A "well-written, lucid, and vivid" recounting of the battles, beheadings, and other dramatic events that changed modern history ( The Washington Post).Works from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo to Citizens by Simon Schama have been inspired by the French Revolution. The Days of the French Revolution brings to life the events that changed the future of Western civilization.As compelling as any fiction thriller, this real-lif...

If you want to discover the captivating history of the French Revolution, this is the book for you . . .Concise, convincing and exciting, this is Christopher Hibbert's brilliant account of the events that shook eighteenth-century Europe to its foundation. With a mixture of lucid storytelling and fascinating detail, he charts the French Revolution from its beginnings at an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789, right through to the 'coup ...

At its height Renaissance Florence was a centre of enormous wealth, power and influence. A republican city-state funded by trade and banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by rich mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici. This enthralling book charts the family’s huge influence on the political, economic and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves throug...

Here, the eminent historian Christopher Hibbert explores life in Victorian England, a time when the British Empire was at its height, when the prosperous English basked in the Pax Britannica and thought their progress and stability would go on forever.

This beautifully written, informative study is a portrait, a history and a superb guide book, capturing fully the seductive beauty and the many layered past of the Eternal City. It covers 3,000 years of history from the city’s quasi-mythical origins, through the Etruscan kings, the opulent glory of classical Rome, the decadence and decay of the Middle Ages and the beauty and corruption of the Renaissance, to its time at the heart of Mussolini’s fascist Italy. Exploring the city’s streets a...

The tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are among the best-known stories in the world, but they are often relegated to the realm of legend. However, Arthur was a man, not a myth. In this book, acclaimed historian Christopher Hibbert vividly brings to life the sixth-century British monarch and his extraordinary court.

'Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,As his corse to the rampart we hurried.'—from 'The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna' by Charles WolfeOne of the best remembered poems in the English language has served to keep alive the memory of Sir John Moore and of his burial at Corunna on 17 January, 1809. The story of the battle which he fought on the previous day and of the short campaign and horrifying retreat which preceded it is, however, not so well known.T...

Had the camp been allowed to award one VC, the recipient of that honour would have been Arthur Lang, and that by universal acclamation... In September1857, an inexperienced young Engineer officer, was given what turned out to be a key role at the turning point of the Indian Mutiny. He had to decide weather the breaches at the Kashmere bastion were wide enough to allow for the attack, and had then lead the assault on himself. To those who saw him then, 'fighting like a paladin,' through the...

It was a dynasty with more wealth, passion, and power than the houses of Windsor, Kennedy, and Rockefeller combined. It shaped all of Europe and controlled politics, scientists, artists, and even popes, for three hundred years. It was the house of Medici, patrons of Botticelli, Michelangelo and Galileo, benefactors who turned Florence into a global power center, and then lost it all.The House of Medici picks up where Barbara Tuchman's Hibbert delves into the lives of the Medici fam...

A bestseller in hardback, this is a highly-praised and much-needed biography of the first Duke of Wellington, concentrating on the personal life of the victor of Waterloo, and based on the fruits of modern research. Christopher Hibbert is Britain’s leading popular historian.Wellington (1769–1852) achieved fame as a soldier fighting the Mahratta in India. His later brilliant generalship fighting the French in Spain and his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo earned him a dukedom and the ...

This social as well as a military history recreates the scenes of civil war in England, between 1642 and 1649.The book is enlivened by character sketches not only of the leading participants (Charles I, Prince Rupert, Oliver Cromwell), but also of the numerous lesser characters, male and female, who took part in the desperate conflict. Families and friends were bitterly divided as men left home to fight for King or Parliament. Castles and towns were besieged and sacked. Houses were...

This book is as captivating as the city itself. Hibbert's gift is weaving political, social and art history into an elegantly readable and marvellously lively whole. The author's book on Florence will also be at once a history and a guide book and will be enhanced by splendid photographs and illustrations and line drawings which will describe all teh buildings and treasures of the city.