Reaktion Books strana 2 z 9

This book explores the life of Muammar al-Qaddafi, the enigmatic Libyan leader, from his birth to his assassination in a drainage ditch outside the city of Sirte in October 2011. The first authoritative biography of Qaddafi, it aims to make sense of his remarkable life and times. Known for his idiosyncratic ideas and flamboyant dress, his persona was also a cloak he used to obscure his personal and professional life. Qaddafi created a repressive political system, supported terrorist movements abroad and suppressed basic human rights at home, while abusing hundreds of women. Qaddafi: Beyond The Myth provides a comprehensive look at the forces that shaped Qaddafi and enabled him to become the world's longest-ruling head of state. It also provides essential information for anyone attempting to understand the division, confusion and chaos that has dominated post-Qaddafi Libya.

Tens of millions of people sew for necessity or pleasure every day, yet the craft is surprisingly under-appreciated. Now available in paperback, The Point of the Needle redresses the balance: this is a book that argues for sewing’s place in our lives. It celebrates not only sewing’s recent resurgence but sewists’ creativity, well-being and community. Barbara Burman chronicles new voices of people who sew today, by hand or machine, to explore what they sew, what motivates them, what they value and why they mend things, revealing insights into sewing’s more intimate stories. In our age of superfast fashion with its environmental and social injustices, this eloquent book makes a passionate case for identity, diversity, resilience and memory – what people create for themselves as they stitch and make.

Plato is a key figure from the beginnings of Western philosophy, yet the impact of his lived experience on his thought has rarely been explored. Plato lived in turbulent times, born during a war that led to Athens’s defeat and decline. A restored democracy enabled the execution of his teacher Socrates. Carol Atack explores how his life in Athens influenced Plato’s thinking, how he developed the Socratic dialogue into a powerful philosophical tool and how he used the institutions of Athenian society to create a compelling imaginative world. Now available in paperback, this accessibly written book shows how Plato made Athens the place where diverse ideas were integrated into a new way of approaching big questions about existence and the societies we create, then and now.

Featured in New Statesman’s Culture Preview 2026: The best non-fiction to read this yearEnver Hoxha, one of the most fanatical communist leaders of the twentieth century, ruled Albania for forty years. He was a Stalinist modernizer who sought to pull his country out of its peripheral status through rapid industrialization and diplomatic cunning. Albania transitioned from one ideological alliance to another, breaking first with Tito’s Yugoslavia, then Khrushchev’s USSR and lastly post-Maoist China. Masterfully exploiting rivalries within the communist bloc, Hoxha was able to ensure his regime’s survival and play an outsized role in the ideological clashes that riddled the communist world during the second half of the twentieth century. Meanwhile, at home he built a cult of personality and maintained his grip over power by ruthless coercion. Enver Hoxha: Twentieth-Century Tyrant paints a nuanced picture of Hoxha’s psychological, ideological and political worlds, illuminating a lesser-known story of the Cold War, and enriching our understanding of the nature of authoritarianism and dictatorship.

Why do certain women become icons of evil? This book offers the first comparative, non-sensationalist account of five of the most reviled women in the modern Anglophone world: Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Aileen Wuornos, Karla Homolka and Karla Faye Tucker. It examines their lives, crimes and cultural reception in the UK, USA and Canada, asking how violence committed by women is understood, judged and remembered. Going beyond moral outrage or tabloid headlines, the book explores how concepts of 'evil' are shaped by history, belief systems and social context. Through historical and ethical reflections, it offers a deeper, more critical engagement with female violence, and considers how society should respond to those who commit acts of unimaginable harm.

This concise biography offers a fresh portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson: frail Edinburgh child turned globe-trotting author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It charts his remarkable literary range – from fiction and poetry to essays and letters – crafted across three continents, often in poor health. Stevenson’s adventurous life and memorable characters captured both popular imagination and critical praise. Drawing on new scholarship, the book explores his role as a literary innovator and cultural commentator, revealing how his work engaged with the anxieties of a rapidly changing world. At once celebrity, critic and colonial observer, Stevenson emerges as a truly modern writer, whose influence remains potent today. This is essential reading for lovers of literature, history and global storytelling.

Now available in paperback, this book tells the story of Russia’s most notorious private military company, the Wagner Group, revealing details of its operations never documented before, and the warning the group holds for the evolution of conflict. Jack Margolin traces the Wagner Group from its roots as a battlefield rumour to a private military enterprise tens of thousands strong. He follows individual commanders and foot soldiers as they fight in Ukraine, Syria and Africa. He shows Wagner mercenaries committing atrocities, plundering oil, diamonds and gold, and changing the course of conflicts in the name of the Kremlin. In documenting the Wagner Group’s story up to the dramatic demise of its chief director, Evgeniy Prigozhin, Margolin demonstrates what the Wagner Group represents for not only the future of Putin’s political system but the privatization of war.

