The Plantagenets Dan Jones The first Plantagenet kings inherited a blood-soaked realm from the Normans and transformed it into an empire that stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this epic narrative history of courage, treachery, ambition, and…
The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization Bryan Ward-Perkins Was the fall of Rome a great catastrophe that cast the West into darkness for centuries to come? Or, as scholars argue today, was there no crisis at all,…
The Crusades Thomas Asbridge Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the…
Churchill: Walking with Destiny Andrew Roberts When we seek an example of great leaders with unalloyed courage, the person who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the iconic, visionary war leader immune from the consensus of the day, who stood…
Engineering in the Ancient World J.G. Landels In his classic book, J. G. Landels describes the technological advances of the Greeks and Romans with erudition and enthusiasm. He provides an important introduction to engineering, writing about power and energy sources,…
Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew For decades, only a select and powerful few knew the truth about the submarines that silently roamed the ocean in danger and in stealth, seeking…
The Witches: Salem 1962 Stacy Schiff It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister’s daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had…
Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History John Julius Norwich “Sicily,” said Goethe, “is the key to everything.” It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and…
Lone Survivor Marcus Luttrell On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known…
SPQR Mary Beard In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome “with passion and without technical jargon” and demonstrates how “a slightly shabby Iron Age village” rose to become the “undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean” (Wall…