Drawing on a mass of primary materials - from texts in the Vatican archives to oral histories of the North American Indians, this title shows how the conflict between Britain and France triggered the first 'world war', raging from Europe to Africa; the Caribbean to the Pacific; the plains of the Ganges to the Great Lakes of North America.

Against the epic backdrop of the impenetrable jungles of Burma, Frank McLynn constructs the dramatic story of the four larger-than-life commanders who directed the Allied efforts against the Japanese: Louis Mountbatten, Orde Wingate, Joseph Stilwell and William Slim.

In recent years it has become customary to assume that William the Conqueror's victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 was virtually inevitable, given the alleged superiority of Norman military technology. In this study, underpinned by biographical sketches of the great warriors who fought for the crown of England in 1066, the author aims to show that this view is mistaken. The Battle on Senlac Hill was a desperately close run thing, which Harold lost only because of an incredible run of bad fortune and some treachery from the Saxon elite in England.

By the author of the acclaimed 'Lionheart and Lackland', here is a biography of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. Though a persecutor of Christians, Marcus holds out the prospect of spirituality for atheists, happiness without God, joy without heaven and morality without religion.

The greatest story of military conquest in history from a 'master storyteller'. (Guardian)

Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known, whose empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East and Russia. So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such colossal power, eclipsing Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon? Credited by some with paving the way for the Renaissance, condemned by others for being the most heinous murderer in history, who was Genghis Khan?

His actual name was Temujin,...