Jane Dawson has written the definitive life of John Knox, a leader of the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century Scotland. Based in large part on previously unavailable sources, including the recently discovered papers of Knox’s close friend and colleague Christopher Goodman, Dawson’s biography challenges the traditionally held stereotype of this founder of the Presbyterian denomination as a strident and misogynist religious reformer whose influence rarely extended beyond Scotland. ...

A six-part crime drama about a group of Manchester teens fighting for justiceWhen their friend Keith Brandon is charged with murdering a policeman, Gemma, Liam and Andy decide to bunk off school and go to the trial. Keith had a knife, a motive and has confessed to the crime, but they're sure he didn't do it - so when he's found guilty, they can't believe it.Determined to prove Keith's innocence, they take their story to the local media, but no-one will take...

She was the first woman to inherit the throne of England, a key player in one of Britain’s stormiest eras, and a leader whose unwavering faith and swift retribution earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary.” Now, in this impassioned and absorbing debut, historian Anna Whitelock offers a modern perspective on Mary Tudor and sets the record straight once and for all on one of history’s most compelling and maligned rulers.Though often overshadowed by her long-reigning sister, Elizabeth I,...

The time was out of joint in a very literal sense of that somewhat hackneyed phrase. Every established institution - political, social, and religious - was shaken and showed the rents and fissures caused by time and by the growth of a new life underneath it. The empire - the Holy Roman - was in a parlous way as regarded its cohesion. The power of the princes, the representatives of local centralised authority, was proving itself too strong for the power of the emperor, the recognised repre...

The New World story of the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca in his own wordsThis riveting true story is the first major narrative detailing the exploration of North America by Spanish conquistadors (1528-1536). The author, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, was a fortune-seeking Spanish nobleman and the treasurer of an expedition sent to claim for Spain a vast area of today's southern United States. In simple, straightforward prose, Cabeza de Vaca chronicl...

From an obscure family in a small provincial town, Shakespeare had no formal education after the age of thirteen. His surviving handwriting consists of six signatures on legal documents. His will makes no mention of his books or manuscripts. His two daughters were illiterate. There is, in other words, a seemingly enormous gap between the meagreness of Shakespeare's background and his achievements as the greatest and most famous writer in the English language. Over the years, numerous 'cand...

Cultures of Plague opens a new chapter in the history of medicine. Neither the plague nor the ideas it stimulated were static, fixed in a timeless Galenic vacuum over five centuries, as historians and scientists commonly assume. As plague evolved in its pathology, modes of transmission, and the social characteristics of its victims, so too did medical thinking about plague develop. This study of plague imprints from academic medical treatises to plague poetry highlights the most f...

Despite the relatively small number of formal Christian believers in japan-less than one percent of the total population-Christianity has become and is likely to continue to be an important strand in modern Japanese culture.The Christian social message of the early decades of the twentieth century has become a lasting part of social welfare attitudes. The strong emphasis on education of the Christian missionary movement has left a visible legacy throughout Japanese...

A portrait of the renowned theologian and a detailed examination of the Reformation's impact on modern faith and society.When Martin Luther published his ninety-five Theses in October 1517, his criticism of indulgences became a rejection of the papacy and the Catholic Church emphasizing the Bible as the sole authority for Christian faith, radicalizing a continent, fracturing the Holy Roman Empire, and dividing Western civilization in ways Luther—a deeply d...

How much does the Thomas Cromwell of popular novels and television series resemble the real Cromwell? This meticulous study of Cromwell’s early political career expands and revises what has been understood concerning the life and talents of Henry VIII’s chief minister. Michael Everett provides a new and enlightening account of Cromwell’s rise to power, his influence on the king, his role in the Reformation, and his impact on the future of the nation.   Controversially, Everett de...

A fascinating and lavishly illustrated guide to the world of the Samurai warrior, delving into the history of their campaigning, their arms and armour, as well as their day-to-day lives and their warrior ethos.The world of the samurai, the legendary elite warrior cult of old Japan, has for too long been associated solely with military history and has largely remained a mystery. In this exciting book, Stephen Turnbull, the world's leading authority on the samurai, g...

In 1543 three Portuguese merchants entered a turbulent Japan, bringing with them the first firearms the Japanese had ever seen: simple matchlock muskets called arquebuses.They proved a decisive addition to the Japanese armoury, as for centuries the samurai had fought only with bow, sword and spear. In 1575, one of the greatest original thinkers in the history of samurai, Oda Nobunaga, arranged his arquebusiers in ranks three deep behind a palisade and proceeded, qu...