**In this charming journey into the past, a historian reveals medieval wisdom that can still guide us today."One of the most compelling medieval history books I have ever read." —Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England**A few years ago, Peter Jones was teaching medieval history at a university in Siberia when living through his third icy winter tipped him into a dark place. Luckily, he knew something few of us know: that The Middle Age...

The untold story of the real people who built an empireThe plebs were the backbone of Roman civilization. They were the farmers who fed the city, the soldiers who conquered the Mediterranean, and the craftsmen who built the monuments we still admire today.In Plebs Romana, renowned classicist and bestselling author Peter Jones takes readers through the twists and turns of Rome's turbulent history—from bloody conquests and civil wars to street riots ...

In this revealing and entertaining guide to how the Romans confronted their own mortality, Peter Jones shows us that all the problems associated with old age and death that so transfix us today were already dealt with by our ancient ancestors two thousand years ago. Romans inhabited a world where man, knowing nothing about hygiene let alone disease, had no defences against nature. Death was everywhere. Half of all Roman children were dead by the age of five. Only eight per cent of the popu...

'The first great book, and the first great book about the suffering and loss of war' GuardianOne of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its centre is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, who refuses to fight after being humiliated by his leader Agamemnon. But when the Trojan Hector kills Achilles' close friend Patroclus, he storms back into ba...

**NOW A MAJOR FILM DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN'The Odyssey is a poem of extraordinary pleasures: it is a salt-caked, storm-tossed, wine-dark treasury of tales, of many twists and turns, like life itself' Guardian**The epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one of the earliest and greatest works of Western literature. Confronted by natural and supernatural threats - ship-wrecks, battles, monsters and the implacable ...

Donald Fagen will forever be associated with Steely Dan, the band he formed with Walter Becker and four other musicians in 1972.The smooth, radio-friendly veneer of the duo's songs made Steely Dan internationally popular and famous in the 1970s, but the polish glossed over the underlying layers of anger, disappointment, sleaze, and often downright weirdness lurking just beneath the surface. The elliptical lyrics were—and continue to be—an endless source of fascinati...

Crossing the Park: The Men Who Dared to Play for Both Liverpool and Everton casts a spotlight on the players who have turned out for both clubs.Despite less than a mile separating the two teams, only 34 men have worn the colours of both and it' s been more than 20 years since a direct transfer between the sides. Why have so few players crossed the park? What is the legacy of those who did?From Liverpool' s ' Team of Macs' adorned ...

Liddell at One Hundred celebrates the life of Liverpool and Scotland legend Billy Liddell. Born in Fife in 1922, Billy made the move from Scotland to Liverpool at 16, but the Second World War delayed his debut. After serving in the RAF as a navigator, he returned to football and won the league with Liverpool in his first full season with the club after the war. A diehard Red, Billy spent his whole career with the club, scoring 228 times in 534 appearances between 1938 and 1961. He...

In this compelling tour of the classical world, Peter Jones reveals how it is the power, scope and fascination of their ideas that makes the Ancient Greeks and Romans so important and influential today. For over 2,000 years these ideas have gripped Western imagination and been instrumental in the way we think about the world. Covering everything from philosophy, history and architecture to language and grammar, Jones uncovers their astonishing intellectual, political and literary achieveme...

Peter Jones takes the reader on a fascinating journey along the highways and byways of Roman life and culture, telling the amazing stories behind the original Latin meanings and uses of hundreds of our everyday words. Taking in every aspect of the ancient world, including science, religion, military matters, politics and literature, Jones shows just how much the English language owes to the ancient Romans and the role Latin has played in the creation of our vast vocabulary.

The ancient Greeks gave us our alphabet and much of our scientific, medical, and cultural language; they invented democracy, atomic theory, and the rules of logic and geometry; laid the foundations of philosophy, history, tragedy, and comedy; and debated everything from the good life and the role of women, to making sense of foreigners and the best form of government, all in the most sophisticated terms. But who were they? In Eureka!, Peter Jones tells their epic story, which begi...

Peter Jones takes the reader on a fascinating journey along the highways and byways of Roman life and culture, telling the amazing stories behind the original Latin meanings and uses of hundreds of our everyday words. Taking in every aspect of the ancient world, including science, religion, military matters, politics and literature, Jones shows just how much the English language owes to the ancient Romans and the role Latin has played in the creation of our vast vocabulary.