Penguin Books Australia

Berlin, 1933. William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered academic from Chicago, becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany, where he is about to witness a turning point in history.

THROUGHOUT WORLD WAR II, Lisbon was at the centre of world attention.  The only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis powers openly operated, it was also a temporary home to much of Europe's exiled royalty; over one million refugees seeking passage to America; and a host of spies, secret police, captains of industry, bankers, prominent Jews, writers and artists, escaped POWs, and...

History as you've never seen it before - an amazing visual guide to the 20th century

From global wars to the digital revolution, explore the world-changing events of the 20th century decade-by-decade with 20th Century . This is history as you've never seen it before - the events, the people and the political and cultural milestones that have shaped our world using a fresh new approach.

In Towards Aotearoa, award-winning reviewer David Eggleton offers a highly readable and entertaining introduction to twentieth-century New Zealand art. Focusing on key artists, he discusses their background, their work, the materials and techniques they use, and ways they have shaped the story of New Zealand art. The book is illustrated with 101 of the best artworks - many of them classics.

This bestselling history of Scotland traces the epic story of a nation from the Union with England to today's debates on the possibilities of Scottish independence in the future. Ranging from high politics to everyday life, The Scottish Nation is the most read modern history of Scotland at home and abroad: vital to understanding an ancient nation at a crucial time.

'Outstanding . . . if you are after...

'AN EXCELLENT POLITICAL OVERVIEW'
GUARDIAN

Over the centuries the Middle East has confounded the dreams of conquerors and peacemakers alike. This now-classic book, fully updated to 2009, follows the historic struggles of the region over the last two hundred years, from Napoleon's assault on Egypt, through the slow decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire, to the painful emergence of modern nations, the...

Truly far-ranging – both conceptually and geographically – Modernity and Continuity: The History of Architecture from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century is a rich, compelling history that will shape future thinking about this period for years to come and provide an ideal introduction to this vital period for students, architects and the public at large.

They worked on the front lines—so they could write the headlines.

In 1943, a group of journalists—including a young correspondent named Walter Cronkite and cub reporter Andy Rooney—received an invitation to fly along on a bombing run over Germany. Of the sixty-six that took off the next day, only fifty-two made it back to England. A fellow survivor asked Cronkite if he'd thought of...

'Triumphantly successful'
Sunday Times

'Vivid, thorough and enjoyable'
Independent

'If the 'Greatness' of a king can be measured by the extent to which his qualities corresponded to the needs of a nation at a given moment in history, then George VI was a great king, and perhaps a very great king'
Massigli, French Ambassador, 1952

'A thrilling and passionately indignant trawl through vanity's most polluted depths'  
THE TIMES

'Quite brilliant, inspiring for the layman and an enviable tour de force for the informed reader . . . A wonderful book . . . lucid, exciting and easy to read' 
Literary Review

What if Britain had stayed out of the First World War? What if Germany had won the Second? How would England look if there had been no Cromwell? What would the world be like if Communism had never collapsed?...

New Zealand's Pakeha origin as a bolt-hole for convicts escaping Australia, a place where former convicts joined whaling and sealing gangs, and where sea captains thumbed their noses at the law, has been quietly forgotten. It has become a hidden part of our past, buried under the convenient fiction that the Treaty of Waitangi is the sole pivot of New Zealand's colonial story.

Twelve thousand New Zealand men and women served in the occupation of Japan immediately after the Second World War. This book records memories from those we know as 'J Force'.

Based on revealing interviews with soldiers, airmen, nurses and members of the New Zealand Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, The Occupiers explores Kiwi life in the former enemy territory between 1946 and 1948.

'ONE OF THE MOST LIVELY AND PROVOCATIVE INTERPRETIVE STUDIES OF THE MAJOR EVENTS IN RECENT AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC HISTORY.'
- AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

With a new introduction by
Lynsey Hanley

and a Foreword by
Simon Hoggart

'A vivid inside view of working-class culture and one of the most influential books of the postwar era' 
Observer

This updated edition of The Secret State revises Hennessy's picture of the Soviet threat that was presented to ministers from the last days of the Second World War to the 1960s. He maps the size and shape of the Cold War state built in response to that perceived threat, and traces the arguments successive generations of ministers, the military and civil servants have used to justify the British nuclear...

'An absorbing mixture of military adventure, urbane wit, cool humour and surprising incident'  Financial Times

Fitztroy Maclean was one of the real-life inspirations for super-spy James Bond. After adventures in Soviet Russia before the war, Maclean fought with the SAS in North Africa in 1942. There he specialised in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines, including the daring and outrageous...

No account of the financial insanity of 1929 has been issued in a form at once so readable, so humorous, and so carefully authenticated as this classic book. J.K. Galbraith examines the 'gold rush fantasy' in American psychology and describes its dire consequences. The Florida land boom, the operations of Insull, Kreuger and Hatry, and the fabulous Shenandoah Corporation all come together in this penetrating...