European history

Coptic emerged as the written form of the Egyptian language in the third century, when Greek was still the official language in Egypt. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Coptic had almost achieved official status, but only after an...

For Victorian lawmakers and judges, the question of whether a book should be allowed to circulate freely depended on whether it was sold to readers whose mental and moral capacities were in doubt, by which they meant the increasingly literate and...

A colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative account of Machiavelli's life and thoughtThis is a colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative introduction to the life and work of the Florentine statesman, writer, and political philosopher Niccolo...

A renowned historian addresses misconceptions about Byzantium, suggests why it is so important to integrate the civilization into wider histories, and lays out why Byzantium should be central to ongoing debates about the relationships between West and...

How the creation of the Nobel Prize in Economics changed the economics profession, Sweden, and the worldOur confidence in markets comes from economics, and our confidence in economics is underpinned by the Nobel Prize in Economics, which was first...

How the latest cutting-edge science offers a fuller picture of life in Rome and antiquityThis groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive look at how the latest advances in the sciences are transforming our understanding of ancient Roman history...

The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades-and his transformation into one of the greatest architects of the Italian RenaissanceAs he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were...

An urban history of modern Britain, and how the built environment shaped the nation's politicsFoundations is a history of twentieth-century Britain told through the rise, fall, and reinvention of six different types of urban space: the industrial estate,...

A history of modern European cultural pluralism, its current crisis, and its uncertain futureIn 2010, the leaders of Germany, Britain, and France each declared that multiculturalism had failed in their countries. Over the past decade, a growing consensus...

The first major English-language biography of Francisco Goya y Lucientes, who ushered in the modern era.The life of Francisco Goya (1746-1828) coincided with an age of transformation in Spanish history that brought upheavals in the country's...

The first biography of Kierkegaard's literary muse, from the author of the definitive life of the philosopherKierkegaard's Muse-the first biography of Regine Olsen (1822-1904), the inspiration and one-time fiancee of Danish philosopher Soren...

From acclaimed historian Michael Brenner, a mesmerizing portrait of Munich in the early years of Hitler's quest for powerIn the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I and the failed November Revolution of 191819, the conservative government of...

Postcards from Absurdistan is a cultural and political history of Prague from 1938, when the Nazis destroyed Czechoslovakia's artistically vibrant liberal democracy, to 1989, when the country's socialist regime collapsed after more than four decades of...

The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in the USSR? What did it look, feel, smell, and sound like? In The Soviet Century, Karl...

The legendary Renaissance math duel that ushered in the modern age of algebraThe Secret Formula tells the story of two Renaissance mathematicians whose jealousies, intrigues, and contentious debates led to the discovery of a formula for the solution of...

A vivid and accessible new translation of Cicero's influential writings on the Stoic idea of the divine Most ancient Romans were deeply religious and their world was overflowing with gods - from Jupiter, Minerva, and Mars to countless local...

To what extent was Machiavelli a "Machiavellian"? Was he an amoral adviser of tyranny or a stalwart partisan of liberty? A neutral technician of power politics or a devout Italian patriot? A reviver of pagan virtue or initiator of modern nihilism?...

A sweeping cultural and economic history of porcelain, from the eighteenth century to the present Porcelain was invented in medieval China - but its secret recipe was first reproduced in Europe by an alchemist in the employ of the Saxon king...

In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him. Suny draws on a wealth of...

Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium takes a fresh look at documentary forgery and historical memory in the Middle Ages. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, religious houses across Europe began falsifying texts to improve local...