We a good story
Quick delivery in the UK

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?
Show more
Filter
Filter
Sort bySort Popular
  • Save 14%
    by Witold Szablowski
    £9.49

  • Save 14%
    by Will Buckingham
    £9.49

  • by Kathryn Paige Harden
    £14.49 - 20.99

    A provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal societyIn recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health-and in ways that matter for educational and economic success in our current society.In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces readers to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society.Reclaiming genetic science from the legacy of eugenics, this groundbreaking book offers a bold new vision of society where everyone thrives, regardless of how one fares in the genetic lottery.

  • Save 12%
    by Claudia Goldin
    £14.99 - 18.99

    A renowned economic historian traces women's journey to close the gender wage gap and sheds new light on the continued struggle to achieve equity between couples at homeA century ago, it was a given that a woman with a college degree had to choose between having a career and a family. Today, there are more female college graduates than ever before, and more women want to have a career and family, yet challenges persist at work and at home. This book traces how generations of women have responded to the problem of balancing career and family as the twentieth century experienced a sea change in gender equality, revealing why true equity for dual career couples remains frustratingly out of reach.Drawing on decades of her own groundbreaking research, Claudia Goldin provides a fresh, in-depth look at the diverse experiences of college-educated women from the 1900s to today, examining the aspirations they formed-and the barriers they faced-in terms of career, job, marriage, and children. She shows how many professions are "e;greedy,"e; paying disproportionately more for long hours and weekend work, and how this perpetuates disparities between women and men. Goldin demonstrates how the era of COVID-19 has severely hindered women's advancement, yet how the growth of remote and flexible work may be the pandemic's silver lining.Antidiscrimination laws and unbiased managers, while valuable, are not enough. Career and Family explains why we must make fundamental changes to the way we work and how we value caregiving if we are ever to achieve gender equality and couple equity.

  • Save 10%
    by Lexi Ryan
    £8.99 - 13.49

  • Save 10%
    - The Truth About Low-Carb, High-Fat Eating
    by Gary Taubes
    £8.99

  • Save 15%
    by Jennifer Higgie
    £10.99

  • Save 23%
    by MIXMAG
    £15.49

    Travel the world exploring the cities that have influenced dance music and DJ culture and discovering the cutting-edge scenes taking club culture in new directions.Featuring incredible photography, insider recommendations, and some of the biggest names in dance music, Destination Dancefloor reveals how DJ culture swept the globe and 40 cities where you can immerse yourself in the best electronic music culture has to offer.Whether you want to know more about the start of house music in Chicago, the club that started Berlin on the road to becoming the global epicentre of club culture, the French Touch scene in Paris that influenced the early years of Daft Punk, why Ibiza became the world's summer party destination of choice, or are looking for new destinations to add to your own clubbing bucket list, this unique book leans on Mixmag's position and expertise as one of the foremost names in club culture to present an overview of global dance music, making it a must-read for all clubbers, past, present, and future. See you on the dancefloor.

  • Save 23%
    - The Definitive Skincare Guide
    by Dija Ayodele
    £15.49

    The ultimate skincare guide for Black women Dija Ayodele takes you through the lifetime of skin, sharing transformative essentials from how to work out your skintype to the dos and don'ts for your everyday routine. She explains the best ingredients for your skin and your budget, and the issues that Black women face: hyperpigmentation,general skin discolouration and increased dryness. Dija examines the concept of identity, looking at the way history has shaped how Black women express themselves in beauty and skincare, and debunks common myths and misconceptions: do darker skin tones need SPF? And is there any truth to the saying 'Black don't crack?' Intelligent, informed and indispensable, this is the guide that every Black woman has been waiting for.

  • by Ryan Cahill
    £22.49 - 28.99

  • Save 28%
     
    £29.49

    Combining the best and most recent evangelical Christian scholarship with the highly regarded ESV text, the ESV Study Bible is the most comprehensive study Bible ever published.

  • Save 14%
    - Winning the Battle of Your Mind
    by Joyce Meyer
    £9.49

    The Million copy bestseller: control the way you think to banish the damaging emotions of worry, doubt, confusion, depression, anger and condemnation.

  • Save 14%
    by Elizabeth Sherill, John Sherrill & Corrie Ten Boom
    £9.49

    A long awaited and deserved new edition of this enduring and moving classic.

