Global History

Since it first aired in 2011, Game of Thrones galloped up the ratings to become the most watched show in HBO’s history. It is no secret that creator George R.R. Martin was inspired by late 15th century Europe when writing A Song of Ice and Fire, the sprawling saga on which the show is based. Aside from the fantastical elements,...

The curious tale of two priest impersonators in late colonial Mexico Cut loose from their ancestral communities by wars, natural disasters, and the great systemic changes of an expanding Europe, vagabond strangers and others out of place found their way through the turbulent history of early modern Spain and Spanish America. As shadowy characters inspiring deep suspicion, fascination, and sometimes...

"A comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read.” — Nature The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to...

"A comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read.”—Nature The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to kitchens in...

What is fascism and what is populism? What are their connections in history and theory, and how should we address their significant differences? What does it mean when pundits call Donald Trump a fascist, or label as populist politicians who span left and right such as Hugo Chávez, Juan Perón, Rodrigo Duterte, and Marine Le Pen? Federico Finchelstein, one of...

Intellectuals since the Industrial Revolution have been obsessed with whether, when, and why capitalism will collapse. This riveting account of two centuries of failed forecasts of doom reveals the key to capitalism's durability. Prophecies about the end of capitalism are as old as capitalism itself. None have come true. Yet, whether out of hope or fear, we keep looking for...

Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. However, most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the...

A vivid recreation of how the governors and governed of early seventeenth-century Florence confronted, suffered, and survived a major epidemic of plague. Plague remains the paradigm against which reactions to many epidemics are often judged. Here, John Henderson examines how a major city fought, suffered, and survived the impact of plague. Going beyond traditional oppositions between rich and poor, this...

Humanity’s last major source of food from the wild, and how it enabled and shaped the growth of civilisation In this history of fishing—not as sport but as sustenance—archaeologist and best-selling author Brian Fagan argues that fishing was an indispensable and often overlooked element in the growth of civilisation. It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires...

Uncovers the history of creative adaptation and transformation through a close analysis of the creation of the Sefer Hasidim book. In 1538, a partnership of Jewish silk makers in the city of Bologna published a book entitled Sefer Hasidim, a compendium of rituals, stories, and religious instruction that primarily originated in medieval Franco-Germany. How these men, of Italian and Spanish...

It all happened in a flash. February 1933 was the month in which the fate of German writers, as for so many others, was decided. In a tensely spun narrative, Uwe Wittstock tells the story of a demise which was predicted by some but also scarcely thought possible. He reveals how, in a matter of weeks, the glittering Weimar literary...

The first survey of the many redesigned and imitation historical landmarks and objects that dot the globe “John Darlington shows . . . it is not just written history that is malleable; it is also history on the ground, heritage in brick and stone, wood and metal.”—Simon Jenkins, Times Literary Supplement What happens when the past—or, more specifically, a piece...

Everything Is Possible by Joseph Fronczak explores the fascinating history of how the antifascist movement of the 1930s created “the left” as we know it today. In the middle years of the Great Depression, the antifascist movement became a global political force, powerfully uniting people from across divisions of ideology, geography, race, language, and nationality. Joseph Fronczak shows how socialists,...

Empire of Labor tells the story of how hired workers experienced and responded to the rise to power over the long eighteenth century of the English East India Company (EIC), which perennially hired thousands of people in and around its settlements in Bengal. Focusing on boatmen and silk reelers as well as sailors and soldiers—a remarkable look at both indigenous...

The first comparative, comprehensive history of Nazi mass killing – showing how genocidal policies were crucial to the regime’s strategy to win the war Nazi Germany killed approximately 13 million civilians and other non-combatants in deliberate policies of mass murder, mostly during the war years. Almost half the victims were Jewish, systematically destroyed in the Holocaust, the core of the...

A Spectator Book of the Year "Brilliant, ambitious, and often surprising. A remarkable contribution to the current global debate about empire." - William Dalrymple, author of The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire "Remarkable…The richness of detail and evidence that Stern brings to his subject is [new] - as is the lucidity with...

Dust Bowls of Empire offers a profound reinterpretation of the Dust Bowl on the U.S. southern plains and its relevance for today. The 1930s witnessed a harrowing social and ecological disaster, defined by the severe nexus of drought, erosion, and economic depression that ravaged the U.S. southern plains. Known as the Dust Bowl, this crisis has become a major referent...

