How did one man's critique of capitalism guide the course of modern history? When he died in 1883, Karl Marx left behind an intellectual legacy of formidable proportions and revolutionary potential, yet one that exerted limited actual political, social, or economic influence. The full force of his ideas did not come into play for another generation, and only after they had been appropriated and applied by some of Marxism's earliest proponents. The history of Marxism, in other words, is the story of those who brought Marx's ideas into play, transforming a sweeping but fractious and occasionally abstruse view of historical and social forces into a coherent plan of action. Christina Morina's illuminating book focuses on the first generation of Marxist who turned the work and ideas of one social theorist, one among many, into one of the most powerful transnational political movements in modern history. The Invention Of Marxism is therefore a group portrait, featuring such figures as Rosa Luxemburg, Max Adler, Jean Jaures, Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, and Vladimir Lenin-German, French, Russian, Czech-whose lives became dedicated to interpreting and applying Marxist thought. They were the vehicles by which his ideas were read, debated, and gradually adopted in socialist movements across Europe. Morina's fascinating book therefore reconstructs the beginnings of Marxism through the individual politicization of a group of intellectuals who made it their purpose in life to solve the "social question," exploring the nexus between their intellectual constructs and social and political reality. The Invention of Marxism shows how what started as a theory of capitalism grew into a fully-fledged political philosophy and platform, one that shaped the century that followed Marx's death. In short, it reveals how an idea first conquered these individuals and then the world.

LONGLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION NON-FICTION CROWN A SUNDAY TIMES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Timely ... a long and engrossing survey of the library' FT 'A sweeping, absorbing history, deeply researched' Richard Ovenden, author of Burning the Books Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children's drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident. In this, the first major history of its kind, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen explore the contested and dramatic history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today. Along the way, they introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world's great collections, trace the rise and fall of fashions and tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanours committed in pursuit of rare and valuable manuscripts.

Oh, how the French love love! For hundreds of years, they have championed themselves as guides to the art de l'amour through their literature, paintings, songs, and cinema. A French man or woman without amorous desire is considered defective, like someone missing the sense of smell or taste. Now revered scholar Marilyn Yalom intimately examines the tenets of this culture's enduring gospel of romance.

Basing her delightfully erudite findings on her extensive readings of French literature, as well as memories of her personal experiences in la belle France, Yalom explores the many nuances of love as it has evolved over the centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present. Following along, step-by-step, on her romance-tinged literary detective hunt, the reader discovers how the French invented love, how they have kept it vibrant for more than nine centuries, what is unique in the French love experience, and what is universal.

G. Franco Romagnoli was a mere youth when he left Rome for America, where he made a name for himself as a cookbook author, television personality, and restaurateur. But the love of his native city brought him back to Rome for an extended stay, allowing him to rediscover the sights, smells, and sounds of this urban paradise.

In A Thousand Bells at Noon, Romagnoli shares with readers his visceral and emotional experiences in Rome: its ancient streets and modern shops; it parks; cafés, and hidden gardens; its grand public squares and sacred spaces. As he relives moments from his childhood, reconnects with old friends, and sees through new eyes a modern city steeped in history, you will fall in love with Romagnoli's Rome -- a wondrous place like no other on earth.

As read on BBC Radio 4's 'Book of the Week', a timely, moving and profound exploration of how writers, composers and artists have searched for solace while facing loss, tragedy and crisis, from the historian and Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist Michael Ignatieff. 'This erudite and heartfelt survey reminds us that the need for consolation is timeless, as are the inspiring words and examples of those who walked this path before us.' Toronto Star When we lose someone we love, when we suffer loss or defeat, when catastrophe strikes - war, famine, pandemic - we go in search of consolation. Once the province of priests and philosophers, the language of consolation has largely vanished from our modern vocabulary, and the places where it was offered, houses of religion, are often empty. Rejecting the solace of ancient religious texts, humanity since the sixteenth century has increasingly placed its faith in science, ideology, and the therapeutic. How do we console each other and ourselves in an age of unbelief? In a series of portraits of writers, artists, and musicians searching for consolation - from the books of Job and Psalms to Albert Camus, Anna Akhmatova, and Primo Levi - writer and historian Michael Ignatieff shows how men and women in extremity have looked to each other across time to recover hope and resilience. Recreating the moments when great figures found the courage to confront their fate and the determination to continue unafraid, On Consolation takes those stories into the present, movingly contending that we can revive these traditions of consolation to meet the anguish and uncertainties of the twenty-first century.

