Renaissance

Ten remarkable women. One remarkable era. In the Tudor period, 1485 to 1603, a host of fascinating women sat on the English throne. The dramatic events of their lives are told in The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens....

An unprecedented portrait of the Renaissance-era Borgia family and their storied milieu, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tudors “A vivid and at times startling reappraisal of one of the most notorious dynasties in history . . . If you thought you knew the Borgias, this book...

The Teutonic Knights were powerful and ferocious advocates of holy war. 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....

Brought to you by Penguin. Even as the great siege began it was understood by both sides to be an epic – a potentially decisive encounter between an uneasy assortment of soldiers, native Maltese, adventurers and Knights Hospitaller on a strategically crucial but near waterless island and a...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The award-winning author of The Memphis Murders presents “a rich and vibrant tapestry” (The Star-Ledger) of the fabled Tudor dynasty—and some of the most enigmatic figures to ever rule a country. “A thoroughly readable and often compelling narrative...

The Borgia family have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthless megalomania, avarice, and vicious cruelty - all have been associated with their name. And yet, paradoxically, this family lived when the Renaissance was coming into its full flowering in Italy....

The Dynamics of Military Revolution aims to bridge a major gap in the emerging literature on revolutions in military affairs, suggesting that there have been two very different phenomena at work over the past centuries: "military revolutions", which are driven by vast social and political...

In 1474, a 23-year-old woman ascended the throne of Castile, the largest and strongest kingdom in Spain. Ahead of her lay the challenge of being a young female ruler....

Mary Boleyn was the mistress of two kings, Francois I of France and Henry VIII of England, and sister to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife....

Henry Stuart’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale. Shadowed by the gravity of the Thirty Years’ War and the huge changes taking place across Europe in seventeenth-century society, economy, politics and empire, his life was visually and verbally gorgeous. NOW THE SUBJECT OF BBC2...

England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart King Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies....

The aspects of Anne Boleyn's life and death are fiercely debated by historians, yet her ladies-in-waiting remain an understudied topic....

History is rarely kind to women of power, but few have had their reputations quite so brutally shredded as Catherine de’ Medici, Italian-born queen of France and influential mother of three successive French kings.

Set in the court of Urbino in 1507, Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier presents an invaluable look at court life and culture during the Renaissance. Over four nights of dialogue, the book explores the key question, ‘What should a courtier be like?’ Listen for more....

The creator of the hit podcast series Tides of History and Fall of Rome explores the four explosive decades between 1490 and 1530, bringing to life the dramatic and deeply human story of how the West was reborn. In the bestselling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the...

Delve into the sprawling saga of the Habsburg dynasty, whose influence was felt across Europe for over six centuries.

This book will explore the lives of the 17 most productive people in history.....

A Waterstones Best History Book 2025 A BBC History Magazine Book of the Year 2025 ‘Learned, entertaining and highly approachable’ BOB MORTIMER ‘A treat’ ALICE LOXTON ‘Five stars from me…’ AL MURRAY An unmissable collaboration between two comedy legends – an irresistible...

A dramatic account of some of the most notorious figures of medieval and Renaissance history who ruled from the Eternal City. It is sure to grip fans of John Julius Norwich, Tom Holland, and Peter Ackroyd. The papal tiara has been worn by a number of infamous men through the course of its...

From the death of Richard III on Bosworth Field in 1485 to the execution of Charles I....

In the fifteenth century, even before the city states of the Apennine Peninsula began to coalesce into what would become, several centuries later, a nation, "Italy" exerted enormous influence over all of Europe and throughout the Mediterranean....

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....

A groundbreaking history of the wars of the Ottoman Expansion, a truly global conflagration that crisscrossed three continents and ultimately defined the borders and future of a modern Europe.

A true historical “detective story” full of insight about how we look at art―and the artists and eras that produced it....

There has been a great deal written about Tudor queens, but less so about those women who surrounded the throne, who may have held even more power and influence than those who actually wore the golden crown. Some ladies who served at the Tudor court are only faceless silhouettes lost to the...