New History Books for Summer 2025

Here is a selection of anticipated new history books that will be released over the summer ahead.

Sanctuary by Marina Warner

HarperCollins, 3 July, 2025

A sanctuary is a place of refuge and protection. In the classical world, it offered immunity to fugitives from justice; in medieval Europe it extended a roof over those in need, primarily through the church. It was a sacrilege to lay hands on a sanctuary-seeker: sanctuary was sacred. Yet today, in unparalleled times of mass immigration, affecting all corners of the earth, where are the sanctuaries to be found?

Distinguished cultural historian Marina Warner explores the principles that underpin the tradition of ‘sanctuary’. Using myth, politics, and history she asks questions about the right to safety, home, freedom of movement, and peace.

An acutely relevant human issue; as we move and travel this year, an important book to bring along.

Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots by Rosemary Goring

Berlinn, 3 July, 2025

Drawing on the latest research, including recently decoded letters, journalist, editor and well known columnist, Rosemary Goring, provides stark new light on hidden years of history.

From the moment she steps foot on English soil, Mary Queen of Scots is imprisoned. Widowed, seeking refuge from her cousin, she instead spends almost half her life behind closed doors - out of sight, of mind. How naive Elizabeth was.

Moved from one remote location to the next, conspiring in secrecy and planning her return to rule, Mary is anything but resigned. But to what extent did her defiance incite her tragic death? Was it all inevitable? Goring penetrates the psychology of an extraordinary woman, locked up, alive, and dreaming of tomorrow. A summer thriller.

Three Revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba and the Epic Journeys that Changed the World by Simon Hall

Faber, 3 July, 2025

Using six lives and three revolutions, historian Simon Hall ventures into the lives of the twentieth-century’s biggest players. Searching for a new perspective on these great historical moment, Hall uses the writings of three journalists, John Reed, Edgar Snow and Herbert L. Matthews.

At the heart of each revolution lies an epic journey. Lenin’s 1917 return to Russia from exile in Switzerland; Mao’s ‘Long March’ of 1934–35, covering some 6,000 miles across China; and Fidel Castro’s return to Cuba in 1956 following his exile in Mexico. But who was there to follow the trail?

We are left in no doubt that without the onlooker, silently in pursuit, these epoch-defining moments would have been understood very differently, then and now.

Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World by Justin Marozzi

Penguin, 10 July, 2025

Justin Marozzi has spent most of his professional life living and working in the Muslim world. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and former Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society, he is a senior advisor to the Middle East Association.

Marozzi embarks on a mammoth task to uncover the complex, uncomfortable and neglected history of slavery in the Islamic world. There is no one more suitable for the undertaking. Captives and Companions is a vivid weave of history and reportage, giving voice to the enslaved, from eighth-century concubines to twentieth century pearl divers in the Gulf.

Poignantly, Marozzi includes first-hand accounts in the twenty-first century, with the depredations of Daesh and continuing hereditary slavery in Mali and Mauritania.

Human History on Drugs: An Utterly Scandalous but Entirely Truthful Look at History Under the Influence by Sam Kelly

Icon Books, 17 July, 2025

Is this the much-needed confrontation of the elephant in the room? Without leaving any reader in distrust of the extent to this mind-expanding scandal, Stanford graduate Sam Kelly paves the way for a big reveal on the substances that crush, grind and fuel human beings.

Prepare to laugh. And to be shocked. From a man fascinated with narcotics and its assorted uses, Kelly’s debut will not fall short on entertainment.

As the title suggests, history is, of course, rife with drugs. From Alexander the Great to William Shakespeare and Hollywood stars, today, tonight, tomorrow: Kelly paints a wild picture of how the greats experimented on their way to the top, and how the drugs they consumed helped them on their way.

Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination by Simon Ball

Yale University Press, 22 July, 2025

Assassinations grip us. Is it the meticulous method and skill that leaves us wanting to know more, or the simple question of ‘whodunit’?

