For thousands of years an enigmatic and astonishingly beautiful piece of Roman art has captivated those who have come in contact with it.Made before the birth of Christ, the Portland Vase, as it is called, is renowned for both its beauty and its mystery.In The Portland Vase, Robin Brooks takes us on a vivid journey across Europe and through the centuries, as this delicate piece of glass, less than ten inches in height, passes through the hands of a stunning cast of charact...

As downward mobility continues to be an international issue, Robin Brooks offers a timely intervention between the humanities and social sciences by examining how Black women’s cultural production engages debates about the growth in income and wealth gaps in global society during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this innovative book employs major contemporary texts by both African American and Caribbean writers—Toni Morrison, Gloria ...

18 biographical dramas based on the lives and loves of celebrated writersThese surprising, revealing dramas take a behind-the-scenes look at some of our best-loved authors, mingling fact and fantasy to explore their extraordinary hidden lives. From love affairs, friendships and family relationships to traumas, tragedies and journeys of self-discovery, we glimpse the unwritten worlds that shaped their unforgettable fiction. Among the star casts are Andrew Sc...

An ambitious work that traces the stories and fates of women in Medieval Europe over the course of a millennium. "A wealth of solid information." — The New York TimesMedieval history is often written as a series of battles and territorial shifts. But the essential contributions of women during this period have been too often relegated to the dustbin of history. In Women in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies reclaim this lost history, in a liv...

Henry Stuart’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale. Shadowed by the gravity of the Thirty Years’ War and the huge changes taking place across Europe in seventeenth-century society, economy, politics and empire, his life was visually and verbally gorgeous.NOW THE SUBJECT OF BBC2 DOCUMENTARY The Best King We Never HadHenry Stuart, Prince of Wales was once the hope of Britain. Eldest son to James VI of Scotland, James I of England, Henry was the epi...

In 1470, a reluctant Lady Anne Neville is betrothed by her father, the politically ambitious Earl of Warwick, to Edward, Prince of Wales. A gentle yet fiercely intelligent woman, Anne has already given her heart to the prince’s younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Unable to oppose her father’s will, she finds herself in line for the throne of England—an obligation that she does not want. Yet fate intervenes when Edward is killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Anne suddenly finds her...

As Tudors go, Elizabeth of York is relatively unknown. Yet she was the mother of the dynasty, with her children becoming King of England (Henry VIII) and Queens of Scotland (Margaret) and France (Mary Rose) and her direct descendants included three Tudor monarchs, two executed queens and, ultimately, the Stuart royal family. Although her offspring took England into the early modern era, Elizabeth's upbringing was rooted firmly in the medieval world. The pivotal moment was 1485. Before then...

In the fifteenth century, the Italian city-state of Florence reached the pinnacle of its renown under the Medici, a family celebrated for the statesmen it produced and its patronage of the arts and letters. Its most illustrious members were Cosmo and his grandson Lorenzo, surnamed the Magnificent. With his brother Giuliano, Lorenzo, on the death of their father Piero, succeeded to the vast wealth and political power of the family. The subsequent assassination of Giuliano left Lorenzo alone...

It is a city of seemingly irreconcilable opposites, simultaneously glorious and ghastly. And it is Ben Taylor’s remarkable ability to meld these contradictions into a whole that makes this the exciting and original book it is. He takes his stroll around the bay with the acute sensitivity of a lover, the good humor of a friend, and the wisdom of a seeker who has immersed himself in all aspects of this contrapuntal culture. His curiosity leads him to many byways, both real and metaphoric, an...

If you think you've already heard everything there is to know about the royal family - think again!Even Queen Victoria herself would be amused (not to mention astonished) by the hundreds of revelations to be found within The Royal Book of Lists.Covering over a thousand years of royal history, this fascinating book tells the often turbulent story of a nation and an empire through those privileged few who came to embody it. In the process, author Matt Richardson has succeeded...

In this magnificent vision of Venice, Peter Ackroyd turns his unparalleled skill at evoking place from London and the River Thames, to Italy and the city of myth, mystery and beauty. He leads us through the history of the city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and a trading empire, the wars against Napoleon and the tourist invasions of today. There are wars and sieges, scandals and seductions, fountain...

Did a Scottish nobleman lead an expedition to America nearly 100 years before Columbus? Mounting evidence suggests that in 1398 'Prince' Henry St Clair, Earl of Orkney, visited Nova Scotia and even established a colony there. The theory about the New World colony originated with a work known as the Zeno Narrative published in Venice in 1558, telling of a voyage to America at the end of the 1390s with a prince of the Scottish islands.