The definitive biography of the legendary autocrat whose enlightened rule transformed the map of Europe and changed the course of historyFew figures loom as large in European history as Frederick the Great. When he inherited the Prussian crown in 1740, he ruled over a kingdom of scattered territories, a minor Germanic backwater. By the end of his reign, the much larger and consolidated Prussia ranked among the continent’s great powers. In this magisterial biography...

George I was not the most charismatic of the Hanoverian monarchs to have reigned in England but he was probably the most important. He was certainly the luckiest.Born the youngest son of a landless German duke, he was taken by repeated strokes of good fortune to become, first the ruler of a major state in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and then the sovereign of three kingdoms (England, Ireland and Scotland).Tim Blanning's incisive short biography examines George...

**"History writing at its glorious best."--The New York Times"A triumphant success. [Blanning] brings knowledge, expertise, sound judgment and a colorful narrative style."--The EconomistThe New York Times bestselling volume in the Penguin History of Europe series**Between the end of the Thirty Years' War and the Battle of Waterloo, Europe underwent an extraordinary transformatoin that saw five of the modern world's great revolutions--scien...

A distinguished historian chronicles the rise of music and musicians in the West from lowly balladeers to masters employed by fickle patrons, to the great composers of genius, to today’s rock stars. How, he asks, did music progress from subordinate status to its present position of supremacy among the creative arts? Mozart was literally booted out of the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg “with a kick to my arse,” as he expressed it. Yet, less than a hundred years later, Europe’s most p...

The New York Times bestselling volume in the Penguin History of Europe seriesBetween the end of the Thirty Years' War and the Battle of Waterloo, Europe underwent an extraordinary transformation that saw five of the modern world's great revolutions—scientific, industrial, American, French, and romantic. In this much-admired addition to the monumental Penguin History of Europe series, Tim Blanning brilliantly investigates the forces that transformed Europe ...

“A splendidly pithy and provocative introduction to the culture of Romanticism.”—The Sunday Times“[Tim Blanning is] in a particularly good position to speak of the arrival of Romanticism on the Euorpean scene, and he does so with a verve, a breadth, and an authority that exceed every expectation.”—National ReviewFrom the preeminent historian of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries comes a superb, concise accou...

From the acclaimed author of The Pursuit of Glory and Frederick the Great, a riotous biography of the charismatic ruler of 18th-century Poland and Saxony - and his catastrophic reign.Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2025Shortlisted for the 2025 Apollo Book of the Year Award'It's been a superb year for history but Augustus the Strong ranks up there with the very very b...

Republican President William McKinley transformed America during his two terms as president. Although he does not register large in either public memory or in historians' rankings, in this revealing account, Robert W. Merry offers "a fresh twist on the old tale . . . a valuable education on where America has been and, possibly, where it is going" (The National Review).McKinley settled decades of monetary controversy by taking the country to a strict gold standard; in the S...

Europeans of the Middle Ages were the first to use travel guides to orient their wanderings, as they moved through a world punctuated with miraculous wonders and beguiling encounters. In this vivid and alluring history, medievalist Anthony Bale invites listeners on an odyssey across the medieval world.Journeying alongside scholars, spies, and saints, from Western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes and the ends of the earth, Bale provides indispensable information on the exchange...

This riveting audiobook narrated by Phyllida Nash traces the history of the city that led the West out of the ruins of the Roman EmpireAt the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the cit...

**A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2026“A truly remarkable achievement.” —Jill Lepore“A gorgeous story of human nature and animal behavior—and of the way science itself evolves.” —Dava SobelThe tumultuous life and radical science of a revolutionary thinker, and the history of an idea that changed the world**In the early nineteenth century, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and, with it, a new science...

The American Revolution signalled a great change in the course of world history and progress. From this colonial revolt sprouted ideals of liberty and democracy, and all the aspirations and ambitions of a new people. In this work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood discusses the character and consequences of the revolution, grounding the events and ideas that shaped the American consciousness.