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History & Society

History books allow you to travel back in time. They let you discover a whole different era than our own with different lifestyles, morale compases and crises. To understand history is to understand, who you are, and what you come from. It is the foundation of today’s society and culture. In Tales’ selection of history and society books you can investigate both religion, mythologies, and wars with competent authors and scholars giving their interpretation of how events happened as they did and how we ended up with today’s society. Are you ready to get wiser of both past and present?
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  • Save 23%
    - The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose
    by Christopher Josiffe
    £15.49

    An exhaustive investigation of the case of Gef, a "talking mongoose" or "man-weasel," who appeared to a family living on the Isle of Man.

  • Save 21%
    by Walter Benjamin
    £13.49

    Features 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', 'The Task of the Translator' and 'Theses on the Philosophy of History', as well as essays on Kafka, storytelling, Baudelaire, Brecht's epic theatre, and Proust.

  • Save 15%
    by Randy Mosher
    £14.49

    This completely updated second edition of the best-selling beer resource features the most current information on beer styles, flavour profiles, sensory evaluation guidelines, craft beer trends, food and beer pairings, and draft beer systems. You'll learn to identify the scents, colours, flavours, mouth-feel, vocabulary of the major beer styles.

  • Save 13%
    - The Illiad the Odyssey and the Migration of Myth
    by Felice Vinci
    £20.99

    For years scholars have debated the geographical incongruities in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Using meticulous analysis, Felice Vinci convincingly argues that Homer's epic tales originated not in the Mediterranean, but in the northern Baltic Sea, allowing us to reconsider the age-old question of Indo-European diaspora and the origin of the Greek civilization from a new perspective.

  • Save 29%
    by Robert Delpire & Czeslaw Milosz
    £35.49

    Available again with 10 new images by master of photography Josef Koudelka, this remains one of the most powerful documents of the spiritual and physical state of exile ever published.

  • Save 10%
    by Michel Houellebecq
    £8.99

    As the 2022 French Presidential election looms, two candidates emerge as favourites: Marine Le Pen of the Front National, and the charismatic Muhammed Ben Abbes of the growing Muslim Fraternity.

  • Save 19%
    by Ovid
    £12.99

    Ovid's sequence of fifteen witty and playful poems sketches the history of the world from its creation to the poet's own time through a series of transformation myths in which gods and goddesses succumb to all-too-human passions, not least in the matter of love.

  • by Mary Jane Kehily
    £27.49

    This book brings together key themes in Childhood Studies to provide an accessible yet scholarly introduction for students and practitioners.

  • Save 20%
    - A People's History, 1962-1976
    by Frank Dikotter
    £11.99

    Acclaimed by the Daily Mail as ''definitive and harrowing'' , this is the final volume of ''The People''s Trilogy'', begun by the Samuel Johnson prize-winning Mao''s Great Famine.After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives between 1958 and 1962, an ageing Mao launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The stated goal of the Cultural Revolution was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalist elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. But the Chairman also used the Cultural Revolution to turn on his colleagues, some of them longstanding comrades-in-arms, subjecting them to public humiliation, imprisonment and torture.Young students formed Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival factions started fighting each other in the streets with semi-automatic weapons in the name of revolutionary purity. As the country descended into chaos, the military intervened, turning China into a garrison state marked by bloody purges that crushed as many as one in fifty people.When the army itself fell victim to the Cultural Revolution, ordinary people used the political chaos to resurrect the marked and hollow out the party''s ideology. In short, they buried Maoism. In-depth interviews and archival research at last give voice to the people and the complex choices they faced, undermining the picture of conformity that is often understood to have characterised the last years of Mao''s regime. By demonstrating that decollectivisation from below was an unintended consequence of a decade of violent purges and entrenched fear, Frank Dikotter casts China''s most tumultuous era in a wholly new light.Written with unprecedented access to previously classified party documents from secret police reports to unexpurgated versions of leadership speeches, this third chapter in Frank Dikotter''s extraordinarily lucid and ground-breaking ''People''s Trilogy'' is a devastating reassessment of the history of the People''s Republic of China.

  • Save 15%
    - The Search For Our True Self
    by Richard Rohr
    £10.99

    Reissued with a new cover, Immortal Diamond is the natural follow on to Falling Upward

  • by Donna J. Haraway
    £18.99

    This deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work develops the idea of companion species and deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal-human encounters.

  • Save 14%
    by Natalie Haynes
    £9.49

    Our lives are infinitely richer if we take the time to look at what the Greeks and Romans have given us in politics and law, religion and philosophy and education, and to learn how people really lived in Athens, Rome, Sparta and Alexandria. This book shows how we are living very much like people did 2,000 or more years ago.

  • Save 21%
    by New International Version
    £14.99

    NIV Pocket Pastel Pink Soft-tone Bible, Author: New International Version, Publication Year: 2012-04-26, Publisher: John Murray Press, Language: eng

  • Save 20%
    - A Guide to Making Your Own Stone Age Toolkit
    by Robert Turner
    £11.99

    Flint Knapping is a journey of archaeological discovery through the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Ages.

  • Save 14%
    by Abhijit V. Banerjee
    £9.49

  • Save 20%
    - The Image of the Savage
    by Charles Freger
    £22.49

    The transformation of man to beast is a central aspect of traditional pagan rituals that are centuries old and which celebrate the seasonal cycle, fertility, life and death.

  • Save 18%
    - Rethinking heaven, the resurrection and the mission of the Church
    by Tom Wright
    £11.49

    In Surprised by Hope, bestselling author Tom Wright encourages to find our hope not just in what we believe about life after death, but also our understanding and experience of life before death.