A study of why the ancient Mediterranean and Indian Ocean took different paths to peace and stability and its lessons for international order today In this book, Divergent Worlds, Amitav Acharya and Manjeet S. Pardesi compare the interplay of power and ideas in the ancient Mediterranean and Indian Ocean to explain why the two regions took divergent paths to peace...

A political history exploring the concept of demos in the French government during the period of 1800 to 1850. In his previous book, Demos Assembled, historian Stephen W. Sawyer offered a transatlantic account of the birth and transformation of the modern democratic state. In Demos Rising, he presents readers of political history with a prequel whose ambitious claim is that...

The currents of history run deep and often unseen beneath the everyday ripple of events. But now and again, the current rises to the surface, and the events of a single day shed an exceptional light on the meaning of the past. Such events are the subject of Days that Changed the World. Some of the 50 days described here...

Jun and Hong were scions of a once great southern Chinese family. Each other's best friend, they grew up in the 1930s during the final days of Old China before the tumult of the twentieth century brought political revolution, violence, and a fractured national identity. By a quirk of timing, at the end of the Chinese Civil War, Jun ended...

The definitive history of how witchcraft and black magic have survived, through the modern era and into the present day Cursed Britain unveils the enduring power of witchcraft, curses, and black magic in modern times. Few topics are so secretive or controversial. Yet, whether in the 1800s or the early 2000s, when disasters struck or personal misfortunes mounted, many Britons...

What really happened in the centuries of conflict between Europe, Russia, China, America, and the peoples of the Muslim world Crusade and Jihad is the first book to encompass, in one volume, the entire history of the catastrophic encounter between the Global North—China, Russia, Europe, Britain, and America—and Muslim societies from Central Asia to West Africa. William R. Polk draws...

In the winter of 1722, on the eve of a major conference between the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois) and Anglo-American colonists, a pair of colonial fur traders brutally assaulted a Seneca hunter near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, the crime ignited a contest between Native American forms of justice—rooted in community, forgiveness, and...

In this book, Contesting the Crusades, Norman Housley, one of the most distinguished historians of the medieval period, provides an introduction to the complex history of crusading. Steers readers through the key debates in this popular area of medieval history. Draws on the author’s 30 years’ experience of crusading scholarship. Issues addressed range from the definition of ‘crusade’, through the...

A master historian illuminates the tumultuous relationship of Mussolini and his young lover, Claretta Petacci. "One of the finest historians of modern Italy, Bosworth has written both a love story, full of passion and jealousy, and a vivid portrait of Italy under a man who dreamt of recreating the Roman empire.”—Caroline Moorehead, Financial Times Few deaths are as gruesome and...

In the late 1600s, Louis XIV assigns Nicolas de la Reynie to bring order to Paris after the brutal deaths of two magistrates. Reynie, pragmatic and fearless, discovers a network of witches, poisoners, and priests whose reach extends all the way to the king's court at Versailles. Based on court transcripts and Reynie's compulsive note-taking, Holly Tucker's engrossing true-crime narrative,...

As omnipresent as it is ungraspable, time has always inspired and eluded attempts to comprehend it. For the early Christians and the twenty-first-century world alike, how have past and future been woven into the present? In Chronos, a leading French historian ranges from Western antiquity to the Anthropocene, pinpointing the crucial turning points in our relationship to time. François Hartog...

As omnipresent as it is ungraspable, time has always inspired and eluded attempts to comprehend it. For the early Christians and the twenty-first-century world, how have past and future been woven into the present? In Chronos, a leading French historian ranges from Western antiquity to the Anthropocene, pinpointing the crucial turning points in our relationship to time. François Hartog considers...

November 12, 1941: war and revolution are in the air. At the Shanghai Race Club, the city's elite prepare to face off their best horses and most nimble jockeys in the annual Champions Day races. Across town and amid tight security, others celebrated the birth of Sun Yat-Sen in a new city centre meant to challenge European imperialism. Thousands more...

In May 1940, the British War Cabinet debated over the course of nine meetings a simple question: Should Britain fight on in the face of overwhelming odds, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives, or seek a negotiated peace? Using Cabinet papers from the United Kingdom’s National Archives, David Owen illuminates in fascinating detail this little-known, yet pivotal, chapter in the...

An intimate look at the 1949 Asian Women’s Conference, the movements it drew from, and its influence on feminist anticolonialism around the world. In 1949, revolutionary activists from Asia hosted a conference in Beijing that gathered together their comrades from around the world. The Asian Women’s Conference developed a new political strategy, demanding that women from occupying colonial nations contest...

