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Blood for Gold – Volume 1
The Global History of Mercenaries from the Pharaohs to Putin’s Wagner Group: Volume 1: Swords of Antiquity (2500 BCE–150)
Three thousand years of hired war. The Mamluks who stopped the Mongols. The Catalans who conquered Athens. Vikings guarding Constantinople. The only woman to command a mercenary army. Hussite peasants who defeated five crusades. Twenty-two chapters spanning Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, India, China, and medieval Europe.
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Blood for Gold – Volume 2
The Global History of Mercenaries from the Pharaohs to Putin’s Wagner Group: Volume 2 – Knights of Fortune (1500 – 1900)
Four centuries when war became a business. Condottieri warlords. Landsknechts who sacked Rome. Cossacks, ronin, and Buddhist monks with muskets. Half a million Irish soldiers dead in foreign service. Hessians shipped to America. A lawyer who conquered Nicaragua with fifty-eight men. Twenty-four chapters across every continent.
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Blood for Gold – Volume 3
The Global History of Mercenaries from the Pharaohs to Putin’s Wagner Group: Volume 3 – Corporations of Violence (1900 – 2025)
From the Foreign Legion to the Wagner Group. Flying Tigers, Cold War mercenaries in Congo, Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone, Blackwater in Iraq, Prigozhin’s rise as Putin’s chef and his march on Moscow. Colombian contractors, jihadist PMCs, cyber-mercenaries, autonomous drones. Twenty-one chapters and an epilogue on the future of privatised war.
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Espionage. The First Spies
A History of Ancient Espionage from the Pharaohs to Sun Tzu
Before there were states, there were spies. The First Spies traces the origins of intelligence from prehistoric hunter-gatherers through the fall of the ancient world, covering more than thirty civilisations — from Egypt and Persia to the Mongols, the Aztecs, the Inca, and feudal Japan. A global history of the oldest human weapon: information.
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Espionage. Women Spies
A Global History of Female Espionage
Three thousand years of espionage history — organised not by the wars men fought, but by the covers women used. Women Spies: Untold Stories from Three Thousand Years of Espionage traces a single pattern from ancient Mesopotamia to modern cyber operations: every civilisation independently discovered that women could access what men could not, hear what men assumed was private, and remain invisible in ways no trained operative could replicate. Every civilisation, independently, failed to defend against it.
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Pirates: The Complete World History
From Ancient Sea Raiders to Modern Maritime Outlaws Across All Seas and Oceans: How Maritime Raiders Shaped Trade, Empires, and Culture Across Continents
Three millennia of maritime predation in one comprehensive account. From Bronze Age sea raiders to today’s Somali coast, this book traces the full global arc of piracy — the economics, the power structures, and the recurring patterns that no empire has ever managed to stop permanently.
Available formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Ebook, Audiobook
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Salt and Blood: A Global History of Piracy
Pirates didn’t bury treasure. They rarely made anyone walk the plank. And “Arrr” was invented by a movie actor in 1950. What they actually did — running democratic ships with written constitutions, commanding fleets of 70,000, and holding empires hostage for ransom — is far stranger than any legend. Salt & Blood is the global history of piracy that challenges everything you think you know.
Available formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Ebook, Audiobook
