1. The Dragon and the Foreign Devils - Harry G Gelber
An introductory collection of essays on Chinese history. Good to bone up on the fascinating Terracotta Warriors - at the British Museum from Thursday.
£25; Bloomsbury (hardback)
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2. Endgame 1945 - David Stafford
An engaging account of the challenges facing Europe as the guns fell silent, covering the death throes of Nazism. Includes testimonies from those who survived Belsen.
£20; Little Brown (hardback)
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3. City of the Sharp-nosed Fish - Peter Parsons
A wonderful evocation of the daily lives of inhabitants of a town in Egypt 2,000 years ago, using the evidence of papyri discovered on a Graeco-Roman rubbish dump in 1897.
£25; Weidenfeld & Nicolson (hardback)
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4. The Trader, the Owner, the Slave - James Walvin
This year is the bicentenary of the abolition of slave trade on British ships. This strong narrative looks at the trade through the eyes of three people.
£17.99; Jonathan Cape (hardback)
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5. Their Darkest Hour - Laurence Rees
This book is both a lasting contribution to our understanding of the Second World War and a powerful insight into the behaviour of human beings in crisis.
£18.99; Ebury (hardback)
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6. Henrietta Howard - Tracy Borman
The letters of George II’s lover Henrietta Howard (later Countess of Suffolk), who was described by Swift as the consummate courtier, reveal the seediness of the Georgian court.
£20; Jonathan Cape (hardback)
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7. Hubbub - Emily Cockayne
Cockayne leads us through the streets of early modern British cities, crammed with rootling pigs, noisy neighbours and traffic jams.
£25; Yale University Press (hardback)
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8. Katherine Swynford - Alison Weir
A controversial 14th-century mistress is the subject of this latest biography, charting one of the most remarkable love stories of modern Britain, by one of its favourite popular historians.
£20; Jonathan Cape (hardback)
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9. A History of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr
Accompanying his TV series, Marr’s book analyses post-war British history in his well-informed, often ironic style, over the period that saw “the defeat of politics by shopping”.
£25; Macmillan (hardback)
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10. The Fears of Henry IV - Ian Mortimer
A narrative history of one of British history’s most enigmatic monarchs (despite appearing in three of Shakespeare’s history plays), whose reign was bedeviled by plots and uprisings.
£18.99; Jonathan Cape (hardback)
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11 September 2007, Chosen by: Sue Wingrove of 'BBC History Magazine'