Scipio Africanus (236-183 B. C.) was one of the most exciting and dynamic leaders in history. As commander, he never lost a battle. Yet it is his adversary, Hannibal, who has lived on in public memory. As B. H. Liddell Hart writes, "Scipio's battles are richer in stratagems and ruses--many still feasible today--than those of any other commander in history." Any military enthusiast or historian will find this to be an absorbing, gripping portrait.

1945 was the most pivotal year in Germany's modern history. As World War II drew to a devastating and violent close, the German people were confronted simultaneously with making sense of the horrors just passed and finding the strength and hope to move forward and rebuild. Richard Bessel offers a provocative portrait of Germany's emergence from catastrophe, and he astutely portrays the defeated nation's own sense of victimhood after the war, despite the crimes it had perpetrated. Authoritative and dramatic, Germany 1945 is groundbreaking history that brilliantly explores the destruction and remarkable rebirth of Germany at the end of World War II. Ultimately, it is a success story; a story of life after death.

On 26 April 1986, the unthinkable happened near the Ukrainian town of Pripyat: two massive steam explosions ruptured No. 4 Reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, immediately killing 30 people and setting off the worst nuclear accident in history. The explosions were followed by an open-air reactor core fire that released huge amounts of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere for the next nine days, spreading across the Soviet Union, parts of Europe, and especially neighbouring Belarus, where around 70% of the waste landed. The following clean-up operation involved more than half a million personnel at a cost of $68 billion, and a further 4,000 people were estimated to have died from disaster-related illnesses in the following 20 years. Some 350,000 people were evacuated as a result of the accident (including 95 villages in Belarus), and much of the area returned to the wild, with the nearby city of Pripyat now a ghost town. Chernobyl provides a photographic exploration of the catastrophe and its aftermath in 180 authentic photos. See the twisted wreckage of No. 4 Reactor, the cause of the nuclear disaster; marvel at historic photos of the clean-up operation, with helicopters spraying decontamination liquid and liquidators manually clearing radioactive debris; see the huge cooling pond used to cool the reactors, and which today is home to abundant wildlife, despite the radiation; explore the ghost town of Pripyat, with its decaying apartment blocks, empty basketball courts, abandoned amusement park, wrecked schools, and deserted streets.

