Microhistories - Niche Books about Fascinating Topics

The debut book from the YouTube sensation and all-round cartographical nerds, The Map Men! In their long-awaited debut, YouTube’s Map Men bring their highly infectious enthusiasm for everything map-related to the printed page for the very first time, in a brilliantly entertaining and eye-catching tome. Packed with humour and fascinating facts, This Way Up takes a deep dive into the...

An entertaining history of rural life in Aotearoa, told through artefacts, gadgets and ephemera that tell a story that goes deeper than the objects themselves. The most fun you'll ever have learning about rural life in New Zealand. Told through a varied selection of items from the everyday (apples, Red Band gumboots, milk tankers and ride-on mowers) to the weird...

Discover the enthralling story of one of mankind's most overlooked but impactful creatures in A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard. Spanning millennia and continents, this remarkable book delves into how sheep have shaped human history, transforming societies, economies, and cultures from the dawn of civilisation to the modern era. From the fertile crescent of...

The Secret Lives of Colour, penned by Kassia St Clair, offers a riveting exploration into the fascinating and unexpected stories behind the colours that shape our world. This compelling book takes readers on a vibrant journey through the history and significance of 75 unique shades, dyes, and hues, revealing how each colour has influenced various facets of human civilisation, from...

Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Winchester returns with a thought-provoking history of the wind, written in his edifying and entertaining style. What is going on with our atmosphere? The headlines are filled with news of devastating hurricanes, murderous tornadoes, and cataclysmic fires. Gale force advisories are issued on a regular basis by weather services around the world. Atmospheric scientists are...

A fresh new look for Bill Bryson's two exceptional classics on the English language. Mother Tongue explores the quirky and fascinating journey of the English language, spoken by more than 300 million people worldwide, with many more attempting to master it. Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless...

THE SUNDAY TIMES NON-FICTION BESTSELLER WHSmith NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 'The best book you will ever read about Britain's greatest warplane' – Patrick Bishop, bestselling author of Fighter Boys 'A rich and heartfelt tribute to this most iconic British machine' – Rowland White, bestselling author of Vulcan 607 'As the RAF marks its centenary, Nichol has created a...

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2018, Exactly by bestselling author Simon Winchester offers an engrossing historical narrative that delves into the extraordinary achievements of the pioneering engineers and scientists who revolutionised our world through the development of precision machinery. With his trademark eloquence and keen insight, Winchester traces the origins and evolution of precision, from its nascent...

Victorian Wellington street by street In 1891, a remarkable map of Wellington was made by surveyor Thomas Ward. It recorded the footprint of every building, from Thorndon in the north and across the teeming, inner-city slums of Te Aro to Berhampore in the south. Updated regularly over the next 10 years, it detailed hotels, theatres, oyster saloons, brothels, shops, stables,...

Homer called it a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. As Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates here, salt has shaped civilisation from the beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind. Wars have been fought over salt and, while salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia, they...

A new classic of extreme endurance - Into Thin Air meets The Perfect Storm in 19th century Antarctica **A Times Best Book of 2021** The harrowing, survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly wrong, with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter August 1897: The Belgica set sail,...

The Notebook was named a 'Best Book of the Year 2023' by the New Statesman, Spectator, and Waterstones. "From plans for flying machines to philosophy - the remarkable joy of jotting things down" - Guardian "Surprisingly revealing" - The Sunday Times We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did this simple invention come from? How did they revolutionise our...

Great Tales of Aotearoa uncovers the stories that helped build our collective history, from pioneering tales of New Zealand's first bank and company to stories of high treason, nautical disasters, courage and survival. For over 40 years, retired journalist Tom Clarke has compiled this collection of fascinating, entertaining and extraordinary tales from New Zealand's storied past.

The tenth anniversary edition of Longitude by Dava Sobel brings readers a captivating and dramatic recount of one of the greatest scientific quests in history: the search for a reliable method to determine a ship’s longitude at sea. This engrossing tale centres around the epic struggle to solve the “longitude problem,” a scientific conundrum that, for centuries, left sailors adrift...

Immerse yourself in the provocative and intellectually stimulating world of Debt by David Graeber, a book that redefines our understanding of economic history and societal structures. This revised and updated edition of the international bestseller delves into the origins and implications of credit systems, presenting a groundbreaking narrative that challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding money and debt. Graeber, a distinguished...

Money by David McWilliams delves deep into the fascinating and complex world of currency, offering readers an insightful and enthralling journey through the history and impact of money on human civilisation. Whether you are a seasoned economist or simply curious about the financial world, McWilliams' exploration provides a captivating narrative that is both enlightening and entertaining. Our relationship with money...

