Jules Stewart: 9 books

At the heart of the Castilian plateau, far from the coastal towns and ports of Spain, sits the great city of Madrid. Perched some 2,200 feet above the distant sea, it is at once the loftiest and also the most enigmatic of Europe's capitals: hard to decipher for the Spanish and for foreigners alike. Its...

New York is often described as the greatest city in the world. Yet much of the iconic architecture and culture which so defines the city as we know it today – from the Empire State Building to the Pastrami sandwich - only came into being in the 1930s, in what was perhaps the most significant decade...

Still recruited from the Pathan tribes that live in this savage no-man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Khyber Rifles continue to stand guard over one of the world's most volatile borders. For many years these gallant poachers turned gamekeepers fought for the British Raj against their...

Afghanistan Revealed offers the reader an incisive view into a country that has held the world’s attention for more than a decade. Hardly a day goes by without Afghanistan making news in the media – but behind the headlines, what do we really know about this complex and enigmatic country, its...

Albert: Prince Consort to Queen Victoria, social and cultural visionary in his own right, was born in the saxon duchy of Saxe-Coburg-saalfeld but defined the culture and direction of nineteenth-century Britain - a Great Power at the zenith of its influence - more than any other British royal or politician....

From the early nineteenth century, Imperial Russian expansion threatened the increasing British dominance of India. In the 1860s, Captain Thomas Montgomerie hit on the idea of training natives from Indian border states to be surveyors, and have them explore the region covertly. Disguised as traders...

"We must see what the morning brings and then think what can be done," said Major General Elphinstone, when told of the rampaging mob outside his residency in Kabul, 1841. Was former Prime Minister Tony Blair wrong in 2001 to allow Britain to be drawn into a fourth conflict in Afghanistan,...

Britain's military involvement in Afghanistan is a contentious subject, yet it is often forgotten that the current conflict is in fact the fourth in a string of such wars dating back more than 170 years. During the nineteenth century, the days of the Great Game rivalry in Central Asia, the British...

For centuries, Pakistan's North West Frontier has been seen as a lawless wilderness, which more recently has given sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden and other fundamentalist Muslim leaders. This, the first significant book on the territory for 40 years, includes first hand accounts of life and soldiering...