Highlighting the key events, ideas, and individuals that have shaped modern Europe, this fresh and lively book provides a concise history of the continent from the Enlightenment to the present. Drawing on the enduring theme of revolution, David S. Mason explores the political, economic, and scientific causes and consequences of revolution; the development of human rights and democracy; and issues of European identity and integration.

He deliberately avoids a detailed chronology of every count...

One of the great landmarks of modern history publishing, Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is the most authoritative social, cultural and narrative history of the French Revolution ever produced.

It was Thomas Jefferson who envisioned the United States as a great 'empire of liberty.' In the first new one-volume history in two decades, David Reynolds takes Jefferson's phrase as a key to the saga of America - helping unlock both its grandeur and its paradoxes. He examines how the anti-empire of 1776 became the greatest superpower the world has seen, how the country that offered liberty and opportunity on a scale unmatched in Europe nevertheless founded its prosperity on the labour of bl...

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that it never dies peacefully. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.

The "Four Horsemen" of leveling-mass-mobilization warf...

The End of the Megamachine provides a uniquely comprehensive picture of the roots of the destructive forces that are threatening the future of humankind today. Spanning 5000 years of history, the book shows how the three tyrannies of militarized states, capital accumulation and ideological power have been steering both ecosystems and societies to the brink of collapse. With the growing instability of the Megamachine in the 21st century, new dangers open up as well as new possibilities for sys...

This is the most comprehensive history of the Netherlands available in the English language. It surveys Dutch history from the 16th century, when the nation took shape as a geographical, administrative and political entity, right through to the Netherlands of today. Examining domestic politics and wider international contexts, as well as economic and cultural history, Friso Wielenga provides a varied and in-depth investigation that will lead to a rich understanding of the country's past.

The ...

Yuval Noah Harari's bestselling phenomenon now in a beautifully packaged new special edition. Planet Earth is 4.5 billion years old.

An unprecedented analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria's ongoing civil war"One of the best informed and non-partisan accounts of the Syrian tragedy yet published."-Patrick Cockburn, Independent Syria's brutal, long-lasting civil war is widely viewed as a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the fray. But in this book Christopher Phillips shows the crucial roles that were played b...

This is a thoroughly updated and revised edition of a popular classic of modern anthropology. The authors provide summaries of 'Enlightenment', 'Romantic' and 'Victorian' anthropology, from the cultural theories of Morgan and Taylor to the often neglected contributions of German scholars. The ambiguous relationship between anthropology and national cultures is also considered.

The book provides an unparalleled account of theoretical developments in anthropology from the 1920s to the present, ...

Fully updated and carefully revised, this new 2nd edition of History by Numbers stands alone as the only textbook on quantitative methods suitable for students of history. Even the numerically challenged will find inspiration. Taking a problem-solving approach and using authentic historical data, it describes each method in turn, including its origin, purpose, usefulness and associated pitfalls.

The problems are developed gradually and with narrative skill, allowing readers to experience the ...