16th Century

This is the story of Elizabeth I's inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life....

Recounting Henry VIII's life and signal moments through the lens of his male relationships, Tracy Borman’s new biography reveals Henry’s personality in all its multi-faceted, contradictory glory, and sheds fresh light on his reign for anyone fascinated by the Tudor era and its legacy....

Organized as a travel guide for the time-hopping tourist, The Time-Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England is an entertaining popular history with a twist....

The life of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers....

In this engaging, anecdotal history of food, world conquest, and desire, a chef-turned-journalist tells the story of three legendary cities that transformed the globe in the quest for spice....

The Inventive Peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse, when on a summer's day in 1560 a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre....

Before the Reformation, in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, being a wife or mother was not a holy vocation. The only “spiritual” calling for women was to be found in a convent. The Reformers confronted the bad theology which led to this....

The Spanish Empire was the first truly global empire and the first to be described as one on which “the sun never sets.” It rapidly grew to become one of the largest and most powerful empires in the history of the world and brought us goods such as potatoes, chocolate....

Cabeza de Vaca was part of a 1527 Spanish expedition to explore the region north of the Gulf of Mexico. His group lost contact with their ships, and traveled on foot across Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico for the next eight years....

Born in the midst of the Wars of the Roses, Margaret Beaufort became the greatest heiress of her time....