New history books in July 2026

It is hot here in the UK and in Europe. That means that I am reading less as I prefer to cycle into work rather than get the (extremely hot) London underground, which is my most reliable free time for reading. It is hard to read from the back of a bike! But I still get pleasure from looking at all the books I could be reading, and hopefully help others discover something new too. So here are the 14 books from last month (July 2026, published in hardback, in the UK). The two that I have my eye on are: The People's Emperor: The Unlikely Rise and Spectacular Fall of Napoleon III, by Edward Shawcross. I've always thought of Napoleon III as a farcical figure: this book looks like it will set me right. Children of the Third Reich: Three Pasts, Three Futures, by Catrine Clay. Postwar Germany is much less well known in the UK than Germany pre 1945, this could be an accessible way of understanding "what came next?". Click the book covers to see a zoomed in image and links to Amazon if you like…