Series: Short Histories

What did people really believe in the Middle Ages? Much of our sense of the medieval period has come down to us from the writings of the learned: the abbots, priors, magnates, scholastic theologians, and others who, between them and across Christendom, controlled the machinery of church and state. For G.R. Evans, too much emphasis has been placed on a...

The Mughal Empire dominated India politically, culturally, socially, economically, and environmentally, from its foundation by Babur, a Central Asian adventurer, in 1526 to the final trial and exile of the last emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar at the hands of the British in 1858. Throughout the empire's three centuries of rise, preeminence, and decline, it remained a dynamic and complex entity...

Classical Greece and its legacy have long inspired a powerful and passionate fascination. The civilisation that bequeathed to later ages drama and democracy, Homer and heroism, myth and Mycenae, and the Delphic Oracle and the Olympic Games has, perhaps more than any other, helped shape the intellectual contours of the modern world. P. J. Rhodes is among the most distinguished...

Of all civilisations of the ancient Mediterranean, it is perhaps the Etruscans who hold the greatest allure. This is fundamentally because, unlike their Greek and Latin neighbours, the Etruscans left no textual sources to posterity. The only direct evidence for studying them and for understanding their culture is the archaeological, and to a much lesser extent, epigraphic record. The Etruscans...

The innovative city culture of Florence was the crucible within which Renaissance ideas first caught fire. With its soaring cathedral dome and its classically-inspired palaces and piazzas, it is perhaps the finest single expression of a society that is still at its heart an urban one. For, as Brian Jeffrey Maxson reveals, it is above all the city-state – the...

Few island nations have stirred the soul like Cuba. From Hemingway’s intoxicating Havana to Ry Cooder’s Buena Vista Social Club, outsiders have persistently been fascinated by Cuba for its music (jazz to rumba), its rich literature, its art and dance (danzón to mambo) and perhaps above all for its bold experiment of a socialist revolution in action. Antoni Kapcia shows...

James I and VI bequeathed his son a reasonably peaceful land in 1625, yet over a decade later, Charles I’s kingdoms erupted one by one into open rebellion—this book explores how this came to be. A Short History of the English Revolution and the Civil Wars by David J. Appleby delves into the interconnected conflicts that arose in the three...

Combining expertise on the Tudor dynasty with an authoritative understanding of its religious and political make-up, A Short History of the Tudors provides a fresh and accessible perspective on one of the most formative periods of British history. Rex considers the ways in which the Tudors shaped the beginnings of modern England through the momentous break with Rome in a...

Now in its second edition, A Short History of the Wars of the Roses is an accessible history of the English civil wars of the mid-15th century. It offers a comprehensive account of the major political events, detailing the 30-year struggle between the dynastic houses of Lancaster and York, and analysing the formal clashes of royalist and rebel armies, such...

In this exciting addition to Bloomsbury’s Short Histories series, Steven Leonard Jacobs critically yet concisely examines the history of Judaism and the Jewish people, drawing from maps, photographs, and archives to illuminate the history of one of the world’s oldest religions. Beginning by establishing a definition of Judaism, Jacobs explores the historiography of the Jewish people, in addition to the...

Incorporating the latest scholarly developments to offer an in-depth account of the history of the Byzantine Empire, this revised edition sheds new light on the Empire’s culture, theology, and economic and socio-political spheres. Charting from the Empire’s origins, to its expansion and influence over the Mediterranean, later revival, and eventual fall – this book covers more than 1,000 years of...

The 1917 Revolution sent shockwaves throughout the globe, setting a chain of events in motion that would change the entire course of the 20th century. With the overthrow of the Romanov Dynasty, Russia was plunged into the political unknown and, from the crucible of social unrest, ideological conflict and violent civil war, the world’s first communist state was forged. In...

Much of our perception of Babylon in the West is filtered through the poignant echoes of loss and longing that resonate in the Hebrew Bible. The lamenting exiles of Judah craved a return to their lost homeland after the sack of Jerusalem in 587 BC and their forcible removal by Nebuchadnezzar to the alien floodlands of the Euphrates. But to...

Offering new insights based on recent archaeological discoveries in their heartland of modern-day Lebanon, Mark Woolmer presents a fresh appraisal of this fascinating, yet elusive, Semitic people. Discussing material culture, language and alphabet, religion (including sacred prostitution of women and boys to the goddess Astarte), funerary custom, and trade and expansion into the Punic west, he explores Phoenicia in all...

It is impossible to understand the history of modern Europe without some knowledge of the Weimar Republic. The brief fourteen-year period of democracy between the Treaty of Versailles and the advent of the Third Reich was marked by unstable government, economic crisis, hyperinflation, and the rise of extremist political movements. At the same time, however, a vibrant cultural scene flourished,...

When, in October 1517, Martin Luther pinned his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, he shattered the foundations of western Christendom. The Reformation of doctrine and practice that followed Luther's seismic action, and protest against the sale of indulgences, fragmented the Church and overturned previously accepted certainties and priorities. But it did more, challenging the...

When, in October 1517, Martin Luther pinned his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, he shattered the foundations of western Christendom. The Reformation of doctrine and practice that followed Luther's seismic action, and protest against the sale of indulgences, fragmented the Church and overturned previously accepted certainties and priorities. But it did more, challenging the...