**"History writing at its glorious best."--The New York Times"A triumphant success. [Blanning] brings knowledge, expertise, sound judgment and a colorful narrative style."--The EconomistThe New York Times bestselling volume in the Penguin History of Europe series**Between the end of the Thirty Years' War and the Battle of Waterloo, Europe underwent an extraordinary transformatoin that saw five of the modern world's great revolutions--scien...

The definitive biography of the legendary autocrat whose enlightened rule transformed the map of Europe and changed the course of historyFew figures loom as large in European history as Frederick the Great. When he inherited the Prussian crown in 1740, he ruled over a kingdom of scattered territories, a minor Germanic backwater. By the end of his reign, the much larger and consolidated Prussia ranked among the continent’s great powers. In this magisterial biography...

From the acclaimed author of The Pursuit of Glory and Frederick the Great, a riotous biography of the charismatic ruler of 18th-century Poland and Saxony - and his catastrophic reign.Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2025Shortlisted for the 2025 Apollo Book of the Year Award'It's been a superb year for history but Augustus the Strong ranks up there with the very very best! I ca...

George I was not the most charismatic of the Hanoverian monarchs to have reigned in England but he was probably the most important. He was certainly the luckiest.Born the youngest son of a landless German duke, he was taken by repeated strokes of good fortune to become, first the ruler of a major state in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and then the sovereign of three kingdoms (England, Ireland and Scotland).Tim Blanning's incisive short biography examines George...

“A splendidly pithy and provocative introduction to the culture of Romanticism.”—The Sunday Times“[Tim Blanning is] in a particularly good position to speak of the arrival of Romanticism on the Euorpean scene, and he does so with a verve, a breadth, and an authority that exceed every expectation.”—National ReviewFrom the preeminent historian of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries comes a superb, concise accou...

A distinguished historian chronicles the rise of music and musicians in the West from lowly balladeers to masters employed by fickle patrons, to the great composers of genius, to today’s rock stars. How, he asks, did music progress from subordinate status to its present position of supremacy among the creative arts? Mozart was literally booted out of the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg “with a kick to my arse,” as he expressed it. Yet, less than a hundred years later, Europe’s most p...

The New York Times bestselling volume in the Penguin History of Europe seriesBetween the end of the Thirty Years' War and the Battle of Waterloo, Europe underwent an extraordinary transformation that saw five of the modern world's great revolutions—scientific, industrial, American, French, and romantic. In this much-admired addition to the monumental Penguin History of Europe series, Tim Blanning brilliantly investigates the forces that transformed Europe ...

**“The latest volume to appear in the Penguin History of Europe. Like its companion volumes, [Christendom Destroyed] is no breezy survey but a masterly synthesis of depth and breadth."*—*The Wall Street Journal“The political and religious conflicts of early modern Europe receive high-quality treatment from Greengrass.... an excellent addition to the new Penguin History of Europe.”—Financial Times**From peasants to princes, no one was untouched by ...

**New York Times BestsellerA New York Times Notable BookNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Kirkus ReviewsFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction)Shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in Historical LiteratureFinalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History)A San Francisco Chronicle Hol...

The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the wor...

Bart D. Ehrman, the New York Times bestselling author of Jesus, Interrupted and God’s Problem reveals which books in the Bible’s New Testament were not passed down by Jesus’s disciples, but were instead forged by other hands—and why this centuries-hidden scandal is far more significant than many scholars are willing to admit. A controversial work of historical reporting in the tradition of Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan, Ehrman’s Forged delivers a stunning explication...

Filled with unforgettable stories of emperors, generals, and religious patriarchs, as well as fascinating glimpses into the life of the ordinary citizen, Lost to the West reveals how much we owe to the Byzantine Empire that was the equal of any in its achievements, appetites, and enduring legacy.For more than a millennium, Byzantium reigned as the glittering seat of Christian civilization. When Europe fell into the Dark Ages, Byzantium held fast against Muslim expansion, k...