Reaktion Books

The Golden Horde was a powerful nomadic state that shaped Eastern Europe and modern-day Kazakhstan from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. Masters of the Earth traces its rise within the Mongol Empire, its period of independence and prosperity and its eventual decline in the face of continual civil conflict. Roman Hautala introduces the administrative and ethnic structures of the Horde, its religious policies and its wide-ranging commercial ties with both East and West. The Golden Horde emerges not only as a military force but as a dynamic society whose influence reached far beyond the steppe. Understanding this history offers a richer sense of Eurasia’s past and the connections that shaped it.

This book tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: the kiss. Richly illustrated, it explores a millennium of kisses, asking how and why the kiss has retained its power over the centuries, and what it might mean today. From the furtive kisses of fated lovers Heloise and Abelard to The Godfather’s ‘kiss of death’, Katie Barclay shows how the kiss can be romantic, peaceful, transgressive, intimate, erotic and more. There are kisses that are bad ideas, dangerous kisses and funny ones. New kisses are invented and old ones fall out of favour. While the kiss continues to change, Barclay shows that we kiss fewer people, and less often, than we used to.The Kiss reveals a cultural inheritance transmitted in story and song, art and literature, and through the everyday kisses that we receive from our parents, or reserve for our lovers; when we kiss, we kiss with the weight of history.

A dying hybrid oak in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens sets off on an imaginative search for its parents, and in doing so reveals the extraordinary diversity of the genus Quercus. From the Himalaya to Mexico, from knee-high scrub to rainforest giants, more than four hundred species of oak shape landscapes, cultures and histories. Their leaves can blaze red and gold, acorns can be the size of a hand, and while only a few cross the equator to the south others survive in mountains to 4,000 metres. Including specially drawn illustrations, this witty and uniquely eccentric memoir shows there is far more to oaks than the familiar English tree, inviting readers to look anew at one of the world’s most beloved plants.

People have written biographies of Confucius for over 2,000 years, but a recent discovery of a Chinese tomb containing the oldest written account of his life provides an opportunity to revisit the philosopher afresh. In this book, Mark Csikszentmihalyi tells the story of the life and wisdom of the Chinese thinker by exploring Confucius as a ritual prodigy, moral educator, scholar and political draftsman. He also considers how Confucius has been used as a symbol for traditional Chinese culture in modern times – both by those who want to radically reform or destroy it and by those who seek to preserve or revive it. Confucius: A New Tradition provides an insightful, accessible and concise account of a key figure in East Asian thought.

The French Directory is often dismissed as an uninspiring interlude between revolutionary fervour and Napoleonic legend, yet its story is far richer than its reputation suggests. This book shifts the focus from the regime to the remarkable men who shaped it – a cohort of jurists, engineers and administrators who survived the Reign of Terror and set out to safeguard the Revolution’s most important achievements. Working not on battlefields but in offices and council chambers, they built durable laws and institutions that still underpin modern France. The first English-language study on the topic in fifty years, Desk Revolutionaries offers an engaging, character-driven narrative that also sheds light on the enduring power of technical experts in government, inviting reflection on how democracies are made – and maintained.

The Scythians offers a bold new take on the horse-riding peoples who once inhabited the vast steppe lands from the Black Sea to the Siberian Altai. Drawing on archaeological finds, ancient texts and comparative insights, Caspar Meyer shows how these communities forged dynamic networks rooted in art, mobility and interspecies relationships. He brings ancient and modern encounters with the Scythians into dialogue – from Herodotus’ ethnography to modernist art and contemporary national imaginations – revealing how their literary and visual afterlives continue to shape our understanding. Long reduced to barbarian stereotypes, the Scythians emerge as cultural innovators and co-creators of Eurasian history. Lively, accessible and thought-provoking, this book opens up a world in which people and things move together in unexpected and transformative ways.

From ancient fables to modern science, insects and their metamorphoses have long inspired human understanding of life’s transitions. This original and engaging book traces how these transformations have shaped rituals around birth, marriage and death, while also provoking deep questions about identity. Through stories that connect Zhuang Zhou’s butterfly dream to figures such as Kafka, Merian and Dürer, it explores the strange, beautiful and sometimes unsettling ways in which cultures have understood insects – as miracles, messengers or monsters. Blending humour, history and environmental insight, Boria Sax offers an imaginative lens on the growing crisis of insect extinction. More than just a natural history, this is a cultural and philosophical journey that shows why losing insects means losing part of ourselves.

Lorenzo Ghiberti was the most celebrated sculptor of his day – praised by Alberti, admired by peers and trusted with Florence’s most prestigious commissions, including the iconic Baptistery doors. Yet his legacy has often been diminished, cast as a decorative hangover from the Gothic era and overshadowed by Donatello’s perceived Renaissance modernity. This book reconsiders Ghiberti’s achievement by focusing on his mastery of materials and design across bronze, glass, marble and drawing. From complex narrative reliefs to architectural ornament, Ghiberti emerges not just as a skilled craftsman, but as an inventive, multidimensional artist who redefined the possibilities of sculptural storytelling. By understanding him on his own terms, we gain a richer picture of early Renaissance invention and its lasting visual impact.

