Europe

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell....

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling....

Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1961, this worldwide bestselling classic chronicles the most infamous era of our times.

Did Hitler - code name "Grey Wolf" - really die in 1945? Gripping new evidence shows what could have happened....

A prize-winning historian reveals how Stalin - not Hitler - was the animating force of World War II in this major new history....

From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day....

Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible....

Poisoner, despot, necromancer - the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds....

The New York Times bestselling author returns with a biography examining the dramatic life and unparalleled leadership of England's greatest medieval king.

At one time, Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that she had a story to tell.....

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400....

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own....

In this New York Times bestselling biography, Eric Metaxas takes both strands of Bonhoeffer's life—the theologian and the spy—and draws them together to tell a searing story of incredible moral courage in the face of monstrous evil.

The #1 New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her magnum opus—a landmark work of feminist nonfiction that radically redefines our understanding of the extraordinary roles ordinary women played throughout British history....

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms, Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region....

This major new history of the Ottoman dynasty reveals a diverse empire that straddled East and West....

The author of The Island at the Center of the World offers up a thrilling narrative of how New York—that brash, bold, archetypal city—came to be.

Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power....

The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times best-selling author of The Storm of War....

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away....

In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric....

A "marvelous" (Economist) account of how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination....

Now available in audio for the first time, Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews - now with a new afterword and additional photographs....

The incredible untold story of WWII's greatest secret fighting force, as told by our great modern master of wartime intrigue....

The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages....

Nova Reid, author of The Good Ally, delves into the untold stories of extraordinary, unsung Black women who created and shaped pivotal moments in world history, British culture and society. Through powerful storytelling, personal insights and new research, Nova delves into the lives of pioneers, journalists and rule-breakers who made vital contributions to civil rights, yet have been mythologised, are unknown or erased from history.

In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, the military officer who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he encountered Peter Stuyvesant, New Netherland’s canny director general.

In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and forcing millions more to emigrate. In Rot, historian Padraic X. Scanlan offers the definitive account of the Great Famine, showing how Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the British Empire made it uniquely vulnerable to starvation.

Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. But by 1944 it had a leadership that was able to wield it with lethal effect and with far more effective equipment than before. By contrast, the Wehrmacht had commenced a slow process of decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler became increasingly unwilling to delegate decision-making to commanders in the field, which had been crucial to earlier success.

Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a guerilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia’s Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: The next one is for you or your family. As reporter Ali Watkins reveals, the conflict in Northern Ireland might have gone very differently had it not been for a small ragtag band of gunrunners in the United States.

From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.

The Baltic's time has come. It is not only critical to Europe's security and increasingly a centre of political and military power in its own right; it is a reservoir of ideas and experiences that could shape the continent's future. This books explores the history, their culture, their peculiarities and national dilemmas of all nine Baltic countries. At its core is a search for fresh answers to Europe's problems, at a point where the continent's previously dominant powers appear tired and divided.

In the early morning of 9 April 1940 a fleet of German ships entered the Oslofjord. The Norwegian artillery delayed the German advance long enough for King Haakon VII and his cabinet to escape to England, but there was no stopping the Nazi blitzkrieg. Norway stood on the cusp of a traumatic five-year occupation whose aftershocks would continue to trouble its national consciousness long after the defeated Germans departed in May 1945. In a magnificent feat of storytelling, Robert Ferguson tells the extraordinary – and relatively little-known – story of the occupation and its judicial aftermath.

Historian Justine Firnhaber-Baker tells the epic story of the Capetian dynasty of medieval France, showing how their ideas about power, religion, and identity continue to shape European society and politics today. Reigning from 987 to 1328, the Capetians became the most powerful monarchy of the Middle Ages. Consolidating a fragmented realm that eventually stretched from the Rhône to the Pyrenees, they were the first royal house to adopt the fleur-de-lys, displaying this lily emblem to signify their divine favor and legitimate their rule.

Between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Arab explorers journeyed widely and frequently into the far north, crossing territories that now include Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. Ibn Fadlan's chronicles of his travels are one of the most important documents from the period, and this illuminating new translation offers insight into the world of the Arab geographers and the medieval lands of the far north. Based on an expedition to the upper Volga River in 922 AD,

El Imperio español se erige como uno de los imperios más increíbles de la historia del mundo. Este imperio desplegó su poder en múltiples continentes, conquistó a todos los que se interpusieron en su camino y dejó un impacto indeleble en las culturas de todo el mundo. Durante más de cuatro siglos, su dominio permaneció incuestionable y abarcó un vasto territorio mucho más allá de Europa.

This book tells the stories of the 52 female agents trained and sent into France by SOE. They were a widely diverse group of women by age, education, economic background, and motivation. But all had the goal of freeing France from German occupation. Of the 50 women who went to France, eleven (11) were executed while prisoners in concentration camps, and two (2) died of disease in the camps. Others were captured and tortured but survived the war. All showed incredible courage, and Nazi records show that not one of the captured women gave the Germans any classified information – even when ...

