European Tragedy

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.

From the moderator of The New York Times philosophy blog "The Stone," a book that argues that if we want to understand ourselves we have to go back to theater, to the stage of our lives Tragedy presents a world of conflict and troubling emotion, a world where private and public lives collide...

'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago. MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the...

“EMINENTLY PROVOCATIVE AND READABLE.”—THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Sir Alistair Horne has been a close observer of war and history for more than fifty years and in this wise and masterly work, he revisits six battles of the past century and examines the strategies, leadership, preparation, and...

Afonso da Maia has spent a long life trying to be what Portugal should have been: cultivated, liberal, serious, a man of genuine civilization in a country that keeps failing to become one. He raises his grandson Carlos — his son Pedro's marriage has ended in abandonment and suicide, the abandoned daughter disappeared with her mother into an unknown future — with deliberate care, sends him to England, forms him as the Geração de 70's ideals would have formed a man: intelligent, cosmopolitan, equipped with everything that Portugal needs and that Portugal, in its current condition, has ...

Afonso da Maia has spent a long life trying to be what Portugal should have been: cultivated, liberal, serious, a man of genuine civilization in a country that keeps failing to become one. He raises his grandson Carlos — his son Pedro's marriage has ended in abandonment and suicide, the abandoned daughter disappeared with her mother into an unknown future — with deliberate care, sends him to England, forms him as the Geração de 70's ideals would have formed a man: intelligent, cosmopolitan, equipped with everything that Portugal needs and that Portugal, in its current condition, has ...

"To belong to yourself—that’s the whole trick of life." In the lush, sunlit Moscow summer of 1833, sixteen-year-old Vladimir Petrovich experiences the intoxicating fever of youth. When an eccentric, impoverished princess and her family move into the neighboring manor wing, Vladimir’s sheltered world is shattered. At its center stands Zinaida: twenty-one, radiantly beautiful, and fiercely independent. Surrounded by an entourage of spellbound admirers whom she manipulates and torments with casual brilliance, Zinaida draws the innocent Vladimir into her orbit. Enraptured and bewildered, ...

Intergenerational trauma. A search for closure. After his mother disappears during WW2, will uncovering painful truths help him find redemption? Pre-Soviet Ukraine, 1915. Katarina Rempel dreams of impossible futures. Born into a traditional Mennonite family and expectations of marrying young, the feisty teenager yearns to leave her staid community behind and travel the world. But when bandits attack their farm, she barely survives with her body and mind wounded. Germany, 1951. Peter Krahn longs to make sense of the past. Discovering his adopted mother’s secrets in a box of forgotten ...

The epic story of the Congo-Océan railroad and the human costs and contradictions of modern empire. The Congo-Océan railroad stretches across the Republic of Congo from Brazzaville to the Atlantic port of Pointe-Noir. It was completed in 1934, when Equatorial Africa was a French colony, and it...

Four neo-classical tragedies from the renowned French dramatist, with star-studded casts including Timothy West, Prunella Scales and Geraldine McEwan Jean-Baptiste Racine stands with Molière and Corneille as one of the three premier dramatists of 17th-century France. A foundational figure in...

Experience the tragic collapse of European democracy as brutal ideological conflict tears a fragile nation apart. Perfect for your daily commute, this gripping military history immerses you in the turbulent streets and battlefields of 1930s Spain. Dive into a thought-provoking exploration of...

Brought to you by Penguin. The definitive new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize For more than four weeks in the autumn of 1962 the world teetered. The consequences of a misplaced step during the Cuban...

A brilliantly sunny day, and then the explosion; on what had been an ordinary weekday, there is suddenly fire, smoke, confusion, bodies, panic... On May 7, 1915, the ocean liner Lusitania was struck by a terrifying new weapon-and became a casualty of a terrible new kind of war. This is a vivid...

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Adults in the Room by Yanis Varoufakis. *** 'One of the greatest political memoirs of all time' (Guardian) *** What happens when you take on the establishment? In this blistering, personal account, world-famous economist...

Au XIème siècle, en Espagne, à la cour de Castille, un drame humain se noue. Don Rodrigue et Chimène s'aiment. Mais le Roi Don Ferdinand confie l'éducation de son fils à Don Diègue, le père de Rodrigue, ce qui provoque la jalousie et la déception de Don Gomès, le père de Chimène. Celui-ci donne une gifle à Don Diègue, le provoquant ainsi en duel. Le père de Rodrigue demande à son fils de laver son honneur, et Rodrigue se voit obliger de combattre le père de sa bien-aimée.

Brought to you by Penguin. In early 1461, a teenage boy won a battle on a freezing morning in the Welsh marches, and claimed the crown of England. He was Edward IV, first king of the usurping house of York. The country, crippled by economic crisis, insurgency, and a corrupt and bankrupt...

Two Masterful Tales of Power, Passion, and Betrayal In The Courtier, Alexandre Dumas transports readers to the treacherous court of King Philip III of Spain, where ambition and honor collide in a devastating tragedy. Rodrigues Calderon, a cunning social climber who has risen from obscurity to become the confidant of princes, faces an impossible choice when his former pupil, the noble Don Martin Fonseca, seeks his help to marry the beautiful artist Margarita. But when the Spanish prince also desires Margarita, and the Inquisition, the Duke of Lerme, and the king himself demand Calderon's ...

A perfect crime. A bad deal. And a man who thought he was smarter than the devil. The year is 1982. Italy still prints its own paper money. The Cold War is alive and well. And inside the Italian mint, temptation is everywhere. A Rome-based mafia kingpin is offered something that sounds impossible—and far too good to be true. Massimo Serpieri is a brilliant but deeply dissatisfied technician at the Italian mint. After years of watching billions of lire roll off the presses, temptation finally wins. Massimo believes he has discovered a flawless method to create perfect counterfeit U.S. ...

A gripping account of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II from the bestselling author of Chernobyl On a warm, sunny afternoon in May 1981, more than 10,000 pilgrims from all over the world gather on St. Peter’s Square for the start of Pope John Paul’s general audience. Out of...

Brought to you by Penguin. In November 1943, with the outcome of the Second World War hanging in the balance, the Allies needed a new plan. The Americans' audacious suggestion to the Soviets was to open a second air front, with the US Air Force establishing bases in Soviet-controlled territory...