While most English-language histories of Taiwan focus on its geopolitical role, this history centres on the people of Taiwan themselves and explores how they have formed a unique polity, telling the story of the Indigenous Taiwanese, the Hoklo and Hakka who came from China before the twentieth century, Japanese colonialism and the Chinese who arrived after 1945. Historian Evan N. Dawley describes how successive waves of immigration changed Taiwan and how these diverse groups of Indigenous tribes and settlers interacted economically and culturally, creating new Taiwanese identities in the process. Over the last century Taiwan has developed from an authoritarian state to one of the world’s most vibrant democracies and advanced economies. It is a successful independent society, albeit one whose existence remains under a shadow.

John Clare’s life has often been told by casting him in various parts – rural genius, thwarted lover, environmentalist, lunatic poet. This biography revisits those familiar stories with a fresh perspective, setting Clare’s own words alongside a sharp reappraisal of his times. Drawing from his autobiographical writings, journals, letters and poetry, it presents a rich, grounded portrait of the man and the places that shaped him. Clare’s sense of identity, rooted in the land around him, was central to his voice as a poet. Through attentive readings of his verse, this book traces the creative and emotional arc of a life both ordinary and extraordinary. Clare emerges not as a tragic stereotype, but as a deeply thoughtful writer confronting change with clarity and care.

Johannes Brahms is often cast as repressed or emotionally distant. This nuanced biography by acclaimed biographer John Worthen reveals a more complex and human figure – brilliant, passionate and deeply committed both to his art and to those he loved. Brahms’s lifelong devotion to Clara Schumann shaped much of his personal and creative life, while his refusal to conform to social expectations kept him at odds with the genteel world around him. Raised in modest circumstances, he remained proudly working class even as he became one of the greatest composers of his time, with works ranging from the intimacy of the ‘Alto Rhapsody’ to the humane power of ‘A German Requiem’. Worthen shows us the man behind the music – blunt, brilliant and fiercely alive.

What should children eat and why? How should they eat it and what should they learn about food? Answers to questions like these have differed over time. First Helpings explores the relationship between children and food in history, drawing on a rich variety of social records, cookery and etiquette books and children’s literature. Topics covered include breast versus bottle feeding, the difference between ‘adult’ and ‘children’s’ food and drink, table manners, school meals and learning to cook. Albon and Palmer discuss wider social issues, such as teaching children about the ethics of food choices, the role children have played in food production and the ever-present scandal of hungry children in society. First Helpings provides a unique look at childhood and eating that relates past to present and considers ways forward.

Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges is arguably the most aggressive, dynamic album in rock history, and inarguably one of the most influential. Looking past the myths and into the true story of the Stooges, Michael S. Begnal illuminates the creation of this recording in the context of the cultural zeitgeist of the early 1970s, the American War in Vietnam and the ways in which punk rock came snarling into existence. Death Trip uncovers lost archives and stories, drawing on new interviews with Stooges guitarist James Williamson and pianist Scott Thurston, and sheds fresh light on the band’s creative process. This is an in-depth, definitive account that will challenge the assumptions of even the most knowledgeable Stooges fan.

Mao Zedong lived one of the most epic and influential lives of the twentieth century. His impact on the People’s Republic of China was vast. Half a century after his passing, he remains a divisive and controversial figure. This book provides an accessible narrative of Mao's life, from the fall of the Qing dynasty in the early part of the twentieth century to the long years in which he struggled not only to ensure the Communist Party of China survived but that it then came to power after a civil war with the nationalists. Mao's tragic failures as ruler were some of the worst to ever befall a modern society, while his personal life remains a source of intense interest. Clear-eyed and non-partisan, this is the first accessible biography of Mao to appear in English for some time.

Why do Jews continue to serve as targets of hatred – and how coherent is the idea of antisemitism itself? In Antisemitisms, Sander L. Gilman argues that such hatreds are less stable and more opportunistic than is often assumed. Tracing fantasies of Jewish difference – from appearance and biology to citizenship, nationhood and ‘self-hatred’ – he reveals how contradictory ideas have been used to justify exclusion and violence. This book moves beyond the familiar frameworks such as ‘eternal hatred’ to show how antisemitic and even philosemitic attitudes shift to suit changing political needs. As violence against Jews is on the rise once more, Gilman offers a clear, sobering account of what’s at stake.

French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873–1954) was a strikingly modern celebrity. The most photographed author of the twentieth century, her marketing genius stretched from hair products themed after her most famous character to her own line of cosmetics. Beloved during her lifetime by critics on both the left and the right, and later embraced by feminists of the 1960s and ’70s, Colette’s works explored women’s lives, from schooling to careers, maternity, ageing and sexuality. Colette’s life was no less varied than her often self-referential works, including affairs with men and women, three marriages, a stage career and roles as a journalist and literary editor. Kathleen Antonioli explores Colette’s storied life, work, private correspondence and carefully crafted public persona.