Fascism was a distinct movement in European history that left deep scars across the continent, but the term 'fascist' is now more broadly applied to those on the political right, especially the new populists who have seized power across much of the globe in recent years. Although most far-right populists vocally disavow historic fascism, many critics see worrying parallels with the earlier movement. Could we be witnessing a return to the fascist politics of Mussolini, Franco and Hitle? aximiliano Fuentes Codera and Javier Rodrigo have written both an assessment of the current crisis of democracy and a brief history of fascism and far-right populism around the world. By illuminating the historical record, this book will help readers better understand the distinctive, twenty-first-century challenges faced by our democracies.

Hypochondria proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Susannah B. Mintz reframes health anxiety not as a pathology but as a site of creative potential – exploring hypochondria as a form of communication, a reorientation to time, a convergence of personal and communal identity, a declaration of bodymind needs and an embrace of ageing’s transformations. Far-ranging in its attention to historical periods, national literatures, philosophical thought and medical discourse, the book challenges the containment of suffering within narratives of professional authority. In doing so, it seeks to dispel shame and stigma, opening space for new forms of connection and understanding through a deeper attentiveness to the experience of illness.

How did Richard the Lionheart, who once said he would sell London if he found a buyer, become celebrated as the ideal of English chivalry? This book examines the life of Richard I (1157–1199) through the captivating stories told about him, from accounts of his deeds in medieval sources to his portrayals in modern literature and media. Tales of Richard’s exploits were as colourful as they were varied, ranging from him wielding King Arthur’s sword to being a son of the Devil or even a cannibal. Instead of separating fact from fiction, this book explores how these tales shaped his legacy in both his time and ours.

Francis I of France led one of the most colourful and influential courts of the sixteenth century. Known as the ‘knight–king’, he was a chivalric warrior, a strong ruler and a passionate patron of the arts and of the French nobility. While he faced setbacks and took significant risks, Francis left his successor a kingdom that was larger, better governed and more stable than before. This concise biography paints a vivid portrait of Francis, exploring his achievements, challenges and enduring legacy. It captures his role in shaping the French Renaissance, blending engaging storytelling with insights drawn from extensive primary research. Cogent and lively, this book provides a clear narrative of Francis’s reign and explains why he is celebrated as France’s great Renaissance monarch.

A radical history of England, Contested Commons is a gripping overview of increasingly restrictive policing and legislation against protest in public spaces. It tells the long history of contests over Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Cable Street and Kinder Scout, as well as sites in towns and rural areas across the country. Navickas reveals how protesters claimed these spaces as their own commons, resisting their continuing enclosure and exclusion by social and political elites. She investigates famous and less well-known demonstrations and protest marches, from early democracy, trade union movements and the Suffragettes to anti-fascist, Black rights and environmental campaigners in more recent times. Contested Commons offers positive as well as troubling lessons on how we protect the right to protest.

One of The Guardian’s Best Biographies of 2025. This biography explores the life and work of Katherine Mansfield, one of literary modernism’s most significant writers. On the fringes of Bloomsbury, and friends with D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, T. S. Eliot and many others, Mansfield was at the heart of literary London at its most experimental. By the time of her death in 1923, aged just 34, she had broken boundaries and created new ways of writing that led her literary sparring partner Virginia Woolf to later admit that Mansfield’s ‘was the only writing I was ever jealous of’. Based on compelling new research, Gerri Kimber challenges previous conceptions surrounding the author’s life, uncovers friendships and relationships formerly barely acknowledged and offers innovative readings of Mansfield’s most celebrated stories.

This book guides us through the fascinating life and writings of Marcus Aurelius, the only Roman emperor celebrated for centuries for his decency and earnest Stoic philosophy. Philosopher William O. Stephens explores Marcus’ reluctant rise to power, his marriage and his efforts to mould his son into a successor. He examines Marcus’ Stoic tenets as he describes the struggles of dealing with a fifteen-year pandemic, the betrayal of a trusted general, social upheaval centred on a new ‘superstition’ – Christianity – and how Marcus’ determination to stabilize the empire’s borders met with strife, broken treaties and protracted wars. This gripping narrative of Marcus’ life, times and thought, as well as his complex legacy, will appeal to all those interested in Roman history as well as to aspiring Stoics.

While trees are celebrated as symbols of natural beauty, they are increasingly at risk from climate change, disease, fires and urban expansion. Trees Ancient and Modern explores humanity’s deep connection with trees and woodlands, highlighting their beauty and importance and the challenges they face. The book looks at debates about creating new woodlands, exploring questions of location, ownership and management. Using diverse sources such as literature, art, historical records, scientific surveys and oral histories, Charles Watkins reveals how people have used, valued and understood forests over time. He also assesses modern threats to woodlands and considers how best to conserve them. Richly illustrated, this is a global social and cultural history of forests that provides valuable insights for future management.

In this thought-provoking work, historian Justin M. Jacobs challenges the widely accepted belief that many of Western museums’ treasures were acquired by imperialist plunder and theft. His account re-examines the allegedly immoral provenance of Western collections, advocating for a nuanced understanding of how artefacts reached Western shores. Jacobs examines the perspectives of Chinese, Egyptian and other participants in the global antiquities trade over the past two and a half centuries, revealing that Western collectors were often willingly embraced by locals. This collaborative dynamic, largely ignored by contemporary museum critics, unfolds a narrative that may lead to hope and promise for a brighter, more equitable future.