Here, from British historian and New Yorker senior writer Anthony Bailey is the dramatic story of the Low Countries - Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg - from the early days of nomads and barbarian invaders to the birth of towns and cities to the rise and decline of world prominence and finally to the dark and tragic days of World War II.

Vermeer has always been considered the most elusive of great artists, but this book tracks him down in his home town. It takes the reader back to seventeenth-century Delft, in a piece of historical writing that does justice to its now timeless subject. Anthony Bailey makes use of the scholarly research that has accumulated in the last century, as well as recent findings, and then reaches beyond these facts to expose the hidden Vermeer. The result is a vivid, convincing portrait of the Prot...

No.4 Breestraat, Amsterdam, is an imposing 17th century house, but little different from many big old houses in the city. What makes it exceptional is that for twenty years one of the world's greatest artists lived here - Rembrandt van Rijn, master painter of the time. This is the story of that house, the world Rembrandt observed in and around it and the special universe he created in his studio there. In this unique and imaginative portrait, Anthony Bailey pieces together the events and c...

Joseph Mallord William Turner is arguably Britain's greatest and most mysterious painter, whose range of work encompasses seascape and landscape, immensely powerful oil paintings and intimate watercolours. His friend and colleague C.R. Leslie remembered him thus: 'Turner was short and stout, and had a sturdy, sailor-like walk. He might be taken for the captain of a river steamboat at first glance; but a second would find more in his face than belongs in any ordinary mind. There was that pe...

Born in 1776 in East Anglia near the river Stour, John Constable was destined for his father's business of milling and grain-shipping. But he was obdurately opposed to this and persuaded his family he should become an artist instead. In the same determined spirit, he wooed Maria Bicknell in the teeth of opposition from her formidable grandfather, and persisted in painting landscapes at a time when history paintings and portraits were the fashion.Sometimes sharp and sarcastic, and o...

Behind the famous painting by Diego Velázquez lies a rich story of the artist's life in artWhat began as propaganda art to celebrate a rare Spanish victory in the Eighty Years' War with Holland, The Surrender at Breda is today recognized as Velázquez's narrative masterpiece.Breda is packed with vivid military detail—whole armies are suggested on the huge canvas, twelve feet high and eleven feet wide. Unlike typical surrender scenes, there is...

Out of the division and strife of the Middle Ages, Spain emerged from behind the Pyrenees to straddle the stage of European politics like some new colossus. Discoverer of a New World, it became the greatest power on earth and created a Golden Age of culture breathtaking in its quality and achievement. Within 150 years, Spain was in a state of decay and fast being left behind by more progressive European nations. Here, from award-winning historian Malveena McKendrick, is the dramatic story ...

Here, from New York Times bestselling historian Richard Russell, is the dramatic story of Germany - from the rise of Charlemagne to the age of Martin Luther, from the Thirty Years' War to the iron rule of Otto von Bismarck, and from the formation of the Weimar Republic to the fighting of two world wars.

France fell to Hitler's forces in less than two months. It was not until 1942 that widely dispersed underground organizations would band together to form a united opposition to the occupying Germans. It was not until then that resistance would become the Resistance - a disciplined multi-national movement that would play a significant part in the outcome of World War II. In each occupied nation, resistance groups would grow, gathering and sending information to London, planning increasingly...

Here, award-winning historian Charles L. Mee Jr. explores life in Renaissance Italy - from the ascendancy of Florence and the Medicis to the genius of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Through wars and violence to festivals and feasts, Mee examines the people - artists, clergy, courtiers, merchants, scholars, and women - who fashioned the cradle for the rebirth of the Western world.

"Every man has two countries," Henri de Bornier once said, "his own and France." Indeed, France has captivated us for centuries. Here, in this compelling history from acclaimed historian Marshall B. Davison, is its story: from prehistory to its conquest by Julius Caesar; from its invasion by the Franks, who gave us the name we use today, to the reign of Charlemagne; from the rule of the Bourbon monarchs, who reached their apex under the Sun King, Louis XIV, to the bloody days of the French...

Here, from New York Times bestselling author Robert Wernick, is the unforgettable story of the Byzantine Empire, which dominated the world for more than 1,000 years. Here, too, are the stories of the extraordinary emperors and generals who brought the empire into being and ultimately presided over its demise. We witness the glittering city of Constantinople from its rise to greatness through its deadly conclusion. Though Byzantium has faded away, its everlasting contributions to our world ...