Renaissance in History & Nonfiction eBooks

Inventing the Renaissance

The Myth of a Golden Age

by Ada Palmer ...

A New Yorker Best Book of 2025An irreverent new take on the Renaissance, which reveals it as anything but Europe’s golden age.From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance,... ... Read more

$10.99 CAD

A New Yorker Best Book of 2025An irreverent new take on the Renaissance, which reveals it as anything but Europe’s golden age.From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance,...
... Read more
The Life & Legend Of Cesare Borgia

by M. G. Scarsbrook ...

The most handsome man of his era… yet also the most feared...Cesare Borgia was the most infamous member of history’s original crime family – the Borgias. Son of the scandalous Pope Alexander VI, and brother to the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, he rose above them all to become an icon of power. At the age of twenty-four, he was an accomplished murderer, at twenty-seven he had conquered most of Italy, ... Read more

$0.99 CAD

The most handsome man of his era… yet also the most feared...Cesare Borgia was the most infamous member of history’s original crime family – the Borgias. Son of the scandalous Pope Alexander VI, and brother to the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, he rose above them all to become an icon of power. At the age of twenty-four, he was an accomplished murderer, at twenty-seven he had conquered most of Italy,
... Read more
The Borgias

The Hidden History

by G. J. Meyer ...

An unprecedented portrait of the Renaissance-era Borgia family and their storied milieu, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tudors“A vivid and at times startling reappraisal of one of the most notorious dynasties in history . . . If you thought you knew the Borgias, this book will surprise you.”—Tracy Borman, author of Queen of the Conqueror and Elizabeth’s Women“Fascinating . . . a ... Read more

Was $13.99 CAD Now $1.99 CAD

An unprecedented portrait of the Renaissance-era Borgia family and their storied milieu, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tudors“A vivid and at times startling reappraisal of one of the most notorious dynasties in history . . . If you thought you knew the Borgias, this book will surprise you.”—Tracy Borman, author of Queen of the Conqueror and Elizabeth’s Women“Fascinating . . . a
... Read more
The Perfect Prince

Truth and Deception in Renaissance Europe

by Ann Wroe ...

In 1491, as Machiavelli advised popes and princes and Leonardo da Vinci astonished the art world, a young man boarded a ship in Portugal bound for Ireland. He would be greeted upon arrival as the rightful heir to the throne of England. The trouble was, England already had a king.The most intriguing and ambitious pretender in history, this elegant young man was celebrated throughout Europe as the ... Read more

$6.99 CAD

In 1491, as Machiavelli advised popes and princes and Leonardo da Vinci astonished the art world, a young man boarded a ship in Portugal bound for Ireland. He would be greeted upon arrival as the rightful heir to the throne of England. The trouble was, England already had a king.The most intriguing and ambitious pretender in history, this elegant young man was celebrated throughout Europe as the
... Read more
Europe's Tragedy

A New History of the Thirty Years War

by Peter H. Wilson ...

The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting ... Read more

$15.99 CAD

The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting
... Read more
Perkin

by Ann Wroe ...

The story of Perkin Warbeck is one of the most compelling mysteries of English history. A young man suddenly emerged claiming to be Richard of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower. As such, he tormented Henry VII for eight years. He tried three times to invade England and behaved like a prince. Officially, however, he was proclaimed to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a Flemish boatman. A ... Read more

$15.99 CAD

The story of Perkin Warbeck is one of the most compelling mysteries of English history. A young man suddenly emerged claiming to be Richard of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower. As such, he tormented Henry VII for eight years. He tried three times to invade England and behaved like a prince. Officially, however, he was proclaimed to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a Flemish boatman. A
... Read more
The Life & Legend Of Lucrezia Borgia

by M. G. Scarsbrook ...

