Product Description: Europe in 1618 was riven between Protestants and Catholics, Bourbon and Hapsburg--as well as empires, kingdoms, and countless principalities. After angry Protestants tossed three representatives of the Holy Roman Empire out the window of the royal castle in Prague, world war spread from Bohemia with relentless abandon, drawing powers from Spain to Sweden into a nightmarish world of famine, disease, and seemingly unstoppable destruction...read more

Product Description: A wonderfully bold and wide-ranging narrative of the world's defining events from the beginning of civilization to the early Renaissance. "Her style is a marvel of clarity. And, in sheer readability she is a match for any historian living or dead...read more

Peter Kien lives secluded in his library until he marries his housekeeper, who pushes him into the harshness of the outside world

Essays--that enlarge horizons, guesses at motivation, unravels intricate sequence of events--give the joys of history

Product Description: James Graham, first Marquess of Montrose, struggled for years against the anti-royalist forces of Civil War Scotland. He inspired Sir Walter Scott and John Buchan, and is still at the center of historical controversies. This classic biography recounts his youth in St...read more

Product Description: A wonderfully bold and wide-ranging narrative of the world's defining events from the beginning of civilization to the early Renaissance. "Her style is a marvel of clarity. And, in sheer readability she is a match for any historian living or dead...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: As the ruthless servant of Charles I, Wentworth rose to be the most powerful and hated man in Britain, only to be deserted by the master he had served and to go the scaffold to appease the wrath of the people. This biography shows him as a very complex character.

Product Description: A classic history, by ³the best narrative historian writing in the English language.² Lawrence Stone, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The reign of Charles I, defined by religious conflict, a titanic power struggle with Parliament, and culminating in the English Civil Wars, the execution of the king, and the brief abolition of the monarchy, was one of the most turbulent in English history...read more