A polished and masterly work of historical narrative, The Marshall Plan is an instant classic of Cold War literature. With Britain's empire collapsing and Stalin's ascendant, U.S. officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events. This is the story behind the birth of the Cold War, and the U.S.-led liberal global order, told with verve, insight, and resonance for today. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Benn Steil's book will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan. Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Steil's gripping narrative takes us through the seminal episodes that marked the collapse of postwar U.S.-Soviet relations: the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, Stalin's determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe is vividly portrayed. And in a riveting epilogue, Steil shows how the forces which clove Europe in two after the Second World War have reasserted themselves since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The instant Sunday Times bestseller A Times, New Statesman and Spectator Book of the Year 'Simply the best popular history of the Middle Ages there is' Sunday Times 'A great achievement, pulling together many strands with aplomb' Peter Frankopan, Spectator, Books of the Year 'It's so delightful to encounter a skilled historian of such enormous energy who's never afraid of being entertaining' The Times, Books of the Year 'An amazing masterly gripping panorama' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A badass history writer... to put it mildly' Duff McKagan 'A triumph' Charles Spencer Dan Jones's epic new history tells nothing less than the story of how the world we know today came to be built. It is a thousand-year adventure that moves from the ruins of the once-mighty city of Rome, sacked by barbarians in AD 410, to the first contacts between the old and new worlds in the sixteenth century. It shows how, from a state of crisis and collapse, the West was rebuilt and came to dominate the entire globe. The book identifies three key themes that underpinned the success of the West: commerce, conquest and Christianity. Across 16 chapters, blending Dan Jones's trademark gripping narrative style with authoritative analysis, Powers and Thrones shows how, at each stage in this story, successive western powers thrived by attracting - or stealing - the most valuable resources, ideas and people from the rest of the world. It casts new light on iconic locations - Rome, Paris, Venice, Constantinople - and it features some of history's most famous and notorious men and women. This is a book written about - and for - an age of profound change, and it asks the biggest questions about the West both then and now. Where did we come from? What made us? Where do we go from here? Also available in audio, read by the author.

The ideals of the French Revolution inflamed a longing for liberty and equality within courageous, freethinking women of the era--women who played vital roles in the momentous events that reshaped their nation and the world. In "Liberty," Lucy Moore paints a vivid portrait of six extraordinary Frenchwomen from vastly different social and economic backgrounds who helped stoke the fervor and idealism of those years, and who risked everything to make their mark on history.

Germaine de Stael was a wealthy, passionate Parisian intellectual--as consumed by love affairs as she was by politics--who helped write the 1791 Constitution. Theroigne de Mericourt was an unhappy courtesan who fell in love with revolutionary ideals. Exuberant, decadent Theresia Tallien was a ruthless manipulator instrumental in engineering Robespierre's downfall. Their stories and others provide a fascinating new perspective on one of history's most turbulent epochs.

In the final decade of the eighteenth century, theatre was amongst the most important sites for redefining France's national identity. In this study, Annelle Curulla uses a range of archival material to show that, more than any other subject matter which was once forbidden from the French stage, Roman Catholic religious life provided a crucial trope for expressing theatre's patriotic mission after 1789. Even as old rules and customs fell with the walls of the Bastille, dramatic works by Gouges, Chenier, La Harpe, and others depicted the cloister as a space for reimagining forms of familial, individual, and civic belonging and exclusion. By relating the dramatic trope of religious life to shifting concepts of gender, family, religiosity, and nation, Curulla sheds light on how the process of secularization played out in the cultural space of French theatre.

Here is the story of Ireland's Civil War in colour - a defining moment in Irish history brought to life for the first time in hand-coloured photographs. The events of 1922-1923 are revealed using photographs painstakingly hand-coloured by John O'Byrne. His attention to detail gives a vivid authenticity that brings the events alive. Many of these photographs, carefully selected from archives and private collections, have never been published before. They carry informative captions by Michael B. Barry, based on extensive historical research. This richly illustrated book gives a fresh perspective to the conflict. If you want a better understanding of the story of the Irish Civil War, this is the book for you.

This is a definitive concise history of Portugal, from its earliest beginnings right up to the politics and life of the present day. It was not until the twelfth century that Portugal became a country in its own right, having been a Roman colony and then having suffered both Barbarian and Islamic invasions. The golden age of discoveries, the reign and foresight of Henry the Navigator, and great seamen such as Vasco da Gama led to the founding of Portugal's empire and wealth. Troubled times followed: in 1755 Lisbon was virtually leveled by the 'Great Earthquake,' and the country had hardly recovered its former prosperity when it was overrun by Napoleon's troops at the start of the Peninsular War, to be followed not long after by the Miguelite civil war. The middle decades of the nineteenth century saw the Port Wine trade flourishing, and further expansion into Africa. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, ever since the bloodless revolution of 1974 overthrew the rightwing dictatorship of Salazar, the country has regained its stability, and now takes its rightful place in the European Community. Illustrated with maps and line drawings, the book has a full Historical Gazetteer cross-referenced to the main text that concentrates on the historic sites in a country that has retained its individuality and thus its appeal to the individual traveler.

