the ride takes us from Dallas to Vietnam to Las Vegas to Memphis to Cuba to the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. We're rubbing shoulders Klansmen and mafiosi, killers, hoods and provocateurs. WIth Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. And of course a lot of corrupt policemen. The American dream as Nightmare. James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the L.A. Quartet (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz) as well as the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy. He has embarked on a second L.A. Quartet, set in World War II: the first novel, Perfidia, was published in 2015; the second, This Storm, will be published in early summer 2019. He lives in Colorado.

Their revolution would ignite a continent... An epic novel set during one of the most savage and dramatic moments in European history. Greece, 1824 In the wild south, the people of the Mani have risen up against four hundred years of Ottoman rule. But initial triumph leads to bitter feuding among the Greek victors and the Sultan sends his vassal, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, to invade. Burning everything in his path, he is on the point of victory. Only the intervention of the Great Powers of France, Russia and Britain can save Greece. Hara, young daughter of a Maniot chief, is the fearless symbol of her people's spirit. When she rescues Greek Prince Tzanis from a shipwreck, on his way to deliver secret gold for the revolution, they fall in love but are forced apart by events. Yet a shared resolve to wreak vengeance on Turkish rule unites them again, and their heroism and sacrifice will ultimately inspire an unlikely band of men and women to join them in rescuing Greece. Will their plan to involve the Great Powers succeed before Greece is destroyed by fire?

The largely untold story of the rise and fall of one of the most powerful, opulent and glittering dynasties in history. It is 1494 when the tragic death of the ruler of Ferghana leaves his only son, twelve-year-old Babur, facing a seemingly impossible challenge: to live up to the example of his great ancestor, Tamburlaine, whose conquests stretched from Delhi to the Mediterranean, from wealthy Persia to the wildernesses along the Volga. But Babur is dangerously young to inherit a kingdom and, from that moment, his precarious reign will be fraught with danger, in a world of tribal rivalries, rampaging armies and ruthlessly ambitious enemies.

Tumanbay: Once the most magnificent city on earth - now the dark heart of an empire which lies in ruins. Occupied by the fanatical forces of the mysterious cult of Maya, corpses hang from the gallows, and citizens are flogged for next to nothing. Barakat, leader of the Inquisition, leads the purge. Gregor, former spymaster to the Sultan, lives in fear. Madu, heir to the throne, is opiated and installed as a puppet ruler. And Qulan, the great general, rots in prison. But the history of Tumanbay shows that those who can rise to power can just as easily fall. And there are whispers of rebellion, of a reckoning - as well as rumblings of plague on the horizon...