Short essays offer a kaleidoscopic, “provocative history of France” and its place within the world—from its prehistoric frescoes and Coco Chanel to the terrorist attacks of 2015 (New Yorker).“A major work, exhaustive, controversial and fresh—and entirely relevant to Anglophone readers”—that redefines how we write about national and world history (Guardian).Bringing together an impressive group of established and up-and-com...

**A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICEIn a series of poignant vignettes, a preeminent historian makes a compelling case for Machiavelli as an unjustly maligned figure with valuable political insights that resonate as strongly today as they did in his time.**Whenever a tempestuous period in history begins, Machiavelli is summoned, because he is known as one for philosophizing in dark times. In fact, since his death in 1527, we have never ceased to read him to pull ourse...

An acclaimed historian illuminates today's political situation by examining the relationship between governing and storytelling, from the Middle Ages to the “post-truth” present, in these engaging essays.In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, renowned medievalist Patrick Boucheron delivered a powerful, probing series of lectures on “political fictions” in the context of rising authoritarianism and populism. Adapted here for the first time in English, they offer ke...

From one of the foremost medievalists of our time, a groundbreaking work on history and memory that goes well beyond the life of this influential saint.Elected bishop of Milan by popular acclaim in 374, Ambrose went on to become one of the four original Doctors of the Church. There is much more to this book, however, than the captivating story of the bishop who baptized Saint Augustine in the fourth century. Trace and Aura investigates how a crucial figure...

Where can the danger be lurking? Two soldiers are huddled together, one gazing up at the sky, the other darting a sideward glance. They derive a tacit reassurance from their weapons, but they are both in their different ways alone and scared. They were painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, and they seem symptomatic of a state of emergency: the year was 1338, and the spectre of the signoria, of rule by one man, was abroad in the city, undermining the very idea of ...

We need history because we need rest: a pause to rest our consciousness, so that the possibility of a consciousness may remain – as the seat not only of thought, but of practical reason, affording full latitude for action. Saving the past, saving time from the frenzy of the present: the poets devote themselves to this with exactitude. For this purpose we must work to weaken ourselves, to make ourselves idle, to make inoperative this endangering of temporality that wrecks experience and des...

In a series of poignant vignettes, a preeminent historian makes a compelling case for Machiavelli as an unjustly maligned figure with valuable political insights that resonate as strongly today as they did in his time.Whenever a tempestuous period in history begins, Machiavelli is summoned, because he is known as one for philosophizing in dark times. In fact, since his death in 1527, we have never ceased to read him to pull ourselves out of torpors. But what do we really know about...

From one of the foremost medievalists of our time, a groundbreaking work on history and memory that goes well beyond the life of this influential saint.Elected bishop of Milan by popular acclaim in 374, Ambrose went on to become one of the four original Doctors of the Church. There is much more to this book, however, than the captivating story of the bishop who baptized Saint Augustine in the fourth century. Trace and Aura investigates how a crucial figure...

An acclaimed historian illuminates today's political situation by examining the relationship between governing and storytelling, from the Middle Ages to the "post-truth" present, in these engaging essays.In the wake of Donald Trump's election, renowned medievalist Patrick Boucheron delivered a powerful, probing series of lectures on "political fictions" in the context of rising authoritarianism and populism. Adapted here for the first time in English, they offer ke...

Part biography, part forensic jigsaw puzzle, part cold-case detective investigation, The Eagle in the Mirror is the astonishing untold story of Charles Howard “Dick” Ellis, the Australian-born British intelligence officer and master spy accused by some espionage experts of being the traitor of the century.The longest serving spy for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Ellis came to New York at the beginning of World War II as deputy to William Stephenso...

A vivid political history of the schemes, plots, maneuvers, and conspiracies that have attempted -- successfully and not -- to remove unwanted presidentsTo limit executive power, the founding fathers created fixed presidential terms of four years, giving voters regular opportunities to remove their leaders. Even so, Americans have often resorted to more dramatic paths to disempower the chief executive. The American presidency has seen it all, from rejecting a sitti...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The fast-paced inside story of America’s plunge into a volatile rivalry with the other two great nuclear powers—Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon“[A] cogent, revealing account of how a generation of American officials have grappled with dangerous developments in the post-Cold War era . . . vividly captures Washin...