A new investigation, based on previously unseen KGB documents, reveals the startling truth behind Stalin's last great conspiracy.

On January 13, 1953, a stunned world learned that a vast conspiracy had been unmasked among Jewish doctors in the USSR to murder Kremlin leaders. Mass arrests quickly followed. The Doctors' Plot, as this alleged scheme came to be called, was Stalin's last crime.

In the fifty years since Stalin's death many myths have grown up about the Doctors' Plot. Did Stalin himself invent the conspiracy against the Jewish doctors or was it engineered by subordinates who wished to eliminate Kremlin rivals? Did Stalin intend a purge of all Jews from Moscow, Leningrad, and other major cities, which might lead to a Soviet Holocaust? How was this plot related to the cold war then dividing Europe, and the hot war in Korea? Finally, was the Doctors' Plot connected with Stalin's fortuitous death?

Brent and Naumov have explored an astounding arra of previously unknown, top-secret documents from the KGB, the presidential archives, and other state and party archives in order to probe the mechanism of on of Stalin's greatest intrigues -- and to tell for the first time the incredible full story of the Doctors' Plot.

This classic book offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of Slovakia, from its establishment on the Danubian Plain to the present. While paying tribute to Slovakia's resilience and struggle for survival, it describes contributions to European civilization in the Middle Ages; the development of Slovak consciousness in response to Magyarization; its struggle for autonomy in Czechoslovakia after the Treaty of Versailles; its resistance, as the first Slovak Republic, to a Nazi-controlled Europe; its reaction to Communism; and the path that led to the creation of the second Slovak Republic. Now fully updated to the present day, the book examines the vagaries of Slovak post-Communist politics that led to Slovakia's membership in NATO and the European Union.

This colorful history of a powerful family brings the world they lived in--the glittering Rome of the Italian Renaissance--to life and is "simply unputdownable" (New York Times Book Review). 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 was famously murdered by her brother, and that brother, Cesare, who served as the model for Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. Notorious for seizing power, wealth, land, and titles through bribery, marriage, and murder, the dynasty's dramatic rise from its Spanish roots to its occupation of the highest position in Renaissance society forms a gripping tale. Erudite, witty, and always insightful, Hibbert removes the layers of myth around the Borgia family and creates a portrait alive with his superb sense of character and place.

For nearly fifty years after the end of the Second World War, Albania remained in almost total isolation from the rest of the world. The hard-line communist dictatorship sealed the tiny country's borders in an effort to preserve Albania and the ruling regime from the threat posed by Western Powers and from neighbouring countries and their territorial ambitions. When the communist regime finally collapsed in 1992, Albania emerged into a Balkans ravaged by civil war in neighbouring Yugoslavia, which spread into the regions bordering Albania inhabited by significant ethnic Albanian minorities. As the war ignited in Kosova, tens of thousands of Albanian refugees fled into Albania, which itself was suffering violent internal conflict. Albania had entered the post-communist world in an impoverished and broken state, immersed in civil strife between the new quasi-democratic government and the opposition socialists, which culminated into virtual civil war in 1997 that pitted northerners against southerners with more than 4,000 deaths. Amidst the chaos, the disintegration of Yugoslavia ignited a new Albanian national question that had lain dormant since 1945. There were calls for the creation of a 'Greater Albania' to incorporate Yugoslavia's Albanian minorities within the 'Mother' state, which was to also include an area of north-western Greece which had historically been inhabited by ethnic Albanians known as Chams. The Chams were forced to leave their homeland following three distinct phases: the first during the Balkans Wars 1912-14; the second resulting from the Greek-Turkish population exchanges in the 1920s; the third at the end of the Second World War. The calls for a 'Greater Albania' alarmed Albania's neighbours and the international community, who viewed it as a serious threat to the stability of the entire southern Balkans. This resurgence of pan-Albanian nationalism was, however, far more layered and complex than was understood at the time, even by the various ethnic Albanian groups and their vocal Diaspora. This collection of papers and essays has not previously been published outside select academic outlets. They appear here for the first time with the aim of offering new perspectives on the underlying nature of pan-Albanianism, its aspirations and the post-Cold War dynamics of the Albanian world. These remain serious, unresolved problems in the region at the present time.

