Renaissance History

Catherine de' Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powerbroker who dominated the throne for 30 years. Her youngest daughter, Marguerite, the glamorous "Queen Margot," was a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother could neither intimidate nor control.

Beginning in Italy, the Renaissance was a cultural movement that spread throughout Europe and affected art, science, technology, politics, and thought. From the 1300s to the beginning of the 1600s, scholars started to question what they knew and looked to literature and historical texts to develop new ideas for why things were the way they were. In just a short amount of time, the foundations for European life were uprooted and examined, leading people, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to explore new ways of thinking and being.

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 - from a troubled childhood in Florence to her marriage to Henry, son of King Francis I of France; from her transformation of French culture to her fight to protect her throne and her sons' birthright. Based on thousands of private letters, it is a remarkable account of one of the most influential women to wear a crown.

The Spoils of Time is a concise history of the world in nine chapters, tracing the prehistoric beginnings of early man’s halting steps towards civilization and ending sometime around 1500. The scope is vast, with Wedgwood’s scholarship spanning all the continents. As the author states, her purpose was to create a continuous narrative of human history for her own pleasure and to find out for herself what, if any, interlacing relations might hold us together.

Just as out from the flames come the Phoenix, from the ashes of an identity, devastated, came Margaret of Austria, the most influential female of her time. Married into the highest echelons of European monarchy, queen of France, princess of Spain, and duchess of savoy, the security of destiny proved false, leaving the young Margaret married thrice and widowed twice. And yet, this unplanned destiny was transformative, forming her into the hand that moved the puzzle pieces of European diplomacy. Married at two years of age to the dauphin of France, by twelve, Margaret of Austria found herself...

Europe is an astonishingly successful place. In this dazzling new history, best-selling author Simon Jenkins grippingly tells the story of its evolution from warring peoples to peace, wealth and freedom - a story that twists and turns from Greece and Rome, through the Dark Ages, the Reformation and the French Revolution, to the Second World War and up to the present day. Jenkins takes in leaders from Julius Caesar and Joan of Arc to Wellington and Angela Merkel as well as cultural figures from Aristotle to Shakespeare and Picasso.

The Teutonic Knights were powerful and ferocious advocates of holy war. Their history is suffused with crusading, campaigning, and struggle. Feared by their enemies but respected by medieval Christendom, the knights and their Order maintained a firm hold over the Baltic and Northern Germany and established a formidable regime that flourished across Central Europe for 300 years. William Urban's narrative charts the rise and fall of the Order and, in an accessible and engaging style, throws light on a band of knights whose deeds and motives have long been misunderstood.

Beauty, make-up, art, power: How to Be a Renaissance Woman presents an alternative history of this period as told by the women behind the paintings, providing a window into their often overlooked or silenced lives. Can the pressures women feel to look good be traced back to the sixteenth century?

Volume Three of 2,000 Years of Christ's Power, in showing the progression of the Reformation era and the daring bravery of its figures, presents a period of history from which there are many lessons to be learnt—not least of all, the vibrancy of people's lives and the courage with which they faced death.

Description for Black As We Know It: History of Black America Black As We Know It: History of Black America is a powerful, sweeping novel that takes readers on an unforgettable journey through the heart of Black history. From the pain of captivity to the triumphs of resilience, this book weaves together fictionalized personal stories inspired by real historical events to showcase the strength, creativity, and enduring spirit of Black America. Through twenty captivating chapters, you’ll experience: The raw emotion of families torn apart by slavery and reunited in hope. The bravery of ...

The Renaissance, or rebirth, was a period of time when Europeans began to question what they had been told was sacrosanct. Through art, inventions, science, literature, and theology, the separate nations of the European continent sought answers that the Roman Catholic Church was unwilling, or perhaps unable, to offer. It was a triumph of the human spirit and a confirmation of human ability, even as it affirmed the willingness of men and women to die for the right to think freely.

"A superb action piece ... Worth has a future in this type of writing." - Nevil Gibson, NBR Review "Shocking, tragic, maddening and uplifting – all at once." - Pauline Moore "This book is a tour de force! It really is a triumph..." - Rob Haslett "A must-read. Five out of five stars." - Ross Parry "An engrossing book." - Steve Tilleyshort ATHENS, APRIL 1941. Adolf Hitler has conquered most of Europe, and he’s now turning his attention to the Balkans. The unstoppable Wehrmacht is unleashed on Greece. Standing in its way, on the imposing slopes of Mount Olympus, sacred home of the ancient ...

In 1474, a 23-year-old woman ascended the throne of Castile, the largest and strongest kingdom in Spain. Ahead of her lay the considerable challenge not only of being a young female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world but also of reforming a major European kingdom that was riddled with crime, corruption, and violent political factionism. Her pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance.

What was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? In this book Ian Mortimer answers the key questions that a visitor to late 16th-century England would ask.

The Great Migration was the name coined for the mass movement of African-Americans north of the Mason-Dixon line in the years following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. The enormous promise of emancipation proved to be illusory for the majority of Southern blacks, whether free or formerly enslaved, and as a result, hundreds of thousands made use of their fundamental freedom to leave. This resulted in a “push” away from the South, caused by ongoing discrimination, punishing Jim Crow laws, and increasing violence directed at blacks by whites.

This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.

For as long as language and communication have existed, humans have invented ways to mask their messages from prying eyes. One could be forgiven for assuming there are no ciphers left unsolved. On the contrary, a diverse array of both ancient and modern cryptographic challenges, which have stumped even the most seasoned code crackers of today, exist, and may exist for generations to come. Among the most famous of these memorandums is a 600-year-old document that continues to mystify: the Voynich Manuscript.

Jacob Fugger lived in Germany at the turn of the 16th century, the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly 2 percent of European GDP. Not even John D. Rockefeller had that kind of wealth. Most people become rich by spotting opportunities, pioneering new technologies, or besting opponents in negotiations. Fugger did all that, but he had an extra quality that allowed him to rise even higher: nerve.

John Julius Norwich - whom the Wall Street Journal called "the very model of a popular historian" - has crafted a big, bold tapestry of the early 16th century, when Europe and the Middle East were overshadowed by a quartet of legendary rulers, all born within a 10-year period. Against the vibrant background of the Renaissance, these four men laid the foundations for modern Europe and the Middle East, as they collectively impacted the culture, religion, and politics of their respective domains.

Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world - the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity's chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.