The First Books of July!

Harold Macmillan, Charles Williams (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
A biography of Harold Macmillan which addresses hitherto unanswered questions such as whether or not his personal life prevented him from achieving true greatness or whether he became simply out of date.

Immortal Longings: F.W.H. Myers and the Victorian search for life after death, Trevor Hamilton (Imprint Academic)
A biography of the Victorian classicist, poet and psychologist Frederic W.H. Myers, whose systematic and pioneering exploration of 19th-century spiritualism, mesmerism and related phenomena convinced him of the reality of life after death.

Bugs and the Victorians, J.F.M. Clark (Yale University Press)
A study of how science became increasingly important in 19th-century British culture and how the systematic study of insects enabled entomologists to engage with some of the most pressing questions of Victorian times such as the nature of God, mind and governance and the origins of life.

Great Battles of the Hellenistic World, Joseph Pietrykowski (Pen & Sword)
A study of 17 conflicts that shook the ancient world and shaped history over a period of 170 years, which considers the structure and composition of the opposing armies, the strategy of their campaigns and the leadership decisions and tactics that decided the engagements.