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Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion.

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, one of the world's best-known Hasidic groups, is driven by the belief that we are on the verge of the messianic age. The man most recognized for the movement's success is the seventh and last Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), believed by many of his followers to be the Messiah.

One of Rome's most powerful women, Clodia has been maligned over two thousand years as a promiscuous, husband-murdering harlot, thanks to her starring role in one of Cicero's most famous speeches in the Forum. But Cicero was lying, in defense of his own interests. Like so many women libeled or erased from history, Clodia had a life that was much more interesting, complex, and nuanced than the corrupted version passed down through generations.

In The Raider, Cundill Prize-winning historian Stephen R. Platt gives us the first authoritative account of Carlson’s larger-than-life exploits: the real story, based on years of research including newly discovered diaries and correspondence in English and Chinese, with deep insight into the conflicted idealism about the Chinese Communists that would prove Carlson’s undoing in the McCarthy era. Tracing the rise and fall of an unlikely American war hero, The Raider is a story of exploration, of cultural (mis)understanding, and of one man’s awakening to the sheer breadth of the world.

A contemporary of Samuel Adams, John Adams, George Washington, and the Marquis de Lafayette, Hancock had a list of contacts that read like a who’s who of the American Revolution. But shockingly little has been written about Hancock himself. John Hancock tells the story of a man who deserves far more credit for his contribution to the American Revolution than he previously received—and award-winning scholar Willard Sterne Randall is determined to give him his due at last.

As much a sweeping story about lost worlds as it is a philosophical inquiry, Indignity shows what it is like to make choices against the tide of history. Through reports of communist spies, court depositions, anecdotes and characters that live on in Ypi’s memory, we move between “now” and ”then”, fact and fiction, what we learn from archives and what we can imagine, to reckon with the injustices of the past. By turns epic and intimate, profound and gripping, Indignity is a meditation on the fragility of truth, both personal and political.

In March 1603, Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, lies dying at Richmond Palace. The queen's ministers cluster round her bedside, urging her to name her successor—something she had stubbornly resisted throughout her reign. She dies shortly afterwards and the throne of England passes peacefully from Tudor to Stuart. Or so we've been led to believe... But, as enthralling new research shows, this is not what happened. In the weeks and months that followed, history was literally re-written on the orders of James VI to hide the truth.

From ancient civilization to modern times, history is full of mysterious and downright bizarre circumstances. With these crazy and compelling facts, Hidden Histories will change your view of history

The Blood Countess is an ambitious, sweeping investigation into the singularly fascinating case of Elizabeth Báthory, a woman who, until now, has been known as "the Western World’s most prolific female murderer.” If The Dark Queens is about the systemic erasure of powerful women, then The Blood Countess is about the culturally sanctioned, coordinated smearing of one, how it happens and why, which leads to even bigger questions: how do we construct our personal and cultural realities? How do we parse the truth?

How do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover over decades and so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no-one even notices you are gone. The Spy in the Archive is the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin – an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty files – ended up changing the world.

In 1894, a remarkably self-possessed American woman, with no formal education to speak of, stood before a British court seeking damages for libel from the trustees of the British Museum. It was yet another stop along the unpredictable route that was Victoria Woodhull’s life. Born dirt-poor in an obscure Ohio settlement, Woodhull was the daughter of an illiterate mother entranced by the fad of Mesmerism—a therapeutic pseudoscience—and a swindler father whose cons exploited his two daughters.

With characteristic wit, eloquence, and unflinching honesty, Churchill shares the pivotal events and relationships that shaped his worldview — from his military service to his years as Prime Minister. My Life is not only a window into the personal and political history of a giant of the 20th century, but also a testament to his unyielding determination, resilience, and vision during some of the most tumultuous periods in modern history.

Mount Everest is known to everyone—but what of the person after whom it was named? This book traces the life and profession of that person, George Everest. In particular, it covers his life dedicated to surveying in India during the first half of the nineteenth century. George Everest went to India at the tender age of sixteen but within a few years was leading survey parties into the remotest areas of the subcontinent. His particular passion was geodesy—the determination of the size and shape of the earth—and he soon became Superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey.

Claire McCardell shattered cultural norms around women’s clothes, and today much of what we wear traces back to her ingenious, rebellious mind. McCardell invented ballet flats and mix-and-match separates, and she introduced wrap dresses, hoodies, leggings, denim, and more into womenswear. She tossed out corsets in favor of a comfortably elegant look and insisted on pockets, even as male designers didn’t see a need for them. Filled with personal drama and industry secrets, this story reveals how Claire McCardell built an empire at a time when women rarely made the upper echelons of business.

In eighteenth-century Britain, Edmund Burke and Charles Fox made common political cause for twenty-five years. They supported the rebellious American colonies, attacked the British slave trade, defended religious liberty, and attempted to shield Britain's public credit from the crisis-prone East India Company. The two men did not share social position, a way of life, a political legacy, or even a generation—but improbably, they were friends.

Das Besondere an dieser Biografie Benjamin Franklins ist, dass er diese selber geschrieben hat. Dieser Umstand mag den einen oder anderen vorschnellen Kritiker dazu verleiten, den vorliegenden Text als geschönt oder nicht literarisch einzustufen, allerdings ist erstaunlicherweise genau das Gegenteil der Fall. Eine wunderbare Persönlichkeit und Sachlichkeit ist in Franklins Schreibstil gepaart mit einer weit überdurchschnittlichen Eleganz in Wortwahl und Ausdruck.

Arguably the most intellectual, creative, cosmopolitan, and curious of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is the only top-tier Founder not to have served as president. Despite not becoming the Chief Executive, Franklin played an active role in American politics and served the aspiring and young United States in the key European capitals. His prodigious reading and appetite for learning are epic. As he did in works about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Kevin J. Hayes interprets the life and mind of Franklin through what he read.

Alexander the Great changed the world that he knew—but how he did it, and how much of his story is truth and how much is invented, is hard to tell. One of our most important sources for his achievements and personality is Plutarch's Life of Alexander, and this is the first detailed commentary on it for over fifty years, along with a thorough introduction and translation. It is a sister volume to the author's 2011 edition (also in the Clarendon Ancient History Series) of Plutarch's Caesar, the Life paired with Alexander in Plutarch's series of Parallel Lives.

Striking where the enemy is weakest and melting away into the darkness before he can react. Never confronting a stronger force directly, but using audacity and surprise to confound and demoralize an opponent. Operations driven by good intelligence, area knowledge, mobility, speed, firepower, and detailed planning, and executed by a few specialists with indigenous warriors—this is unconventional warfare.

By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and well-known figures in ancient Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advocated for effective government to better the lives of the average Roman; however, he believed this government could not be based upon the existing democracy, which he regarded as corrupt and inefficient. It could only be through his personal management and the massive organization he built to overthrow the government that he could ensure the prosperity of all Romans.