History > European History

this edition not available - see 9781921372827 To most Westerners, Russia remains as enigmatic today as it was during the Iron Curtain era. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country had an opportunity to confront its tortured past. In Inside the Stalin Archives, Jonathan Brent asks why this didn't happen. Why are the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion sold openly in the lobby of the State Duma? Why are archivists under surveillance and phones still tapped? Why does Stalin, a man responsible for the deaths of... read more

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Spain's southern city of Seville basks in romantic myths and legends, evoking the scent of jasmine and orange blossom. But there is an ascetic core to its sybaritic spirit. For all their fame as passionate performers, the poet Unamuno called Sevillanos "finos y frios"--refined and cool.Once Europe's most cosmopolitan metropolis, bridging cultures of East and West and hub of a sea-borne empire, Seville was defined by Spain's great seventeenth-century playwright Lope de Vega as "port and gateway to the Indies". The city retains both ... read more

In the former East there was one agent of the Stasi, the secret police, for every six citizens. What did it do to people to be so watched? And what sort of people were they, all those watchers? In her internationally acclaimed debut, Anna Funder presents with startling humour and sympathy the human face of the twentieth century's most repressive regime. Anna Funder lived in Berlin before the Wall came down. She visited Germany again after the fall of communism, and spoke with people about their experiences living under, or within, ... read more

First-hand eye witness accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto In 1939, Warsaw was home to the second largest Jewish community in the world. Of the 489,000 people who passed through the ghetto in the years that followed its creation in 1940, fewer than 10% survived. But this book is not about the statistics, horrifying though they are. It is a unique and never before published record of life in the ghetto by the men and women who experienced it. Most of the accounts were written during the war, some by anonymous authors, many by writers ... read more

Through the lives of individuals, Michael Frassetto enters the dark history of the great medieval heretical movements - the lives of men and women whose ideas and actions had, by the end of the Middle Ages, transformed utterly the religious and political map of Europe. Michael Frassetto's account of five centuries of social and spiritual turmoil is a vivid and telling mix of events, personality and ideas. His cast of characters includes Bogomil, an obscure priest of the Balkan countryside who introduced 'Manichaean' ideas to his p... read more

Their name is a byword for wealth and power but before their renown as art patrons and princes, the Medici built their fortune on banking. Tim Parks tells the fascinating, frequently bloody, story of the family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bankIn a brisk and witty narrative, Tim Parks uncovers the intrigues, dodges and moral qualities that gave the Medici their edge. Vividly evoking the richness of the Renaissance and the Medici's glittering circle, replete with artists, popes and kings, Medici Money is a bril... read more

Money, ambition and everyday life in the court of a Borgia Prince.Second son of Lucretia Borgia, Ippolito d'Este loved gambling, hunting tennis and women. He became Archbishop of Milan at the age of 9 But he had to wait another twenty years before he acquired his coveted cardinal's hat, the route to wealth and power in sixteenth-century Europe. This is his story. But it is also the story of his gardeners, carpenters, ceiling decorators, book-keeper, valet and doctor, the Master of his Wardrobe, his courtiers, squires, pages, cooks,... read more

In the eyes of the English Romantics, Italy was not a nation but 'Italia', a place inhabited by the ancient. Their was a view shaped by the Grand Tour, which elevated ancient Roman culture to an artistic and historical ideal. In this vivid history of their love affair with Italy, Roderick Cavaliero presents a readable and strongly-etched cultural history. Through the eyes of Romantic travellers and poets such as Byron, Keats and Shelley, we see a fascinating picture of pre-unification Italy, struggling to recover after Napoleon and... read more

Athens, 404 BC. The democratic city-state has been ravaged by a long and bloody war with neighbouring Sparta. The search for scapegoats begins and Athens, liberty's beacon in the ancient world, turns its sword on its own way of life. Defining moments of Greek history, culture, politics, religion and identity are debated ferociously in Athenian public spaces, back streets and battlefields. Meanwhile, the mastership of Greece is left open for the taking. Who can rise to the challenge? Cities such as Sparta and Thebes make their play.... read more

From 1942 to 1951, 365 men and women from thirteen Allied nations served as the men and women of the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives section (MFAA) of the Allied armed forces, the eyes, ears and hands of the first and most ambitious effort in history to preserve the world's cultural heritage in times of war. They were known simply as Monuments Men. But during the thick of the fighting in Europe, from D-Day to V-E Day, when Germany surrendered, there were only 65 Monuments Men in the forward operating area. Sixty-five men to cov... read more

On 30 September 1938 Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting at Munich with the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. As he paused on the aircraft steps, he held aloft the piece of paper which bore both his and the Fuhrer's signature, the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again. He had returned bringing 'Peace with honour - Peace for our Time.' Drawing on a wealth of original archival material, David Faber sheds new light on this extraordinary story, tracing the key incidents leadin... read more

Its 11 September 1683, Rome. The citizens of the city wait anxiously for the outcome of the battle for Vienna as Ottoman forces lay siege to the defenders of Catholic Europe. Meanwhile, a suspected outbreak of plague causes a famous Roman tavern to be placed under quarantine. One of its detainees, the mysterious Atto Melani, a spy in the service of France, discovers a secret passage leading deep into the Roman underworld. A plot to assassinate the pope and plans to use the plague as a weapon of mass destruction in the battle betwee... read more

'We authorise followers of this law to assume the title of orthodox Christians; but as for the others since, in our judgement, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious names of heretics' - Emperor Theodosius. In AD 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate ... read more

Divided by the Holocaust tells the story of life after liberation from the perspective of Jewish survivors working to rebuild their lives. Since there was no plan for liberation - no structure in place to help survivors settle once they were iberated - these testimonies speak of struggle amid confusion and pain. Ambiguous regulations aimed to repatriate displaced Jews and to confine them to camps were put forth while the classification of German Jews as Germans without entitlement to additional food rations or other support were... read more

A vivid and dramatic account of one of the most influential families in Italian history. A dazzling history of the modest family which rose to become one of the most powerful in Europe, The Medici is a remarkably modern story of power, money and ambition. Against the background of an age which saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning - of humanism which penetrated and explored the arts and sciences and the 'dark' knowledge of alchemy, astrology, and numerology - Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and f... read more

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Dan Brown

A remarkable look at the hidden meanings in Holbein's 'The Ambassadors' - one of the world's most famous paintings The Ambassador's Secret is a radical reinterpretation of one of the world's most famous paintings. Holbein's celebrated portrait of two French diplomats at the court of Henry VIII has usually been linked to the political and religious unrest of the day. John North shows that the painting has a very different, and previously undetected, central theme and many other meanings. Far from being random, the objects in The A... read more

A fascinating true-crime story involving Marie-Antoinette, set in the period of Revolutionary France Four years before the French Revolution some priceless diamonds - they cost 1.8m francs, 'the price of a battleship' - were purchased in elaborate secrecy from the court jeweller of France, presumably for Marie Antoinette and at her own instructions. The necklace - not yet paid for - was delivered into the hands of Cardinal Prince de Rohan, first prelate of the Church of France. He in turn gave it to the Countess de La Motte-Valoi... read more