Acclaimed author Simon Ball’s new book is one for our inner investigator. Beyond conspiracy and tale, this is a thorough, piecing together of fact from fiction, a definitive guide to all the intricate techniques, actors, reasons and repercussions of targeted political murder.

With extensive new research and archive material, Ball presents a vivid account of the assassinations that reshaped history. In a time of political upheaval, leaking state secrets, and shifting global power, this book is close to home.

From Franz Ferdinand to pilotless drones, at last this cloak-and-dagger world is made decipherable to all. Not bedtime reading!

Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History in South America by Shafik Meghji

C Hurst & Co Publishers, 24 July, 2025

Beyond Lord Cochrane, nitrate kings, missionaries, football, or the Falklands, there are deep-rooted ties between Britain and South America, for better and for worse.

From someone who has lived, worked and travelled in the continent for more than 15 years, this is a rich account of these unexpected links. Award-winning travel writer and journalist Shafik Meghji uncovers Britain's impact on Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, from instigating wars, forging national identities to redrawing borders. Significantly, Meghji goes a step further and explores how South America has helped shape Britain in return.

Small Earthquakes combines firsthand reporting with eccentric characters and granular historical detail: Victorian-era foundries to Chatwin-esque Welsh Patagonian tea rooms.

A thrilling, illuminating perspective on a continent that is closer than we think.

The French Revolution: A Political History by John Hardman

Yale University Press, 12 August, 2025

All for ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’ - but what about the King?

From 1789, in the space of a few years, France’s 800 year old dynasty was swept away. What happened to cause such devastating change to the long-established political structure?

John Hardman presents an invigorated perspective on the French Revolution. In an era of establishment upheaval, very rarely are we given the minority perspective. In this case, Hardman provides an account through the eyes of the monarchy.

With this untangling task in hand, Hardman dissects the French Revolution, from birth to aftermath, analysing the key roles played by Louis XVI, Antoine Barnave, and Georges Danton.

Hardman is the author of distinguished books on the subject, including The Life of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and Barnave.

Fiesta: A Journey Through Festivity by Daniel Stables

Icon Books, 14 August, 2025

Award winning travel writer Daniel Sables embarks upon a very different sort of task: a journey through festivity.

Why do we mark our milestones with dance and celebration, with altered states of consciousness and acts of ritual violence? What is it that binds all human expression across the globe?

From festivals to drunken pilgrimages, sacrificial funerals to neo-pagan necromancy, Fiesta is a timely quest into the bloodstream of culture, dance steps up.

Written with the hidden rhythm of a place in mind and set at some of the world’s most vibrant human festivities, Sables interweaves insights from the fields of anthropology, history, psychology, and folklore, examining why we celebrate festivals in the ways we do.

Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibres Became the Backbone of Civilisation by Tim Queeney

Icon Books, 14 August, 2025

As a veteran sailor and editor of the Ocean Navigator, we are in safe hands on this voyage. Tim Queeney shapes this history of something so familiar to us all, with tales of his own reliance on rope at sea, and with its metamorphosing role beyond the water.

Unsatisfied with examining the past, Queeney assesses rope’s present re-invention and its future capability in supporting travel through space. Much to be said for ‘a bundle of twisted fibres.’

From Magellan's world-circling ships, to Polynesian multihulls with crab claw sails, Queeney shows how rope is central to adventurous voyages and historical discoveries.

It is rope that binds these tales together, and makes a reader think twice about its seemingly infinite uses.

Driven by the Monsoons: Through the Indian Ocean and the Seas of China by Barry Cunliffe

Oxford University Press, 28 August, 2025

Historian, previous Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Governor of the British Museum, Sir Barry Cunliffe’s work provides an expert insight into the birth of the globalised world, from land to sea.

Beginning with the first humans making tracks in South-East Asia, Cunliffe sews a story of connections, linking trade carved through the Indian Ocean and its surrounding water routes, to that along the Silk Road.

With these links forged, we get a richer understanding of the makings of modern world economies.

While at its heart a seafaring adventure of material goods and human desires, this is a book for those interested in how the modern world was formed, told by a master in the field.

This month's Previews were by Louis D. Hall.