Following the Battle of Agincourt, Henry V's second invasion of France in 1417 launched a campaign that would place the crown of France on an English head. By the time of Henry's premature death in 1422, nearly all of northern France lay in his hands and the Valois heir to the throne had been disinherited. Only Joan of Arc—a visionary peasant girl who claimed divine guidance—was able to halt the English advance, but not for long. Just six months after her death, Henry's young son was crowned in Paris as the first, and last, English king of France.

"Officially" the Vatican has no espionage service; but does no one carry out intelligence operations on its behalf? During the Second World War and Cold War, Rome was teeming with spies. A band of undercover monsignors and priests hunted for Vatican "moles," led clandestine diplomacy, investigated assassinations of priests and other scandals threatening the Church, and conducted high-risk missions behind the Iron Curtain.

UNA HISTORIA COMPLETA DE LOS BAUTISTAS A TRAVÉS DE SUS FIGURAS MÁS REPRESENTATIVAS La obra Los Bautistas Particulares Británicos – Vol. 1: Los Inicios es el primer volumen de una serie de cinco que narra de manera completa la historia de los bautistas a través de sus figuras principales. Esta obra, única en su genero, brinda una introducción completa a la historia y teología bautista, así como una exposición erudita del contexto histórico, político y social del desarrollo teológico entre los bautistas. Esta obra no tiene comparación en habla hispana, y recoge los aportes de ...

By the middle of the second century BCE, after nearly one hundred years of warfare, Rome had exerted its control over the entire Mediterranean world, forcing the other great powers of the region—Carthage, Macedonia, Egypt, and the Seleucid empire—to submit militarily and financially. But how, despite its relative poverty and its frequent numerical disadvantage in decisive battles, did Rome prevail? Michael J. Taylor explains this surprising outcome by examining the role that manpower and finances played.

Neste audiolivro, o arqueólogo Theodōros Papakōstas leva o ouvinte a uma jornada por grandes e pequenos momentos da história e da mitologia gregas, mostrando como os povos viviam e explicando como o homem passou de nômade a fundador de civilizações inteiras. Ao longo do trajeto ele responde a várias perguntas intrigantes, derrubando mitos e revelando detalhes sobre objetos do dia a dia e monumentos gregos, assim como curiosidades sobre a vida de pessoas comuns. Tal como na sociedade moderna, elas amavam, traíam, pediam proteção aos deuses e tomavam porres homéricos.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius offers profound insights into Stoic philosophy. In these writings, the Roman Emperor contemplates themes of virtue, resilience, and inner peace, guiding listeners on how to live a life of purpose and integrity.

The newly-wed Anne Hastings faced her husband's wrath when her affair with William Compton was made public. Mary Tudor married to satisfy her brother's political need to ally with France, but when her decrepit royal husband died, she married the dashing Charles Brandon for love. William Parr, humiliated by his wife's extramarital affair, sought a divorce to marry the woman he loved.

Now capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, Berlin rose from insignificant origins on swampy soil, becoming a city of immigrants over the ages. Through a series of ten vignettes, Mary Fulbrook discusses the periods and regimes that shaped its character—whether Prussian militarism; courtly culture and enlightenment; rapid industrialization and expansion; ambitious imperialism; experiments with democracy; or repressive dictatorships of both right and left, dramatically evidenced in the violence of World War and genocide, and then in the Wall dividing Cold War Berlin.

The Viking Great Army landed in East Anglia in late 865 and over the following fifteen years it fought numerous battles in all four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, made and broke peace treaties, and deposed or killed at least three Anglo-Saxon kings, replacing them with its own appointees. It had a major impact on English society, initiating extensive transformations in Anglo-Saxon society, culture, economy, and political organization. Previous Viking armies had raided only in the summer months, but the Great Army was a constant presence over this period.

Step into the dazzling world of Tudor England, where art and power intertwine. In Secrets of the Tudor Portraits, Sylvia Barbara Soberton uncovers the hidden stories behind some of the most iconic images of the Tudor period. From the commanding presence of Henry VIII in Hans Holbein’s Whitehall Mural to Elizabeth I’s carefully crafted image as the Virgin Queen, these portraits are more than mere likenesses—they are coded messages, political propaganda and deeply personal reflections of their sitters. Through meticulous research and vivid storytelling, this book delves into the lives ...

For almost two decades before her execution at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was a prisoner. From her chambers, she wrote countless letters, many encrypted using complex ciphers to prevent her communications from being intercepted. In this way, she used language to exert her will and her influence, even while incarcerated. More than four hundred years after Mary's death, the discovery of further encoded letters has led to renewed interest in the breadth of her correspondence while in captivity.

Shots Heard Round the World is a bold, comprehensive rendering of the world war that erupted out of America’s battle for independence. Ferling highlights underestimated pivotal moments to reveal why the British should have put down the rebellion within a couple years of fighting. As European rivals France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic entered the fray, Britain’s problems grew, but after seven long years, the war’s outcome remained very much in doubt.

Ningún otro país como España posee una historia tan rica en sus imágenes ni tan abundante en conceptos, mitos y leyendas. Es la historia más exótica de Occidente y también la más extensa y extrema en su envergadura, tanto cronológica como geográfica, y con mayores diferencias en las distintas épocas.