Burning the Big House is the gripping story of the tumultuous destruction of the Irish country house, spanning the revolutionary years of 1912 to 1923. During the Irish Revolution nearly three hundred country houses were burned to the ground. These “Big Houses” were powerful symbols of conquest, plantation, and colonial oppression and were caught up in the struggle for independence...

Postwar multilateral cooperation is often viewed as an attempt to overcome the limitations of the nation-state system. However, in 1945, when the United Nations was founded, large parts of the world were still under imperial control. Building States investigates how the UN tried to manage the dissolution of European empires in the 1950s and 1960s—and helped transform the practice of...

The forgotten story of how ordinary families managed financially in the Victorian era—and struggled to survive despite increasing national prosperity “A powerful story of social realities, pressures, and the fracturing of traditional structures.”—Ruth Goodman, Wall Street Journal “Deeply researched and sensitive.”—Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph, "Best History Books of 2020" Nineteenth century Britain saw remarkable economic growth and a rise in...

Some five hundred years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created works of unearthly beauty. A star of Florence's art world, he was commissioned by a member of the city's powerful Medici family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all one hundred cantos of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the ultimate visual homage to that "divine"...

“Shaped by meticulous research, Inglis writes with clarity, pace and a sharp eye for surprising details.” - Alice Loxton, author of Eighteen and Uproar “Deeply researched, smart, poignant, and witty.” - Karen Bloom Gevirtz, author of The Apothecary's Wife Women have been fighting for control over their bodies for thousands of years. From Neolithic hunter-gatherers to the reversal of Roe...

The untold story of Bletchley Park's key role in the success of the Normandy campaign Since the secret of Bletchley Park was revealed in the 1970s, the work of its codebreakers has become one of the most famous stories of the Second World War. But cracking the Nazis’ codes was only the start of the process. Thousands of secret intelligence...

Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the dramatic history of American piracy's "Golden Age"—spanning the late 1600s through to the early 1700s—when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown and then violently opposed them. Through...

Big History and the Future of Humanity "This remains the best single attempt to theorise big history as a discipline that can link core concepts and paradigms across all historical disciplines, from cosmology to geology, from biology to human history. With additional and updated material, the Second Edition also offers a fine introduction to the history of big history and...

The first in-depth study of the collaborative intellectual exchange between the European and the Arabic Republics of Letters. Beyond Orientalism reformulates our understanding of the early modern Mediterranean through the remarkable life and career of Moroccan polymath Ahmad Ibn Qâsim al-Hajarî (ca. 1570-1641). By showing Hajarî’s active engagement with some of the most prominent European Orientalists of his time, Oumelbanine...

In the 1970s, the economic and social foundations of Western Europe underwent an unprecedented transformation. Old industries like coal and steel disappeared, millions of people lost their jobs, and formerly flourishing towns and cities went into decline. Traditional political agendas gave way to new social problems and concerns. What happened to industrial citizens – their workplaces, their careers, and their...

This text offers a complex look at the Ottoman period. The analysis of medieval as well as modern historiography from the perspective of the cultural historian demonstrates how ethnic, tribal, linguistic, religious, and political affiliations were all at play in the struggle for power in Anatolia and the Balkans during the late Middle Ages. The book examines the rise of...

A comprehensive and revelatory history of modern Belarus—from independence to Lukashenka's contested 2020 re-election. "Andrew Wilson has done all students of European politics a great service by making the history of Belarus comprehensible, and by showing how the future of Belarus might be different than its present." —Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands Protests continue in Belarus in the aftermath of...

A new history illuminates the Society of Jesus in its first century from the perspective of those who knew it best: the early Jesuits themselves. The Society of Jesus was established in 1540. In the century that followed, thousands sought to become Jesuits and pursue vocations in religious service, teaching, and missions. Drawing on scores of unpublished biographical documents housed...

In this brilliant work, Amanda Vickery unlocks the homes of Georgian England to examine the lives of the people who lived there. Writing with her customary wit and verve, she introduces us to men and women from all walks of life: gentlewoman Anne Dormer in her stately Oxfordshire mansion, bachelor clerk and future novelist Anthony Trollope in his dreary London...

