Between the catastrophic flood of the Tiber River in 1557 and the death of the "e;engineering pope"e; Sixtus V in 1590, the city of Rome was transformed by intense activity involving building construction and engineering projects of all kinds.
'A marvel of storytelling and a masterclass in the history of the book' WALL STREET JOURNALThe Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's artists and architects.
The close links between forgery and criticism throughout historyIn Forgers and Critics, Anthony Grafton provides a wide-ranging exploration of the links between forgery and scholarship.
The al-Qaeda Franchise asks why al-Qaeda adopted a branching-out strategy, introducing seven franchises spread over the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Between Copernicus and Galileo is the story of Christoph Clavius, the Jesuit astronomer and teacher whose work helped set the standards by which Galileo's famous claims appeared so radical, and whose teachings guided the intellectual and scientific agenda of the Church in the central years of the Scientific Revolution.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Weir is excellent on the little details that bring a world to life' GuardianAnne Boleyn: A King's Obsession by bestselling historian Alison Weir, author of Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, is the second captivating novel in the Six Tudor Queens series.
The first book in English to examine Leon Battista Alberti's major literary works in Latin and Italian, which are often overshadowed by his achievements in architectureLeon Battista Alberti (14041472) was one of the most prolific and original writers of the Italian Renaissancea fact often eclipsed by his more celebrated achievements as an art theorist and architect, and by Jacob Burckhardt's mythologizing of Alberti as a Renaissance or Universal Man.
An illuminating reassessment of the architect whose innovative drawings of ruins shaped the enduring image of ancient RomeGiuliano da Sangallo (1443-1516) was one of the first architects to draw the ruins and artifacts of ancient Rome in a systematic way.
Richard III is probably the House of York's best-known figure, but the other members of the family are just as intriguing as the king who fell on Bosworth Field.
A magisterial history of the Renaissance and the birth of the modern worldThe cultural epoch we know as the Renaissance emerged at a certain time and in a certain place.
During the oppressive reign of Louis XIV, Gabrielle Suchon (1632-1703) was the most forceful female voice in France, advocating women's freedom and self-determination, access to knowledge, and assertion of authority.
In the study of Shakespeare since the eighteenth century, four key concepts have served to situate Shakespeare in history: chronology, periodization, secularization, and anachronism.
A groundbreaking biography of Milton's formative years that provides a new account of the poet's political radicalizationJohn Milton (1608-1674) has a unique claim on literary and intellectual history as the author of both Paradise Lost, the greatest narrative poem in English, and prose defences of the execution of Charles I that influenced the French and American revolutions.
A study of the depictions of women's executions in Renaissance England A Weak Woman in a Strong Battle: Women and Public Execution in Early Modern England provides critical insights on representations of women on the scaffold, focusing on how female victims and those writing about them constructed meaning from the ritual.
Renaissance writer Laura Cereta (1469-1499) presents feminist issues in a predominantly male venue-the humanist autobiography in the form of personal letters.
The recruitment of ISIS terrorists may have begun as an extremist crusade in Iraq, but it has quickly become a global phenomenon that is taking hold of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and belief systems.
