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In today’s ‘experience society’, everything is judged by personal experience, from online shopping to funerals. Value is measured by how satisfying an individual finds their experience, and the experience economy thrives on this desire for entertainment and fulfilment. Yet debates often reach an impasse when reduced to subjective feelings – whether offence is taken or criticisms are dismissed. Svend Brinkmann explores this cultural shift, examining how our reliance on subjective experience limits meaningful discussions and social cohesion. He argues for reclaiming a shared, objective reality, essential for tackling the major issues of our time, and for fostering genuine understanding beyond personal perceptions.

In 1600 English helmsman William Adams washed ashore in Japan and was interrogated by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s most powerful warlord and soon-to-be shogun. Far from executing Adams as a pirate, Ieyasu made him one of his most trusted advisers. This biography traces Adams’s rise from humble pilot to a position of immense influence in Japan’s foreign relations. It unravels the subsequent diplomatic manoeuvres of the Western powers in the shogun’s empire, and Adams’s eventual downfall. This is the first full biography of Adams based on original Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese sources, and includes much previously unknown information. Frederik Cryns tells the authentic story of Adams’s chequered life in its historical context, taking us on a compelling journey into Adams’s complex inner feelings and cosmopolitan heart.

Bernard Palissy, a French Renaissance artisan philosopher, saw intelligence and consciousness across all forms of life – soils, plants, animals – rejecting human superiority long before modern environmentalism. Known for crafting ceramic ware, fountains and grottos for royal patrons, Palissy used his knowledge of earth and agriculture to develop a unique, sometimes controversial philosophy of nature. Unlike many of his peers, he celebrated animal wisdom over human hubris, a view resonant today. This new biography explores his work within the courtly world of his patrons and highlights Palissy’s lasting influence on early modern artisan culture and our understanding of art, nature and intelligence.

This is the first English biography of Gaston Bachelard, a philosopher who bridged the worlds of science and imagination. Raised in rural France, Bachelard served in the First World War, worked for the post office and pursued degrees in science and philosophy while teaching in his local school. His journey led to a professorship at the Sorbonne, where he influenced many prominent postwar French thinkers. Known as both a philosopher of science and author of works on the imagination inspired by the elements – earth, air, fire and water – Bachelard needed to negotiate a constant tension between science and poetry, calculation and dream. This biography provides a complete portrait of Bachelard, illuminating his struggles with the nature of knowledge itself.

One of Financial Times’s Best Books of 2025: Classical and Pop MusicMaurice Ravel is one of the twentieth century’s most intriguing and contradictory composers. This timely new biography – published for the 150th anniversary of his birth – describes Ravel’s journey from Parisian apprentice to global musical icon. Drawing on fresh research, Emily Kilpatrick reveals Ravel as both a daring provocateur and a reflective elder, his lifelong quest for originality driven by his deep love of history and literature. Set against a background of profound cultural and political upheaval, Ravel’s story unfolds through his battles with the artistic establishment, his creative resilience after wartime losses and the tragic incapacitation of his final years. The result is an intimate portrait of a composer whose music continues to enchant and challenge audiences worldwide.

The vast expanse, unknown depths, dangers and mysteries of the sea have led mariners to create fantastical stories of ghosts and monsters for centuries; it is a world strange and ‘other’ to the experience of land dwellers. This body of lore has served to bond nautical communities together around the world and throughout history, with international stories fusing with local tales. The Perilous Deep explores why these stories were told, how they were repeated and mutated and what fears, anxieties and desires they helped to express. This is a fascinating exploration of the supernatural history of the Atlantic Ocean and some of its neighbouring seas, showing how seafaring peoples have developed knowledge and a sense of control over nature through myths and legends.

In The Man Who Lost His Head, Douwe Draaisma explores some of the most bizarre and intriguing brain disorders throughout history. From patients who believe their loved ones have been replaced by doubles or who feel sensations in an arm that was amputated years ago to those who insist they’re dead or have had their heads removed and substituted with another, these cases reveal the mind’s complex way of imposing order amid chaos. Draaisma examines syndromes like Cotard’s and Capgras, where sufferers’ perceptions of self and reality are radically altered, linking delusions to specific brain circuits and cultural context. With engaging storytelling and sharp insights, this book offers a captivating look at the human mind’s remarkable and often mysterious and disturbing workings.

Illumino explores the history of medieval Britain through the biographies of twelve remarkable illuminated manuscripts and of their creators and owners. The manuscripts each serve as portals into these lives and as springboards into the era of their production. For illuminated manuscripts are among the most intricate and fascinating forms of evidence for the Middle Ages, blending the fruits of human intellect – the arts, the sciences, politics, philosophy and faith – with the materiality of their production. By undertaking the detective work needed to determine the nature of each project and the underlying human-interest stories, this book reveals their manifold social, economic and cultural contexts and charts the exchange of ideas, techniques and materials over time and space. Featuring more than a hundred beautiful illustrations, this is a unique and accessible introduction to Britain’s history, art history and book history across a thousand years.

