Here, the eminent historian Christopher Hibbert explores life in Victorian England, a time when the British Empire was at its height, when the prosperous English basked in the Pax Britannica and thought their progress and stability would go on forever.

The tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are among the best-known stories in the world, but they are often relegated to the realm of legend. However, Arthur was a man, not a myth. In this book, acclaimed historian Christopher Hibbert vividly brings to life the sixth-century British monarch and his extraordinary court.

A "well-written, lucid, and vivid" recounting of the battles, beheadings, and other dramatic events that changed modern history ( The Washington Post).Works from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo to Citizens by Simon Schama have been inspired by the French Revolution. The Days of the French Revolution brings to life the events that changed the future of Western civilization.As compelling as any fiction thriller, this real-lif...

A portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington, and the fateful clash of their armies in 1815 from "a remarkably good writer" ( The New York Times). It was the greatest of battles—the defining military engagement of the nineteenth century that forever ended one man's dreams of a European empire unified under his rule. This epoch-defining conflict would ultimately be remembered for the showdown between two of history's most legendary com...

'Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,As his corse to the rampart we hurried.'—from 'The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna' by Charles WolfeOne of the best remembered poems in the English language has served to keep alive the memory of Sir John Moore and of his burial at Corunna on 17 January, 1809. The story of the battle which he fought on the previous day and of the short campaign and horrifying retreat which preceded it is, however, not so well known.T...

Had the camp been allowed to award one VC, the recipient of that honour would have been Arthur Lang, and that by universal acclamation... In September1857, an inexperienced young Engineer officer, was given what turned out to be a key role at the turning point of the Indian Mutiny. He had to decide weather the breaches at the Kashmere bastion were wide enough to allow for the attack, and had then lead the assault on himself. To those who saw him then, 'fighting like a paladin,' through the...

This colorful history of a powerful family brings the world they lived in—the glittering Rome of the Italian Renaissance—to life.The name Borgia is synonymous with the corruption, nepotism, and greed that were rife in Renaissance Italy. The powerful, voracious Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI, was the central figure of the dynasty. Two of his seven papal offspring also rose to power and fame—Lucrezia Borgia, his daughter, whose husband w...

In this book, first published in Christopher Hibbert, one of Britain's foremost historians, tells the true story of the Battle of Arnhem which was fought in September 1944 on Dutch soil and made famous in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.Nine thousand men of the First British Airborne Division were parachuted into the peaceful countryside that surrounded Arnhem. Their objective was to capture and hold the bridge over the Rhine ahead of the advancing British Second Army. Nine days late...

This book is as captivating as the city itself. Hibbert's gift is weaving political, social and art history into an elegantly readable and marvellously lively whole. The author's book on Florence will also be at once a history and a guide book and will be enhanced by splendid photographs and illustrations and line drawings which will describe all teh buildings and treasures of the city.

If you want to discover the captivating history of the French Revolution, this is the book for you . . .Concise, convincing and exciting, this is Christopher Hibbert's brilliant account of the events that shook eighteenth-century Europe to its foundation. With a mixture of lucid storytelling and fascinating detail, he charts the French Revolution from its beginnings at an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789, right through to the 'coup ...

At its height Renaissance Florence was a centre of enormous wealth, power and influence. A republican city-state funded by trade and banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by rich mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici. This enthralling book charts the family’s huge influence on the political, economic and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves throug...

The vivid account of how a brilliant plan turned into an epic tragedy - made into the BAFTA award-winning film A BRIDGE TOO FAR'Alive with the detail that evokes the smoking background' DAILY TELEGRAPH'Finely recorded...truly the battle of Arnhem has been fortunate in its historian' SUNDAY TIMESThis book tells the true story of the Battle of Arnhem which was fought in September 1944.Nine thousand men of the ...