Paul Ham

The short life and terrible death of Christendom's most defiant sect. In February 1534, a radical religious sect whose disciples were being persecuted throughout Europe seized the city of Münster, in the German-speaking land of Westphalia. They were convinced that they were God's Elect, specially chosen by the Almighty to be the first to ascend to Paradise on Judgement Day,...

Few years can justly be said to have transformed the earth—1914 did. In July that year, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Britain, and France were poised to plunge the world into a war that would kill or wound 37 million people, tear down the fabric of society, uproot ancient political systems, and set the course for the bloodiest century in human history....

The discovered diary of Yoko, a 13-year-old Japanese girl who lived near Hiroshima during the war. 1945 was a hard time to be a child in Japan. Many had seen their cities destroyed by US bombers. Food, fuel, and materials were in short supply. Yet spirits remained high. In April 1945, Yoko Moriwaki started high school in Hiroshima, excited to...

The Soul is a history of the human mind, from the earliest expression of self-consciousness to its unshakeable belief in the great religions and political systems. 'Wonderfully entertaining' - Michael McGirr, Sydney Morning Herald 'I am absolutely in awe of this book' - Hugh Mackay AO Almost everyone thinks they have one, but nobody knows what it is. For thousands...

The untold story of the Sandakan Death Marches of the Second World War. This is the story of the three-year ordeal of the Sandakan prisoners of war, a barely known episode of unimaginable horror. After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese conquerors transferred 2,500 British and Australian prisoners to a jungle camp some eight miles inland of...

The Soul is a history of the human mind, from the earliest expression of self-consciousness to its unshakeable belief in the great religions and political systems. Almost everyone thinks they have one, but nobody knows what it is. For thousands of years the soul was an 'organ', an entity, something that was part of all of us, that survived the...

The short life and terrible death of Christendom's most defiant sect. In February 1534, a radical religious sect whose disciples were being persecuted throughout Europe seized the city of Münster, in the German-speaking land of Westphalia. They were convinced that they were God's Elect, specially chosen by the Almighty to be the first to ascend to Paradise on Judgement Day,...

When Adolf Hitler went to war in 1914, aged 25, he lived through what he would later call the 'most stupendous experience of my life'. Twice decorated for bravery, the future dictator thrilled to battle, relished violence and was willing to give everything for his beloved Fatherland. He heard of Germany's defeat as he lay immobilised in a hospital bed,...

Passchendaele epitomises everything that was most terrible about the Western Front. The photographs never sleep of this four-month battle, fought from July to November 1917, the worst year of the war—blackened tree stumps rising out of a field of mud, corpses of men and horses drowned in shell holes, terrified soldiers huddled in trenches awaiting the whistle. The intervening century,...

The intervening century, the most violent in human history, has not disarmed these pictures of their power to shock. At the very least, they ask us, on the 100th anniversary of the battle, to see and to try to understand what happened here. Yes, we commemorate the event. Yes, we adorn our breasts with poppies. But have we seen? Have...