16th Century

On the 500th anniversary of the Reformation comes this compelling, illuminating, and expansive religious history that examines the complicated and unintended legacies of Martin Luther....

In The Faithful Executioner, Harrington vividly re-creates a life filled with stark contrasts, from the young apprentice's rigorous training under his executioner father....

From author Eric Metaxas comes a brilliant and inspiring biography of the most influential man in modern history, Martin Luther, in time for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation....

This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - and their heated rivalry....

England's Tudor monarchs - Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I - are perhaps the most celebrated and fascinating of all royal families in history....

The Teutonic Knights were powerful and ferocious advocates of holy war. William Urban's narrative charts the rise and fall of the Order and, in an accessible and engaging style, throws light on a band of knights whose deeds and motives have long been misunderstood....

Robert Goodwin delves into previously unrecorded sources to bring a tumultuous and exciting period to life. Spain is a revealing portrait of an empire at the height of its power and a world at the dawn of a new age....

The Spanish Empire was the first truly global empire and the first to be described as one on which “the sun never sets.” It rapidly grew to become one of the largest and most powerful empires in the history of the world and brought us goods such as potatoes, chocolate....

Grounded in excellent primary source research, Thomas Cromwell gives an inside look at a monarchy that has captured the Western imagination for centuries....

Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography....

Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, but in this lively and startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through their hearts more than their minds....

Catherine de Medici's father-in-law, King Francis of France, was the perfect Renaissance knight, the movement's exemplar and its Gallic interpreter. An aesthete, a diplomat par excellence....

A best-selling historian recounts 16 years that shook the world - the epic clash between Europe and the Ottoman Turks that ended the Renaissance and brought Islam to the gates of Vienna....

The story of the 16th-century’s epic contest for the spice trade, which propelled European maritime exploration and conquest across Asia and the Pacific.

Cabeza de Vaca was part of a 1527 Spanish expedition to explore the region north of the Gulf of Mexico. His group lost contact with their ships, and traveled on foot across Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico for the next eight years....

King at 9 and dead at 15, Edward VI oversaw a brief but dramatic chapter in English history. Described by his father as his "most precious jewel", Edward’s birth in 1537 marked the end of Henry VIII’s quest to procure a son and heir to continue the Tudor dynasty....

Three generations of English merchant adventurers - not the Pilgrims, as we have so long believed - were the earliest founders of America. Profit - not piety - was their primary motive....

This is the story of Elizabeth I's inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life....

The most profound characteristic of Western Europe in the Middle Ages was its cultural and religious unity, a unity secured by a common alignment with the Pope in Rome....

In England in the Age of Shakespeare, Jeremy Black takes readers on a tour of life in the streets, homes, farms, churches, and palaces of the Bard’s era....

Illegitimate children, adulterous queens, impotent kings, and a whole dynasty resting on their shoulders....

Like its popular and acclaimed predecessors, Restoration London and Dr Johnson's London....

Born in the midst of the Wars of the Roses, Margaret Beaufort became the greatest heiress of her time....

Mary Boleyn, ‘the infamous other Boleyn girl’, began her court career as the mistress of the king of France....

During the long 18th century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. Author Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East....