The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub. On 28 August 1815 the US brig Commerce was dashed against Mauritania's Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Ri[...]

Nearly every American has heard of the Hatfields and the McCoys and their infamous feud, yet almost nobody knows the truth of this legendarily violent-and influential-clash in the heart of Appalachia. Contrary to popular belief, this wasn't just hillbilly families taking potshots at each other: the [...]

A new edition of the classic companion to Patrick O'Brian's sea loving novels, updated to include the final novel in the series. This comprehensive lexicon provides definitions of nautical terms, historical entries describing the people and political events that shaped the period, and detailed expla[...]

Under-armed in hostile territory, and foolishly employing the enemy as guides, the one hundred explorers were ambushed and stranded without camels or supplies in the deserts of southern Algeria. Many were killed outright, and for four months the survivors were menaced by the Tuareg, the "lords of th[...]

Bruce Nauman (1941 -) is arguably the most influential artist at work in the world today. His pioneering explorations of sculpture, performance, film, video, neon and sound art have seen him investigating areas of art practice years before his peers, providing inspiration for innumerable artistic ca[...]

This is the book that restarted the James Dean cult by celebrating him as the cool, defiant visionary of pop culture who made adolescence seem heroic instead of awkward and who defined the style of rock 'n' roll's politics of delinquency. The only book to fully show how deliberately and carefully De[...]