General Heinz Guderian's revolutionary strategic vision and his skill in armored combat brough Germany its initial victories during World War II. Combining Guderian's land offensive with Luftwaffe attacks, the Nazi Blitzkrieg decimated the defenses of Poland, Norway, France--and, very neatly, Russia--at the war's outset. But in 1941, when Guderian advised that ground forces should take a step back, Hitler dismissed him. In these pages, the outspoken general shares his candid point of view on what would have led Germany to victory, and what ensured that it didn't. In addition to providing a rare inside look at key members of the Nazi party, Guderian reveals in detail how he developed the Panzer tank forces and orchestrated their various campaigns, from the break through at Sedan to his drive to the Channel coast that virtually decided the Battle of France. "Panzer Leader"became a bestseller within one year of its original publication in 1952 and has since been recognized as a classic account of the greatest conflict of our time.

In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden, was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history and literature to reinvent her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined. Nancy Marie Brown links the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines Hervor's adventures intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as the Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor's short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data but on nineteenth-century Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, the sagas, poetry and myth carry weapons. In this compelling narrative, Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.

The place of religion in the Enlightenment has been keenly debated for many years. Research has tended, however, to examine the interplay of religion and knowledge in Western countries, often ignoring the East. In Enlightenment and religion in the Orthodox World leading historians address this imbalance by exploring the intellectual and cultural challenges and changes that took place in Orthodox communities during the eighteenth century. The two main centres of Orthodoxy, the Greek-speaking world and the Russian Empire, are the focus of early chapters, with specialists analysing the integration of modern cosmology into Greek education, and the Greek alternative 'enlightenment', the spiritual Philokalia. Russian experts also explore the battle between the spiritual and the rational in the works of Voulgaris and Levshin. Smaller communities of Eastern Europe were faced with their own particular difficulties, analysed by contributors in the second part of the book. Governed by modernising princes who embraced Enlightenment ideals, Romanian society was fearful of the threat to its traditional beliefs, whilst Bulgarians were grappling in different ways with a new secular ideology. The particular case of the politically-divided Serbian world highlights how Dositej Obradovic's complex humanist views have been used for varying ideological purposes ever since. The final chapter examines the encroachment of the secular on the traditional in art, and the author reveals how Western styles and models of representation were infiltrating Orthodox art and artefacts. Through these innovative case studies this book deepens our understanding of how Christian and secular systems of knowledge interact in the Enlightenment, and provides a rich insight into the challenges faced by leaders and communities in eighteenth-century Orthodox Europe.

A scintillating history of one of Europe's most alluring cities. Granada is a deceptive city, concealing a layered past and a complex character. The last Muslim capital in Western Europe, over the centuries it has captured hearts and imaginations, inspiring countless myths and legends. Yet its history reveals even more fascinating tales: secrets and follies, victory and failure, poetry and art. City of Illusions brings together Granada's many stories-the archaeological forger, the renegade French general, the garrotted liberal heroine, the Jewish poet who served two Muslim rulers. This colourful cast of characters takes us from the founding eleventh-century dynasty and the building of the Alhambra, through the Reconquista, French occupation and Spanish Civil War, right up to the present day. Granada's history has long been fought over, rewritten, idealised or buried. This rich, elegant book sets the record straight on a beautiful, elusive city, with all its quirks, mysteries, intrigues and triumphs.