At Home by Bill Bryson is an ingenious exploration of the mundane, yet fascinating world of domestic life. What begins as an innocent walk through the rooms of his Victorian rectory in Norfolk, England, turns into an extraordinary journey through history. Using his renowned wit, insatiable curiosity, and masterful storytelling, Bryson delves into how our homes evolved into the modern...

A feisty, funny romp through the history of sex and female pleasure, from one of the most exciting new media historians. Meet the women throughout history who, quite literally, came before us. From the host of the award-winning History Hit podcast Betwixt the Sheets. There is a common misconception that before modern day feminism, women throughout history simply lay back...

For twenty years, Lucy Worsley had what she calls 'The best job in the world': Chief Curator at Hampton Court, the Tower of London and Kensington Palace, 'leading the presentation, appearance, development and appropriate use of the palaces including their contents and grounds'. Now, in her most personal book yet, Queens and Kings, she takes us behind those palace walls...

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky is a fascinating deep dive into the history of a fish that has had an outsized impact on world events. This seemingly simple fish has been at the heart of wars, driven economic booms, and shaped the very diets of nations. Kurlansky’s narrative spans over a thousand...

A history of interest rates and the first book of the next financial crisis, shortlisted for the 2023 Hayek Book Prize. All economic and financial activities take place across time. Interest coordinates these activities. The story of capitalism is thus the story of interest— the price that individuals, companies, and nations pay to borrow money. In The Price of Time,...

From the bestselling author Simon Winchester, a human history of land around the world: who mapped it, owned it, stole it, cared for it, fought for it and gave it back. In 1889, thousands of hopeful people raced southward from the Kansas state line and westward from the Arkansas boundary to stake claims on the thousands of acres of unclaimed...

In the summer of 1815, an extraordinary hand-painted map was published in London. Measuring an impressive eight feet tall and six feet wide, and brightly coloured in hues of sea-blue, green, bright yellow, orange, and umber, this groundbreaking map presented England and Wales in a novel blend of lines, patches, and stippled shapes. The map was the fruit of one...

In this thrilling and utterly unique work of narrative non-fiction, Katherine Dunn explores the acute vulnerability of the GPS satellite system – in a book that lifts the lid on the invisible connections of the globe, from the space race to the phone in our pockets. This is the story of the Global Positioning System, the network of U.S. government...

From the bestselling author of The Templars and Powers and Thrones, Dan Jones returns with Castles: a gripping history of the world told through over three thousand years of iconic strongholds. Castles have been built to defend humanity for millennia – from the walls of Troy and the desert bastion of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria, to Windsor Castle and...

John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world's deadliest disease. Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticised as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of...

The Pencil by Henry Petroski traces the origins of the pencil back to ancient Greece and Rome. Petroski writes factually and charmingly about its development over the centuries and around the world, and shows what the pencil can teach us about engineering and technology today.

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the...

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year Rust has been called “the great destroyer,” the “pervasive menace,” and “the evil.” “This look at corrosion—its causes, its consequences, and especially the people devoted to combating it—is wide-ranging and consistently engrossing” (The New York Times). It is the hidden enemy, the one...

John McPhee takes us on a remarkable journey in search of oranges, beginning with the origins of the fruit in Southeast Asia. He unravels the rich history of the trade and cultivation of this botanical marvel, and its role in literature and art. He travels from the great orangeries of Louis XIV to the endless groves of Florida, and introduces...

The gripping story of the most important overlooked commodity in the world—sand—and the crucial role it plays in our lives. The World In A Grain was a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other—even more than oil. Every concrete building and...

“Winning, cheeky, and illuminating….What appears initially as a folly with a look-at-this cover and title becomes, thanks to Radke’s intelligence and curiosity, something much meatier, entertaining, and wise.” —The Washington Post “Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction.” —Esquire, Best Books of 2022 A “carefully researched and reported work of cultural history” (The New York Times) that...

In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins hundreds of millions of years ago and spans the globe. Prized as the best stone in Britain by Roman invaders who carved jewellery out of it, coal has transformed societies, launched empires, and expanded frontiers. It made China an eleventh-century superpower, inspired the Communist Manifesto,...

1856. Eighteen-year-old chemistry student William Perkin's experiment has gone horribly wrong. But the deep brown sludge his botched project has produced has an unexpected power: the power to dye everything it touches a brilliant purple. Perkin has discovered mauve, the world's first synthetic dye, bridging a gap between pure chemistry and industry which will change the world forever. From the...

Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability. By tracing paper’s evolution from antiquity to the...

Read this book - the micro-history you didn't know you needed, even if you don't like feijoa! Liv Sisson, author of Fungi Inspired by a personal obsession with this singular exotic fruit, Feijoa is a sweeping, global tale about the dance between people and plants - how we need each other, how we change each other, and the surprising ways...