  • - The Case for Dropping Equestrian from the Olympic Games
    by Julie Taylor
    £15.49

  • Save 14%
    - How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis
    by James (Author) Davies
    £9.49

    A provocative and shocking look at how western society is misunderstanding and mistreating mental illness.

  • - Politics for a Post-Pandemic World
    by Benjamin Bratton
    £9.49

    The future of politics after the pandemic

  • - Literary invention and the science of stories
    by Angus Fletcher
    £18.99

    'Fascinating. It blew my mind!' - Malcolm GladwellWonderworks reveals that literature is among the mightiest technologies that humans have ever invented, precision-honed to give us what our brains most want and need.

  • Save 15%
    - A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred
    by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
    £14.49 - 20.49

    From a star astrophysicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the cosmos -- and a call for more just, inclusive practice of science.

  • Save 10%
    - A Philosophical Guide to Our Best Friends
    by Mark Alizart
    £8.99

  • - How the Rest Learned to Fight the West
    by David Kilcullen
    £12.49 - 21.99

  • Save 15%
    - The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II
    by Ben Macintyre
    £10.99

    From the bestselling author of Agent Zigzag. The thrilling true story of the greatest and most successful wartime deception ever attemptedA Richard & Judy Book Club selection

  • by Sarah-Jane Biggart
    £15.99

    Activate your prophetic senses and operate in the invisible realm today! Imagine having access to the unseen spiritual dimension. In fact, the Bible is clear that this should be every believer's daily experience! As a citizen of the Kingdom of God, your inheritance is the ability to see, sense, and operate in the invisible realm of...

  • Save 15%
    - The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871-1918
    by Katja Hoyer
    £10.99

    The enthralling story of the German Empire, from its violent rise to its spectacular fall

  • Save 15%
    - The Hidden History of the Material World
    by Victoria Finlay
    £10.99

  • Save 24%
    by Paul Strathern
    £18.99

  • Save 15%
    - Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice
    by Rupa Marya & Raj Patel
    £10.99

  • Save 22%
    by Ruchika T. Malhotra
    £20.99

    How organizations can foster diversity, equity, and inclusion: taking action to address and prevent workplace bias while centering women of color.Few would disagree that inclusion is both the right thing to do and good for business. Then why are we so terrible at it? If we believe in the morality and the profitability of including people of diverse and underestimated backgrounds in the workplace, why don’t we do it? Because, explains Ruchika Tulshyan in this eye-opening book, we don’t realize that inclusion takes awareness, intention, and regular practice. Inclusion doesn’t just happen; we have to work at it. Tulshyan presents inclusion best practices, showing how leaders and organizations can meaningfully promote inclusion and diversity.  Tulshyan centers the workplace experience of women of color, who are subject to both gender and racial bias. It is at the intersection of gender and race, she shows, that we discover the kind of inclusion policies that benefit all. Tulshyan debunks the idea of the “level playing field” and explains how leaders and organizations can use their privilege for good by identifying and exposing bias, knowing that they typically have less to lose in speaking up than a woman of color does. She explains why “leaning in” doesn’t work—and dismantling structural bias does; warns against hiring for “culture fit,” arguing for “culture add” instead; and emphasizes the importance of psychological safety in the workplace—you need to know that your organization has your back. With this important book, Tulshyan shows us how we can make progress toward inclusion and diversity—and we must start now.

  • Save 20%
    - The Untold Story of the World's Most Famous Dynasty
    by Natalie Livingstone
    £11.99 - 18.99

    From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mistresses of Cliveden, an enthralling, sumptuous and surprising history of the Rothschild women

  • Save 12%
    by Thomas Piketty
    £13.99 - 17.99

    The world's leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.It is easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, he shows, we have been moving toward greater equality.Piketty guides us with elegance and concision through the great movements that have made the modern world for better and worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, and the building of the welfare state. It's a history of violence and social struggle, punctuated by regression and disaster. But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income and assets, a reduction of racial and gender inequalities, and greater access to health care, education, and the rights of citizenship.Our rough march forward is political and ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn and commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia and the temptations of cultural separatism and intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people.We know we can do better, Piketty concludes. The past shows us how. The future is up to us.

  • - How the New York Times's Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History
    by Ashley Rindsberg
    £13.49 - 27.99

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. 

Join thousands of book lovers

Sign up to our newsletter and receive discounts and inspiration for your next reading experience.