  • Save 14%
    - Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
    by Rebecca Solnit
    £9.49

    This updated edition confirms Solnit's seminal work as a timeless classic on politics and change

  • by Tony Banham
    £26.49

    Military History / Hong Kong History

  • Save 11%
    - A Guide to Nonviolent Resistance
    by Gene Sharp
    £7.99

    A how-to guide that inspired the Arab Spring.

  • Save 17%
    - And The Pilgrim Continues His Way
    by R. M. French
    £9.99

    With an introduction by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, The Way of a Pilgrim presents one of Russia's greatest spiritual classics of Christian truth in prose of genuine beauty. An unknown pilgrim of the mid-nineteenth century tells his story of wandering through Russia and Siberia, from one holy place to another, in search of the way of prayer.

  • Save 14%
    by Tsangnyon Heruka
    £9.49

    Tells the story of the Tibetan people. This title offers an introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. It presents a quest for purification and buddhahood in a single lifetime, tracing the path of a great sinner who became a great saint.

  • Save 23%
    by New International Version
    £15.49

    NIV Popular Burgundy Hardback Bible by New International Version is a profound and insightful book that transcends the boundaries of conventional genres. Published by John Murray Press in 2011, this book is a testament to the timeless relevance and adaptability of its content. This book, with its hardback burgundy cover, is not just a book but a journey that the reader embarks upon, a journey that is as enlightening as it is engrossing. The New International Version of the Bible is globally acclaimed for its accessibility and accuracy, making it a favourite amongst scholars and readers alike. This edition, with its sturdy and elegant hardback cover, is designed for longevity and a comfortable reading experience. Published by the esteemed John Murray Press, this book is a worthy addition to any bookshelf. Dive into the enriching world of the NIV Popular Burgundy Hardback Bible and embark on a journey of spiritual enlightenment.

  • Save 15%
    - the powerful, prescient book that predicted the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
    by David Quammen
    £10.99

    First, a horse in Brisbane falls ill: fever, swelling, bloody froth. Then thirteen others drop dead. The foreman at the stables becomes ill and the trainer dies. This title tracks these infections to their source and asks what we can do to prevent some new pandemic spreading across the face of the earth.

  • Save 23%
    - Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information
    by Erik Davis
    £15.49

    How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis-a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword-Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.

  • by Mary Wollstonecraft
    £6.49

    Discover Wollstonecraft's classic feminist text in an abridged, digestible form. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZOE WILLIAMS The term feminism did not yet exist when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote this book, but it was the first great piece of feminist writing.

  • by Jean Baudrillard
    £14.99

    New edition of this classic study of the US, with a new introduction by Geoff Dyer.

  • Save 21%
    - The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
    by Daniel Yergin
    £13.49

    Now with a new epilogue, The Prizerecounts the panoramic history of one of the world's most important resources: oil.

  • Save 20%
    - Learning What Your Dad Could Never Teach You
    by John Eldredge
    £11.99

    Fathered by God maps out the path of manhood?not more rules, not another list of principles, not formulas, but a sure path men have followed for centuries before us.

History
The concept history covers a large range of topics all with its different focus. On top of Tales’ history books list, you find history books giving their in-depth view of some of World History’s most tragic events in modern time - World War 1 and World War 2. The two world wars affected most of the world and so many people lost their lives to them - both soldiers and civilians. The wars changed the world forever, and to understand how and why you need to dive into one of our many brilliant history books about the historic wars, giving you all the analysis and nuances you need - because we all know history books best, when they are thorough and give us new perspectives on historical events. 
If you instead are interested in politics during different historical periods, our selection of history books also contains that. The political system of a nation is a defining factor for how the citizens are treated and what conditions of life they have. The political factors can also lead to crises and wars, and in that way politics can make its mark on a whole historical era, but it can also lead to better times, giving the citizens better conditions and possibilities of social mobility. If you are interested, you will find all the history books in english right here. 
If you want to travel back to the fascinating Antiquity you should try reading the classics The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer. However they can be hard to understand in their original form. That is why we recommend you to dive into Stephen Fry’s fascinating interpretations of the antic classics. The works of the Antic Greeks, especially Homer, have that special kind of universality that all the classics refer to, even though the lyrics are about ancient mythological heroes such as Achilleus and Heracles (better known as Hercules) and their challenging adventures. The historical tales leave the reader with universal morales of life. In Stephen Fry’s version called Heroes the tales are giving a modern language and new relevans - especially for young people. 
It is also important to teach your kids about our common history and that is why you also find history books for kids in Tales’ wide selection. 

Society
A society is formed by a community of individuals and has gone through many changes throughout history. The history of our society has gone through many different stages, and in order to contain this diversity Tales’ collection has a rich amount of societal books from different time periods. You can find society books concerning and analyzing all from the traditional society, the modern society, and the post-modern society to the humanistic society. 

Educational textbooks
If you study history or social science Tales’ collection of History and Society is the perfect place to find your next educational textbook. History is one of the most important humanistic disciplines educating the future historians and museum inspectors. Without historians there will be nobody to investigate the historical data and texts and no one to evaluate them critically, and most importantly there would be no one to arrange history and the historical sources. Without them we would in fact lack a lot of vital information about who we are and what we come from, and we would not have the same ability to learn from history, which would be a great loss. That is why you need to start your journey as a history student in Tales’ selection of history books. 
Social science is also a cornerstone in understanding who we are and why we act as we act. As a social science student you should dive into our selection of societal books in order to get inspired for your next case study. 

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