This book presents thirty-one extinct species through the personal perspectives of those animals. This intimate approach not only highlights each species but explores the broader implications of losing a species forever. How do we honour such a loss? Can we grieve for species we never knew? These animals range from the well-known passenger pigeon, thylacine and great auk, to lesser-known creatures like the Arabian ostrich, Saint Helena earwig and Bramble Cay melomys. These poignant portraits tug on the heartstrings and aim to inspire readers to protect vulnerable and endangered species today, motivating them to play a positive role in conserving our planet’s biodiversity.

The Year takes us on a journey exploring how nature transforms across twelve months, each chapter focusing on a specific month’s natural events, from spring’s beginning through to winter’s end. It opens with an overview of our evolving understanding of time and nature, from ancient astronomy to the present, and concludes with a chapter on the impact of climate change. Spike Bucklow draws on both modern ecological studies and historical naturalists such as Aristotle, Gilbert White, Thoreau and Aldo Leopold. Poetic reflections from Ovid, Shakespeare, John Clare and William Wordsworth enrich the narrative, giving further insights into nature’s changes. Blending modern science with traditional wisdom, The Year provides a positive perspective on ecological, global and personal change, appealing to those interested in ecology, astrology and the history of science.

Cannabis: A Global History explores the abundant history, pharmacology and cultural significance of a controversial plant. From its origins as a food source in Southeast Asia, the book describes culinary cultures that have evolved around it over centuries, its spread across the Atlantic and its modern renaissance in cuisine. This book also investigates its mood-altering forms of consumption, from smoking to infused edibles and drinks. Richly illustrated, this timely volume offers a nuanced perspective on cannabis use throughout history.

Johannes Gutenberg is famous as the inventor of Europe’s first typographic printing method, and his life and legacy have long fascinated a wide audience. Due to scant and vague fifteenth-century documentation, however, Gutenberg’s career has long been obscured by derivative storytelling, competing agendas and scholarly guesswork. This new biography removes these barriers to retell his story directly, through his pioneering work: schoolbooks, pamphlets, indulgences, broadsides and, notably, the first printed Bible. The book also describes Gutenberg’s posthumous fortunes, and his eventual recognition as ‘Man of the Millennium’. This much-needed corrective to the old legends and conjectures brings Gutenberg to life through the books that remain his lasting monument.

One of Financial Times’s Best Books of 2025: HistoryOn 14 December 1825 a group of young Russian army officers led 3,000 troops to Senate Square in St Petersburg, aiming to force the Senate to adopt a liberal constitution and transform the Russian Empire. The Decembrist Revolt – as it came to be known – was suppressed, with a second uprising in the south meeting the same fate. Five leaders were executed, and many others exiled to Siberia. Why did so many young noblemen risk their lives for regime change, what was their vision for an alternative society, and what were the consequences for participants and their families? This book highlights the often-neglected liberal tradition in Russian political thought and the experiences of Decembrist wives and fiancées, offering a fresh reinterpretation in the light of recent events in Russia.

Both humorous and shocking, Miracula is filled with astonishing facts and stories drawn from ancient Greece and Rome that have rarely been retold in English. It explores ‘the incredible’ as presented by little-known classical writers like Callimachus and Phlegon of Tralles. However, it offers much more: familiar authors such as Herodotus and Cicero often couldn’t resist relating sensational, tabloid-worthy tales. The book also tackles ancient examples of topics still relevant today, such as racism, slavery and misogyny. The pieces are by turns absorbing, enchanting, curious, unbelievable, comical, astonishing, disturbing, and occasionally just plain daft. An entertaining and sometimes lurid collection, this book is perfect for all those fascinated by the stranger aspects of the classical world, history enthusiasts, and anyone interested in classical history, society and culture.

Winner of the Franco-British Society Literary Award 2025. Émile Zola is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest writers, whose reputation was reinforced by his historic intervention in the Dreyfus Affair. This book explores Zola’s life and work and the ways in which these were determined by the traumatic history of his times. From humble beginnings, Zola's life was marked by the determination to succeed. Robert Lethbridge traces Zola's development as a writer, including the earliest texts and his novel-cycles, and further shows how Zola’s extraordinary creativity extended from his journalism to experiments in the theatre and even his own operatic adaptations of his novels. Lethbridge offers the reader new perspectives, informed by the most recent research, which bring together Zola’s writing and its historical context.

Gustav Mahler’s status as an icon of fin-de-siecle Viennese music is assured, with his works now staples of the concert repertoire. His life story has been told in numerous biographies, films and novels, yet he remains an ambiguous, provocative figure. Mahler was a composer who challenged musical form and style but identified with German Enlightenment and Romantic culture, disliking many contemporary artistic trends. He was a Jewish conductor who reached the pinnacle of his profession in antisemitic Vienna. He was supposedly haunted by death, embroiled in a torrid marriage, and his brief meeting with Freud has spurred posthumous psychoanalytical speculations. This book, reflecting the latest research, constructs a fresh interpretation of Mahler’s music in relation to his life.