An epic description of the brutal transportation of men, women and children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system which was to be the precursor to the Gulag and was the origin of Australia.

Simon Schama, the author of The Embarrassment of Riches and Citizens , sets out to tell the history of two certainties, of two deaths. In discussing the speculations surrounding them, he finds himself involved in a history he cannot classify - the unpredictable history of stories.

Features the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow; Britain's greatest 20th-century Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionized the British Navy and brought forth for the first true battleship, HMS Dreadnought.

This is the book that made Simon Schama's reputation when first published in 1987. A historical masterpiece, it is an epic account of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age of Rembrandt and van Diemen.

This study looks at the past 500 years to demonstrate that nations which became great powers declined as their growth rate slowed and their spending on defence continued to increase. The author explains how this can be eased or worsened by clever or short-sighted policy decisions.

How does environment influence history? How are events and personalities, wars and nationalities shaped by their surroundings, by the very rise and fall of earth, water and forest? This work attempts to answer these questions and gives a portrait of the world around us and how it shapes us.