Having dutifully written the official war history of Justinian's reign, Procopius turned round and revealed in The Secret History the other faces of the leading men and women of Byzantium in the sixth…
The author has combed the works of contemporary Arab chronicles of the Crusades, eyewitnesses, and often participants. He retells their story and offers insights into the historical forces that shape …
In the fifth century BC, a global superpower was determined to bring truth and order to what it regarded as two terrorist states. The superpower was Persia, incomparably rich in ambition, gold and men…
As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, Suetonius gained access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eye-witness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in …
Dan Jones, best-selling chronicler of the Middle Ages, turns his attention to the history of the Crusades – the sequence of religious wars fought between the late eleventh century and late medieval pe…
'His passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable'. Although written over four hundred years after Alexander’s death, Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander is the most reliable account of the m…
On 15 August 778, Charlemagne’s army was returning from a successful expedition against Saracen Spain when its rearguard was ambushed in a remote Pyrenean pass. Out of this skirmish arose a stirring t…
Completed in 1136, The History of the Kings of Britain traces the story of the realm from its supposed foundation by Brutus to the coming of the Saxons some two thousand years later. Vividly portrayin…
The Agricola is both a portrait of Julius Agricola - the most famous governor of Roman Britain and Tacitus' well-loved and respected father-in-law - and the first detailed account of Britain that has …
A sweeping account of the social and political world of the Roman emperors by “the world’s most famous classicist” ( Guardian ). In her international bestseller SPQR , Mary Beard told the thousand-yea…
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell
The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered i…
Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism - gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronolo…
