“A magisterial history” (The Guardian) of humanity’s greatest natural disaster—the Black Death—that reveals the true global impact and terrible human cost of this calamity, from the renowned author of The Crusades and The Greatest Knight.“Terrific—and truly terrifying. Thomas Asbridge puts a human face—or rather multiple faces—on the Black Death.”—Eric Cline, author of 1177 B.C.In the mid-fourteenth centu...

From a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (The New Yorker) comes the most authoritative, readable single-volume military history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land.Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed, Islam and Christian...

'A nuanced and sophisticated analysis... Exhilarating' Sunday TelegraphNine hundred years ago, one of the most controversial episodes in Christian history was initiated. The Pope stated that, in spite of the apparently pacifist message of the New Testament, God actually wanted European knights to wage a fierce and bloody war against Islam and recapture Jerusalem. Thus was the First Crusade born.Foc...

Richard I's reign is both controversial and seemingly contradictory. One of England's most famous medieval monarchs and a potent symbol of national identity, he barely spent six months on English soil during a ten-year reign and spoke French as his first language. Contemporaries dubbed him the 'Lionheart', reflecting a carefully cultivated reputation for bravery, prowess and knightly virtue, but this supposed paragon of chivalry butchered close to 3,000 prisoners in cold blood on a single ...

In The Greatest Knight, renowned historian Thomas Asbridge draws upon the thirteenth-century biography and an array of other contemporary evidence to present a compelling account of William Marshal's life and times. Asbridge charts the unparalleled rise to prominence of a man bound to a code of honor yet driven by unquenchable ambition.Marshal was the true Lancelot of his era—a peerless warrior and paragon of chivalry. As a five-year-old boy, William was sentenced to execu...

Narrated by Derek PerkinsFrom a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (The New Yorker) comes the most authoritative, readable single-volume military history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land.Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the tw...

“A magisterial history” (The Guardian) of humanity’s greatest natural disaster—the Black Death—that reveals the true global impact and terrible human cost of this calamity, from the renowned author of The Crusades and The Greatest Knight.“Terrific—and truly terrifying. Thomas Asbridge puts a human face—or rather multiple faces—on the Black Death.”—Eric Cline, author of 1177 B.C.In the mid-fourteenth centu...

Bloomsbury presents Red Dawn Over China by Frank Dikötter, read by Daniel York Loh.A Financial Times and Foreign Policy Most Anticipated Book of 2026From renowned, prize-winning historian Frank Dikötter, a commanding new history of China’s path to Communism.The history of modern China has long been portrayed as a tale of Communists fighting in the hills for freedom, gradually gaining popul...

Following in the footsteps of the greatest Spanish adventurers, Michael Wood retraces the path of the conquistadors from Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, and from the deserts of North Mexico to the heights of Machu Picchu. As he travels the same routes as Hern├ín Cort├®s, Francisco, and Gonzalo Pizarro, Wood describes the dramatic events that accompanied the epic sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires. He also follows parts of Orellana's extraordinary voyage of discover...

**A major new history from our most trusted voice on the Revolutionary era, the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, and featured in THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt, on PBS.An astounding look at how America’s founders—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Adams—regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and th...

Audiobook narrated by the author.“A spellbinding tour de force!” —Walter Scheidel, author of What Is Ancient History?“This is non-fiction storytelling at its finest.” —Eric H. Cline, author of 1177 B.C.The creator of the hit podcast Tides of History offers a new look at humanity’s deep past, showing us how our world was built not by inevitability, ...

THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025A CAPX AND ENGELSBERG IDEAS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025The late 17th century saw the rise of a new phenomenon that would transform Britain forever: party politics.Beginning with a furious dispute over whether to allow a Roman Catholic - James II - to become king, the division between Whig and Tory marked the chief political battlelines of a ferociously polarised country for ...