In an accessible and timely work of scholarship, celebrated historian Joshua B. Freeman tells the story of the factory and examines how it has reflected both our dreams and our nightmares of industrialisation and social change. He whisks readers from the early textile mills that powered the Industrial Revolution to the factory towns of New England, to today's behemoths making...

December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country's law, literature, politics, and popular mythology....

The post–World War II period is typically seen as a time of stark division, an epochal global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, beneath the surface, the postwar era witnessed a striking degree of international cooperation. The United Nations and its agencies, as well as regional organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and private foundations brought together actors...

The newly born League of Nations confronted the post-WWI world—from growing stateless populations to the resurgence of right-wing movements—by aiming to create a transnational, cosmopolitan dialogue on justice. As part of these efforts, a veritable army of League personnel set out to shape “global public opinion,” in favour of the postwar liberal international order. Combining the tools of global intellectual...

An extraordinary work, decades in the making: the first atlas to illustrate the entire scope of the transatlantic slave trade Winner of the Association of American Publishers' 2010 R.R. Hawkins Award and PROSE Award “A monumental chronicle of this historical tragedy.” —Dwight Garner, New York Times Between 1501 and 1867, the transatlantic slave trade claimed an estimated 12.5 million Africans...

Following in the wake of War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, Manuel De Landa presents a synthesis of historical development over the last one thousand years. The work sketches the outlines of a renewed materialist philosophy of history in the tradition of Fernand Braudel, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari, while also engaging the critical new understanding of material processes...

Among all the great transitions that have marked Western history, only one—the triumph of Christianity—can be called in the fullest sense a “revolution.” In this provocative book, one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious “histories” offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart...

Why some of the most vulnerable communities in Europe, from independent cities to new monarchies, welcomed refugees during the Age of Revolutions and prospered. “Janet Polasky unearths an unappreciated history of the experience of asylum in Europe and the United States since the Age of the Democratic Revolutions. Facing squarely the destruction of asylum in our own time, she ends...

The first three editions of this bestselling book have established A Social History of the Media as a classic, providing a masterful overview of communication media and of the social and cultural contexts within which they emerged and evolved over time. This fourth edition has been revised and updated throughout to reflect the latest developments in the field. Additionally, an...

A concise new history of a century of struggles to define Asian identity and express alternatives to European forms of universalism. The balance of global power changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century, above all with the economic and political rise of Asia. Asia after Europe is a bold new interpretation of the period, focusing on the conflicting...

A bold rethinking of the Haitian Revolution reveals the roots of the only successful slave uprising in the modern world. Unearthing the progenitors of the Haitian Revolution has been a historical project of two hundred years. In A Secret among the Blacks, John D. Garrigus introduces two dozen Black men and women and their communities whose decades of resistance to...

In this volume, the Italian novelist and playwright Umberto Eco aims to present a learned summary of mediaeval aesthetic ideas. Juxtaposing theology and science, poetry and mysticism, Eco explores the relationship that existed between the aesthetic theories and the artistic experience and practice of mediaeval culture.

A comprehensive history of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, from 1776 to 1965 Most suffrage histories begin in 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton first publicly demanded the right to vote at the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. And they end in 1920, when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, removing...

A powerful reassessment of a seminal moment in the history of India and the British Empire: the Amritsar Massacre Amritsar 1919 chronicles the run-up to Jallianwala Bagh with spellbinding, almost minute-by-minute focus. . . . Mr. Wagner’s achievement is one of balance—of minutiae and sweep and, above all, of perspective.”—Maxwell Carter, Wall Street Journal The Amritsar Massacre of 1919 was...

With so many of our histories falling into dour critique or blatant celebration, here is a welcome departure: a book that offers hope as well as honesty about the American past. The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the expansion of slavery, Native dispossession, and wars with Canada and Mexico. Mass immigration and powerful religious movements sent tremors through...

With so many of our histories falling into dour critique or blatant celebration, here is a welcome departure: a book that offers hope as well as honesty about the American past. The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the expansion of slavery, Native dispossession, and wars with Canada and Mexico. Mass immigration and powerful religious movements sent tremors through...

In this beautifully written history of America's formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent. Native peoples sought to defend...

In 1913, an unlikely friendship blossomed between Henry Ford and famed naturalist John Burroughs. When their mutual interest in Ralph Waldo Emerson led them to set out in one of Ford's Model Ts to explore the Transcendentalist's New England, the trip would prove to be the first of many excursions that would take Ford and Burroughs, together with an enthusiastic...

