The Far Edges of the Known World A New History of the Ancient Past - Dr Owen
What was it like to live on the edges of ancient empires, at the boundaries of the known world? In this bold revisionist history of the ancient world, Owen Rees shifts our focus from the centres of Greece and Rome to the lively, long-ignored societies on the borders.
In 1519, Conquistador Hernán Cortés and his troops ride into the floating city of Tenoxtitlan – today’s Mexico City – in this hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story. Invited to a ceremonial meal with the steely princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of the emperor Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance into the city and its labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.
In my case, reading has always served a dual purpose. In a positive sense, it offers sustenance, enlightenment, the bliss of fascination. In a negative sense, it is a means of withdrawal, of inhabiting a reality quarantined from one that often comes across as painful, alarming or downright distasteful.
wo-time Pulitzer prize winner Bob Woodward tells the revelatory, behind-the-scenes story of three wars – Ukraine, the Middle East and the struggle for the American presidency. War is an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history. We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
‘Paula Hawkins is a genius’ LISA JEWELL When a small bone at the centre of a famous sculpture is revealed to be human, three people become intimately connected by the secrets and lies that put it there.
The story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Sapiens. For the last 100,000 years, humans have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis.