The most evil woman in history? A pawn of her powerful family? A skilled ruler and a generous patron of the arts? Once described as the 'greatest whore there ever was in Rome', Lucrezia Borgia has captivated historians and artists for centuries with wildly conflicting accounts of her character. This book gathers together all the crucial information needed for a study into the life of Lucrezia, ... Read more

$0.99 CAD

The most evil woman in history? A pawn of her powerful family? A skilled ruler and a generous patron of the arts? Once described as the 'greatest whore there ever was in Rome', Lucrezia Borgia has captivated historians and artists for centuries with wildly conflicting accounts of her character. This book gathers together all the crucial information needed for a study into the life of Lucrezia,
... Read more
A World Lit Only by Fire

The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age

by William Manchester ...

An absorbing history of the Middle Ages from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion**.**From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester ... Read more

Was $12.99 CAD Now $1.99 CAD

An absorbing history of the Middle Ages from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion**.**From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester
... Read more
Beloved Son Felix

Coming of Age in the Renaissance

by Felix Platter ...

The exceptionally vivid, rare, and revealing journals of a 16th-century medical student.In 1552, at the age of sixteen, Felix Platter left his home in Basel, Switzerland, and journeyed 370 miles to Montpelier, in the south of France. There he spent the next five years studying to become a physician. It was an extraordinary education—and not only in medicine. A Protestant in a Catholic kingdom, ... Read more

$12.79 CAD

The exceptionally vivid, rare, and revealing journals of a 16th-century medical student.In 1552, at the age of sixteen, Felix Platter left his home in Basel, Switzerland, and journeyed 370 miles to Montpelier, in the south of France. There he spent the next five years studying to become a physician. It was an extraordinary education—and not only in medicine. A Protestant in a Catholic kingdom,
... Read more
Blood, Fire & Gold

The Story of Elizabeth I & Catherine de Medici

by Estelle Paranque ...

A beautifully thorough examination into the complicated relationship between Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici, two of the most powerful women in Renaissance Europe who shaped each other as well as the course of history.Sixteenth-century Europe was a hostile world dominated by court politics and patriarchal structures–and yet against all odds, two women rose to power: Elizabeth I and Catherine ... Read more

Was $20.99 CAD Now $2.99 CAD

A beautifully thorough examination into the complicated relationship between Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici, two of the most powerful women in Renaissance Europe who shaped each other as well as the course of history.Sixteenth-century Europe was a hostile world dominated by court politics and patriarchal structures–and yet against all odds, two women rose to power: Elizabeth I and Catherine
... Read more
The Middle Ground

Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815

by Richard White ...

Series series Studies in North American Indian History
An acclaimed book and widely acknowledged classic, The Middle Ground steps outside the simple stories of Indian-white relations - stories of conquest and assimilation and stories of cultural persistence. It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each other as alien, as other, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650 ... Read more

$41.99 CAD

An acclaimed book and widely acknowledged classic, The Middle Ground steps outside the simple stories of Indian-white relations - stories of conquest and assimilation and stories of cultural persistence. It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each other as alien, as other, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650
... Read more
Історія для дорослих

by Олег Криштопа, Іван Дерейко ...

Історія України цікава, захоплива і сповнена пікантних подробиць. Це з 2021 року переконливо доводять ведучі популярного YouTube-каналу «Історія для дорослих» Олег Криштопа та Іван Дерейко. Нині, коли історія України цікавить усіх без винятку, вони вирішили укласти на основі найцікавіших матеріалів каналу своєрідний «підручник», у якому розповідають:-як росія століттями чинила геноцид в Україні та ... Read more

$6.99 CAD

Історія України цікава, захоплива і сповнена пікантних подробиць. Це з 2021 року переконливо доводять ведучі популярного YouTube-каналу «Історія для дорослих» Олег Криштопа та Іван Дерейко. Нині, коли історія України цікавить усіх без винятку, вони вирішили укласти на основі найцікавіших матеріалів каналу своєрідний «підручник», у якому розповідають:-як росія століттями чинила геноцид в Україні та
... Read more
Humanly Possible

Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope

by Sarah Bakewell ...

**THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2023 • A New York Times Notable Book • The bestselling author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café explores seven hundred years of writers, thinkers, scientists, and artists, all seeking to understand what it means to be truly human.“A book of big and bold ideas, Humanly Possible is humane in approach and, more ... Read more

Was $14.99 CAD Now $12.99 CAD

**THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2023 • A New York Times Notable Book • The bestselling author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café explores seven hundred years of writers, thinkers, scientists, and artists, all seeking to understand what it means to be truly human.“A book of big and bold ideas, Humanly Possible is humane in approach and, more
... Read more
The Thirty Years' War 1618–1648

by Richard Bonney ...

Series series Guide to...
More than three and a half centuries have passed since the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), but this most devastating of wars in the early modern period continues to capture the imagination of readers. This book reveals why.In this accessible, concise guide, Richard Bonney explains one of the first wars where contemporaries stressed the importance of atrocities, the ... Read more

$13.99 CAD

More than three and a half centuries have passed since the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), but this most devastating of wars in the early modern period continues to capture the imagination of readers. This book reveals why.In this accessible, concise guide, Richard Bonney explains one of the first wars where contemporaries stressed the importance of atrocities, the
... Read more
The Prince

by Niccol� Machiavelli, Maurizio Viroli ...

Translated by Peter Bondanella ...

Series series Oxford World's Classics
Based upon Machiavelli's first-hand experience as an emissary of the Florentine Republic to the courts of Europe, The Prince analyses the usually violent means by which men seize, retain, and lose political power. This fluent new translation is accompanied by comprehensive notes and an introduction that dispels some of the myths associated with Machiavelli, and considers the true purpose of The ... Read more

$3.99 CAD

Based upon Machiavelli's first-hand experience as an emissary of the Florentine Republic to the courts of Europe, The Prince analyses the usually violent means by which men seize, retain, and lose political power. This fluent new translation is accompanied by comprehensive notes and an introduction that dispels some of the myths associated with Machiavelli, and considers the true purpose of The
... Read more
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

How the World Became Modern

by Stephen Greenblatt ...

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-FictionWinner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-FictionOne of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it ... Read more

Was $22.99 CAD Now $18.99 CAD

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-FictionWinner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-FictionOne of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it
... Read more
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change

by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein ...

Originally published in two volumes in 1980, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change is now issued in a paperback edition containing both volumes. The work is a full-scale historical treatment of the advent of printing and its importance as an agent of change. Professor Eisenstein begins by examining the general implications of the shift from script to print, and goes on to examine its part in ... Read more

$50.99 CAD

Originally published in two volumes in 1980, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change is now issued in a paperback edition containing both volumes. The work is a full-scale historical treatment of the advent of printing and its importance as an agent of change. Professor Eisenstein begins by examining the general implications of the shift from script to print, and goes on to examine its part in
... Read more
A Place of Greater Safety

by Hilary Mantel ...

An extraordinary work of historical imagination from the double Booker Prize-winning author of the Wolf Hall trilogy, now a major TV series, this is Hilary Mantel’s epic novel of the French Revolution.**Georges-Jacques Danton: zealous, energetic and debt-ridden. Maximilien Robespierre: small, diligent and terrified of violence. And Camille Desmoulins: a genius of rhetoric, charming and handsome, ... Read more

$11.99 CAD

An extraordinary work of historical imagination from the double Booker Prize-winning author of the Wolf Hall trilogy, now a major TV series, this is Hilary Mantel’s epic novel of the French Revolution.**Georges-Jacques Danton: zealous, energetic and debt-ridden. Maximilien Robespierre: small, diligent and terrified of violence. And Camille Desmoulins: a genius of rhetoric, charming and handsome,
... Read more
The Bookseller of Florence

Vespasiano da Bisticci and the Manuscripts that Illuminated the Renaissance

by Ross King ...

The bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling captures the excitement and spirit of the Renaissance in this chronicle of the life and work of "the king of the world's booksellers" and the technological disruption that forever changed the ways knowledge spread.The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings—the dazzling ... Read more

Was $16.99 CAD Now $14.99 CAD

The bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling captures the excitement and spirit of the Renaissance in this chronicle of the life and work of "the king of the world's booksellers" and the technological disruption that forever changed the ways knowledge spread.The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings—the dazzling
... Read more
Dark Brilliance

The Age of Reason: From Descartes to Peter the Great

by Paul Strathern ...

A sweeping history of The Age of Reason, revealing how—although it was a time of great progress—it was also an era of brutality and intolerance with a very human cost.During the 1600s—between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment—Europe lived through an era known as The Age of Reason. This was a revolutionary period that saw great advances in areas such as art, science, ... Read more

$31.99 CAD

A sweeping history of The Age of Reason, revealing how—although it was a time of great progress—it was also an era of brutality and intolerance with a very human cost.During the 1600s—between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment—Europe lived through an era known as The Age of Reason. This was a revolutionary period that saw great advances in areas such as art, science,
... Read more
The Book of Common Prayer

The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662

Edited by Brian Cummings ...

Series series Oxford World's Classics
'In the midst of life we are in death.' The words of the Book of Common Prayer have permeated deep into the English language all over the world. For nearly 500 years, and for countless people, it has provided a background fanfare for a marriage or a funeral march at a burial. Yet this familiarity also hides a violent and controversial history. When it was first produced the Book of Common Prayer ... Read more

$9.99 CAD

'In the midst of life we are in death.' The words of the Book of Common Prayer have permeated deep into the English language all over the world. For nearly 500 years, and for countless people, it has provided a background fanfare for a marriage or a funeral march at a burial. Yet this familiarity also hides a violent and controversial history. When it was first produced the Book of Common Prayer
... Read more
Hamlet's Choice

Religion and Resistance in Shakespeare's Revenge Tragedies

by Peter Lake ...

An illuminating account of how Shakespeare worked through the tensions of Queen Elizabeth’s England in two canon-defining playsConspiracies and revolts simmered beneath the surface of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. England was riven with tensions created by religious conflict and the prospect of dynastic crisis and regime change.In this rich, incisive account, Peter Lake reveals how in Titus Andronicus ... Read more

$49.99 CAD

An illuminating account of how Shakespeare worked through the tensions of Queen Elizabeth’s England in two canon-defining playsConspiracies and revolts simmered beneath the surface of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. England was riven with tensions created by religious conflict and the prospect of dynastic crisis and regime change.In this rich, incisive account, Peter Lake reveals how in Titus Andronicus
... Read more
John Heywood

Comedy and Survival in Tudor England

by Greg Walker ...

John Heywood was an important literary and theatrical pioneer in his own right, but he is also a revealing lens through which to view the wider tumultuous history of the sixteenth century. He was, through the period from the mid-1520s to the 1560s, as near to a celebrity as Tudor England possessed, famed for his 'merry' persona and good humour. But his public image concealed a deeper engagement ... Read more

$59.99 CAD

John Heywood was an important literary and theatrical pioneer in his own right, but he is also a revealing lens through which to view the wider tumultuous history of the sixteenth century. He was, through the period from the mid-1520s to the 1560s, as near to a celebrity as Tudor England possessed, famed for his 'merry' persona and good humour. But his public image concealed a deeper engagement
... Read more
The Cambridge Companion to the Dutch Golden Age

Edited by Helmer J. Helmers, Geert H. Janssen ...

Series series Cambridge Companions to Culture
During the seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic was transformed into a leading political power in Europe, with global trading interests. It nurtured some of the period's greatest luminaries, including Rembrandt, Vermeer, Descartes and Spinoza. Long celebrated for its religious tolerance, artistic innovation and economic modernity, the United Provinces of the Netherlands also became known for ... Read more

$37.99 CAD

During the seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic was transformed into a leading political power in Europe, with global trading interests. It nurtured some of the period's greatest luminaries, including Rembrandt, Vermeer, Descartes and Spinoza. Long celebrated for its religious tolerance, artistic innovation and economic modernity, the United Provinces of the Netherlands also became known for
... Read more

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