England Britain

This acclaimed best seller from popular historian Alison Weir is a fascinating look at the Tudor family dynasty and its most infamous ruler. The Six Wives of Henry VIII brings to life England’s oft-married monarch and the six wildly different but equally fascinating women who married him. Gripping from the first sentence to the last and loaded with fascinating details, Weir’s rich history is a perfect blend of scholarship and entertainment.

Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War, and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history. In January 2006, PBS will air The War That Made America, a four-part documentary about this epic conflict. Fred Anderson, the award-winning and critically acclaimed historian, has written the official tie-in to this exciting television event.

At its height, the Order of the Knights Templar rivaled the kingdoms of Europe in military might, economic power, and political influence. For 700 years the tragic demise of this society of warrior-monks amid accusations of heresy has been plagued by controversy, in part because the transcript of their trial by the Inquisition - which held the key to the truth - had vanished.Templar historian Barbara Frale happened to be studying a document at the Vatican Secret Archives when she suddenly realized that it was none other than the long-lost transcript!

The predominant image of this first world war is of mud and trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, poison gas, and slaughter. A generation of European manhood was massacred, and a wound was inflicted on European civilization that required the remainder of the twentieth century to heal.

Barrow's Boys is a spellbinding account of perilous journeys to uncharted areas under the most challenging conditions. Fergus Fleming captures the passion for exploration that led a band of men into situations that would humble today's bravest adventurers.

When Victoria was born, in 1819, the world was a very different place. Revolution would threaten many of Europe’s monarchies in the coming decades. In Britain, a generation of royals had indulged their whims at the public’s expense, and republican sentiment was growing. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the landscape, and the British Empire was commanding ever larger tracts of the globe. In a world where women were often powerless, during a century roiling with change, Victoria went on to rule the most powerful country on earth with a decisive hand.

This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.

In her previous two bestsellers, Professor Alice Roberts has powerfully and evocatively revived people of the past through examining their burial rites, bringing a fresh perspective on how they lived. In Crypt, Professor Roberts tells the story of modern Britain from 1066 to the present day - by exploring changing methods of honouring the dead.

Russell Kirk has ingeniously combined into a living whole the private Burke and the public Burke. He gives us a fresh assessment of Burke, a statesman enjoying even greater influence today than in his own time. He lucidly unfolds Burke's philosophy, showing how it revealed itself in concrete historical situations in the 18th century and how Burke, through his philosophy, "speaks to our age".

Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from beloved historian Alison Weir. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York was characterised by treachery, deceit, and bloody battles. Alison Weir's lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history. At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos, and his wife Margaret of Anjou, who took up her arms in her husband's cause and battled in a violent man's world.

Every age and social strata has its bad eggs, rule-breakers, and nose-thumbers. As acclaimed popular historian and author of How to Be a Victorian Ruth Goodman reveals in her madcap chronicle, Elizabethan England was particularly rank with troublemakers, from snooty needlers who took aim with a cutting "thee" to lowbrow drunkards with revolting table manners. Goodman draws on advice manuals, court cases, and sermons to offer this colorfully crude portrait of offenses most foul.

Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world's most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare's library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces, and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens, and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bard's manuscripts, books, or letters has ever been found.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor tells the riveting story of a war that redefined North America. In a world of double identities, slippery allegiances, and porous borders, the leaders of the American Republic and the British Empire struggled to control their own diverse peoples. Taylor’s vivid narrative of an often brutal—sometimes farcical—war reveals much about the tangled origins of the United States and Canada.

For the first time, Lady Colin Campbell reveals the fascinating and moving life of The Queen Mother. With unparalleled sources, including members of the Royal Family, aristocrats, and friends and relatives of Elizabeth herself, this mesmerizing account takes us inside the real and sometimes astonishing world of the royal family.

Begun in the mid-16th century by Protestant nonconformists keen to reform England's church and society while saving their own souls, the puritan movement was a major catalyst in the great cultural changes that transformed the early modern world. Providing a uniquely broad transatlantic perspective, this groundbreaking volume traces puritanism's tumultuous history from its initial attempts to reshape the Church of England to its establishment of godly republics in both England and America, and its demise at the end of the 17th century.

They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England's soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now, Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure.

For the first time in decades, here, in a single volume, is a fresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty, comprising some of the most enigmatic figures ever to rule a country. Acclaimed historian G. J. Meyer reveals the flesh-and-bone reality in all its wild excess.

On May 13, 1940, Winston Churchill stood before the House of Commons to deliver his first speech as Prime Minister. Europe was in crisis: three days earlier, Germany had invaded France and the Low Countries. Facing only feeble resistance, Hitler's armies were rapidly sweeping westward. Churchill had little support within the British government when he rose to address it that day.

In The Greatest Knight, renowned historian Thomas Asbridge draws upon the thirteenth-century biography and an array of other contemporary evidence to present a compelling account of William Marshal's life and times. Asbridge charts the unparalleled rise to prominence of a man bound to a code of honor yet driven by unquenchable ambition.

Around 6000 BC, a revolution took place on Orkney and the Western Isles of Scotland. An outstanding collection of stone circles, standing stones, round towers, and passage mounds appeared seemingly out of nowhere. And yet many such monuments were not indigenous to Britain, but to regions of the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean. Their creators were equally mysterious. Traditions tell of the Papae and Peti, "strangers from afar" who were physically different, dressed in white tunics, and lived aside from the regular population.