HIS037000 Archives - Duckworth Books

Fall of Civilizations

**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**

‘You need to read this book’ Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

‘Cooper is a phenomenon’ Max Hastings, Sunday Times

**Based on the hit podcast with over 200 million streams**

The world is full of ruins. From the Colosseum of Rome to the crumbling suburbs of Detroit, the vine-wreathed temples of the Maya to the shell-pocked buildings of Bakhmut and Gaza. Each of these ruins has a different history, but all of them are places where, one day, the future ended.

In Fall of Civilizations, historian Paul Cooper tells the stories behind our greatest civilizations, how they rose to power and what life was like for the people who witnessed their downfall. Based on the critically acclaimed podcast, this extraordinary book turns a clear eye on to humanity’s past mistakes – and whether we are doomed to repeat them.

Empire of Guns

Winner of the Jerry Bentley Prize in World History (American Historical Association).

Award-winning historian Priya Satia presents a new history of the Industrial Revolution that positions war and the gun trade squarely at the heart of the rapid growth of technology and Britain’s imperial expansion. Satia’s thorough examination advances a radical new understanding of the historical roots of the violent partnership between the government, military and the economy. Sweeping in its scope and entirely original in its approach, Empire of Guns illuminates Britain’s emergence as a global superpower in a clear and novel light.

The Thief at the End of the World

In 1876, a man named Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds out of the rain forests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England’s most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. Those seeds, planted around the world in England’s colonial outposts, gave rise to the great rubber boom of the early twentieth century – an explosion of entrepreneurial and scientific industry that would change the world. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds – a sought-after prize for which many suffered and died – is the stuff of legend. In this lively account of obsession, greed, bravery and betrayal, author and journalist Joe Jackson brings to life a classic Victorian fortune-hunter and the empire that fueled, then abandoned, him. ‘The Thief at the End of the World’ is a thrilling true story of reckless courage and ambition.

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**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**