New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American Revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American liberty are scrutinised for enslaving Black people themselves: George Washington consistently refused to recognise the...

New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American liberty are scrutinised for enslaving Black people themselves: George Washington consistently refused to recognise the...

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Chinggis Khan and his heirs established the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world, extending from Korea to Hungary and from Iraq, Tibet, and Burma to Siberia. Ruling over roughly two thirds of the Old World, the Mongol Empire enabled people, ideas, and objects to traverse immense geographical and cultural boundaries. Along...

A sweeping historical account of the Later Roman Empire incorporating the latest scholarly research In the newly revised 3rd edition of A History of the Later Roman Empire, 284-700, distinguished historians Geoffrey Greatrex and Stephen Mitchell deliver a thoroughly up-to-date discussion of the Later Roman Empire. This edition includes tables of information, numerous illustrations, maps, and chronological overviews. As the...

The new edition of the acclaimed textbook on modern German history, written by a leading scholar in the field Now in its fifth edition, A History of Germany 1918-2020 provides a clear and well-balanced survey of German history from the creation of the Weimar Republic to the era of Angela Merkel’s Chancellorship. Guiding readers through the complex patterns of the...

The Mycenaean civilisation of the Greek Bronze Age was identified 150 years ago, yet its origins remain obscure. Jack L. Davis, codirector of ongoing excavations at the Palace of Nestor at Pylos, takes readers on a tour of the beginnings of Mycenaean civilisation through a case study of this important site. In collaboration with Sharon R. Stocker, Davis demonstrates that...

A Global History of Sexuality provides a provocative, wide-ranging introduction to the history of sexuality from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Exploring what sexuality has meant in the everyday lives of individuals over the last 200 years, the book is organized around four major themes: The formation of sexual identity The regulation of sexuality by societal norms...

Nothing set the world in motion like gold. Between the discovery of California placer gold in 1848 and the rush to Alaska fifty years later, the search for the precious yellow metal accelerated worldwide circulations of people, goods, capital, and technologies. A Global History of Gold Rushes brings together historians of the United States, Africa, Australasia, and the Pacific World...

Provides a unique and accessible understanding of Sallust and his influence on writing the history of Rome Gaius Sallustius Crispus ('Sallust', 86-35 BCE) is the earliest Roman historian from whom any works survive. His two extant writings chronicle crucial moments of a political, social, and ethical revolution with profound consequences for his own life and those of his audience. After...

A strikingly original exploration of the profound impact of World War II on how we understand the art that survived it. By the end of World War II, an estimated one million artworks and 2.5 million books had been seized from their owners by Nazi forces; many were destroyed. The artworks and cultural artefacts that survived have traumatic, layered histories....

In After Eden, prominent Latin American historian John Chasteen presents a concise, down-to-earth, fast-paced narrative of world history, from the Big Bang to the present. The narrative is animated by stories of people from all walks of life and enriched by insightful analysis and the author's extensive world travel. To tackle today's major problems of global inequality and environmental degradation,...

Learn about the first time in history that people of colour overthrew a European colonial regime to establish an independent country. Describing the only successful slave revolt in world history, the newly revised Second Edition of A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution delivers a nuanced and rigorous treatment of the events of the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th...

"There is no better book on fascism's complex and vexed relationship with truth."—Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them In this short companion to his book From Fascism to Populism in History, world-renowned historian Federico Finchelstein explains why fascists regarded simple and often hateful lies as truth, and why so many of their followers...

'This is history with a surgeon's touch: deft, incisive and sometimes excruciatingly bloody' The Sunday Times 'Utterly eccentric and riveting' Mail on Sunday 'Eye-opening and, frequently, eye-watering . . . a book that invites readers to peer up the bottoms of kings, into the souls of rock stars and down the ear canals of astronauts' The Daily Telegraph How did...

Recreate the action and drama of 17th Century warfare on your tabletop with The Pikeman’s Lament. Start by creating your Officer – is he a natural leader raised from the ranks, the youngest son of a noble family, or an old veteran who has seen too many battles? As you campaign, your Officer will win honour and gain promotion, acquiring...

"A tremendous accomplishment... Zone is, in short, one of the best books of the year" - Daily Beast Exiled from his family for religious transgressions related to his feelings for his cousin, Lakhdar finds himself on the streets of Barcelona, hiding from both the police and the Muslim Group for the Propagation of Koranic Thoughts. This is the same group...