Barbara Frale gives us an explosive, exhaustively researched history of the medieval world’s most powerful military order, the Templars. At its height, the Order of the Knights Templar rivaled the kingdoms of Europe in military might, economic power, and political influence. For 700 years, the tragic demise of this society of warrior-monks amid accusations of heresy has been plagued by controversy, in part because the transcript of their trial by the Inquisition-which held the key to the t...

Dark secrets lie in the tunnels beneath...Paris, 1298. Disguised as an outlaw, a personage of the highest rank sneaks through the cellars of Notre Dame. The maze of secret tunnels hides a laboratory. Here, occult studies are conducted under the guidance of the renowned scientist, Arnaldo da Villanova. Studies which remain a secret.Rome, 1301. Denounced for impiety by mysterious informers in Paris, Villanova seeks refuge in Italy and becomes Pope Boniface VIII's personal phys...

The Templars and the Shroud of Christ is the second book in this series by Vatican historian, Barbara Frale. The Knights Templar – the most powerful religious-military order of the Middle Ages – almost certainly looked after the mysterious shroud that is now kept in Turin.Worshipped in a relentlessly secret manner, and known in its intimate nature by only a handful of the order’s officials, the swathe of fabric was kept in the central treasury of the Knights Templar, who were known...

Dan Jones narrates in his inimitably vivid and authoritative fashion the remarkable story of the Knights Templar.'Exhilarating, epic, sword-swinging history' TLS'Jones is certainly an entertainer, but also a fine historian who knows how to render serious scholarship into accessible prose' The Times'Another triumphant tale from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist' O...

A witty and concise look at the beginnings of English history, when the nation consolidated after clashes between the Saxons and invading Vikings.In 871, three of England's four kingdoms were overrun by Vikings, the ruthless, all-conquering Scandinavian raiders who terrorized early medieval Europe. With the Norsemen murdering one king with arrows and torturing another to death by ripping out his lungs, the prospects that faced the kingdom of Wessex were bleak. Wors...

From William Shakespeare's series of history dramas to Sir Walter Scott and George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, not to mention the smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones, the British civil war of 1455 to 1485 has inspired writers more than any other.Ed West's My Kingdom for a Horse illuminates the bloody war fought for thirty long years between the descendants of King Edward III in a battle for the throne. Named after the emblems used by the two leadi...

**How the Murder of More Than Two Million Jews Was Carried Out—In Broad DaylightBased on a decade of work by Father Patrick Desbois and his team at Yahad–In Unum that has culminated to date in interviews with more than 5,700 neighbors to the murdered Jews and visits to more than 2,700 extermination sites, many of them unmarked.One key finding: Genocide does not happen without the neighbors. The neighbors are instrumental to the crime.**In his National Jewish Book Aw...

D-Day - June 6, 1944 - was a pivotal day in human history. This was the great turning point of the Second World War, when the largest armada ever assembled took a third of a million Allied men across the English Channel.The invasion force of 150,000 troops from Britain, the United States, Canada and many other nations fighting on the Allied side on D-Day under the command of Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery landed on five beaches to spearhead Operation Overlord, the invasion of German-oc...

The story of the Scottish ruler—and the mysterious death of her ambitious and controversial husband.In the early hours of February 10, 1567, a large explosion ripped through the lodgings at Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh, where Mary Queen of Scotland's consort, Henry, Lord Darnley, was staying. Darnley's body was found with that of his valet in a neighboring garden the next morning.The queen's husband had been murdered—and the ramifications for Mary and Scottish ...

The incredible story of an Israeli mission that rescued 103 hostages from a hijacked jetliner.On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked by terrorists and flown to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. In the following agonizing days, Israeli passengers were singled out and held hostage. A week later on July 4, one hundred Israeli commandos raced 2,500 miles from Israel to Entebbe, landed in the middle of the night, and in a heart-stopping mission that lasted ninety...

From the author of Jews, God, and History, this comprehensive history of the Jewish people is "an epic drama, searching and nobly conceived" ( Publishers Weekly).A compelling and readable account of the four thousand year history of a people that spans the globe and transcends the ages. From the ancient and simple faith of a small tribe to a global religion with adherents in every nation, the path of the Jews is traced through countless expulsi...

The real life story of the Plantagenet ruler, by "the most remarkable medieval historian of our time" ( The Times, London).The talented, confident, and intelligent son of John of Gaunt, Henry IV started his reign as a popular and charismatic king after he dethroned the tyrannical and wildly unpopular Richard II. But six years into his reign, Henry had survived eight assassination and overthrow attempts.Having broken God's law of primogenit...