In 1741 a VOC ship from India arrives in the Netherlands, with a miraculous animal on board that no one in Europe has ever seen before: a young rhino named Clara. For no less than seventeen years she travelled with her owner Douwe Mout through almost every country in Europe. Wherever she is exhibited, she is a sensation; she grows into the most famous rhino in European history.

She is a star, a wonder for science and a muse for artists who immortalise her in paintings, drawings, sculptures an...

Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, first published in 1866, is a collection of 24 of the most commonly held superstitions of the Medieval era. For each story, Baring-Gould presents his research into the history and possible inspiration for the myth. Included among these familiar tales are: The Wandering Jew, the story of the Jewish shoemaker who is doomed to wander the earth until the Second Coming. William Tell, the Swiss hero who shot an apple off his son’s head. Saint George, a Christian...

'A fascinating story about a religion in a surprisingly precarious position' Dan Jones, Sunday Times

'Superb storytelling ... captivating and profound' Literary Review

'A page-turner' The Spectator

*A major new reinterpretation of Christendom, by one of our foremost medieval historians*

In the fourth century AD, a new faith exploded out of Palestine. Overwhelming the paganism of Rome, and converting the Emperor Constantine in the process, it resoundingly defeated a host of other rivals. Almos...

'This is bravura narrative history underpinned by passionate advocacy for the women whom medieval history has too often ignored or overlooked. Femina is essential reading' - Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and Powers and Thrones

'I am the fiery life of divine substance, I blaze above the beauty of the fields, I shine in the waters, I burn in sun, moon and stars' - Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179)

The middle ages are seen as a bloodthirsty time of Vikings, saints and kings: ...

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes, World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting. Key themes, such as communication, trade, order, slavery, religion, war, identity, modernity, norms and ecology, are linked to specific world regions, which tell a story about how local ideas and individual contacts developed, started to overlap and ...

In the Chinese Revolution of 1925–27 the Communist International played a very great role, depicted in this book quite comprehensively. We would, however, seek in vain in the library of the Communist International for a single book which attempts in any way to give a rounded picture of the Chinese Revolution. Instead, we find scores of “conjunctural” works’ which docilely reflect each zigzag in the politics of the Communist International, or, more correctly, of Soviet diplomacy in Chi...

Edward William Lane (17 September 1801 – 10 August 1876) was a British orientalist, translator and lexicographer. He is known for his Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians and the Arabic-English Lexicon, as well as his translations of One Thousand and One Nights and Selections from the Kurán.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andris Kursietis has been a researcher of military history for fi ft y years, using re-sources that span the globe. His latest book, “Bulgaria’s Military Leadership 1900 - 1945” contains the military biographies of the senior generals and admirals who served the Kingdom of Bulgaria during the fi rst forty-fi ve years of the 20th Century, a period during which Bulgaria was involved in three wars: the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), World War I (1915-1918) and World War II (19...

In March 1945, the German desperate offensive on the Danube began. While the Sixth SS Armored Army came out of positions to establish bridgeheads across the river, the STAVKA, Russia’s supreme command, was already making plans for the attack on Vienna. For ten days the German army plodded eastward until it was left exhausted. The big breakthrough did not materialize. On March 16, the Vienna operation began. The attacker became the defender, and between Budapest and Vienna the German army fo...

*Shortlisted for the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History*

'An enthralling account of a pivotal moment in modern history. . . replete with startling revelations about the deception and mutual suspicion that brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of Armageddon in October 1962' Martin Chilton, Independent

The definitive new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize

For more than four weeks in the au...