16th Century

From author Eric Metaxas comes a brilliant and inspiring biography of the most influential man in modern history, Martin Luther, in time for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation....

England's Tudor monarchs - Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I - are perhaps the most celebrated and fascinating of all royal families in history....

Robert Goodwin delves into previously unrecorded sources to bring a tumultuous and exciting period to life. Spain is a revealing portrait of an empire at the height of its power and a world at the dawn of a new age....

In The Faithful Executioner, Harrington vividly re-creates a life filled with stark contrasts, from the young apprentice's rigorous training under his executioner father....

This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - and their heated rivalry....

Grounded in excellent primary source research, Thomas Cromwell gives an inside look at a monarchy that has captured the Western imagination for centuries....

Henry VIII's reign transformed the physical and spiritual landscape of England. In this revealing new account, John Guy explores how Henry himself understood the world and his place in it....

Catherine de Medici's father-in-law, King Francis of France, was the perfect Renaissance knight, the movement's exemplar and its Gallic interpreter. An aesthete, a diplomat par excellence....

The Spanish Empire was the first truly global empire and the first to be described as one on which “the sun never sets.” It rapidly grew to become one of the largest and most powerful empires in the history of the world and brought us goods such as potatoes, chocolate....

Recounting Henry VIII's life and signal moments through the lens of his male relationships, Tracy Borman’s new biography reveals Henry’s personality in all its multi-faceted, contradictory glory, and sheds fresh light on his reign for anyone fascinated by the Tudor era and its legacy....

The Teutonic Knights were powerful and ferocious advocates of holy war. William Urban's narrative charts the rise and fall of the Order and, in an accessible and engaging style, throws light on a band of knights whose deeds and motives have long been misunderstood....

Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography....

This is the story of Elizabeth I's inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life....

Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, but in this lively and startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through their hearts more than their minds....

In England in the Age of Shakespeare, Jeremy Black takes readers on a tour of life in the streets, homes, farms, churches, and palaces of the Bard’s era....

A best-selling historian recounts 16 years that shook the world - the epic clash between Europe and the Ottoman Turks that ended the Renaissance and brought Islam to the gates of Vienna....

Like its popular and acclaimed predecessors, Restoration London and Dr Johnson's London....

Three generations of English merchant adventurers - not the Pilgrims, as we have so long believed - were the earliest founders of America. Profit - not piety - was their primary motive....

Before the Reformation, in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, being a wife or mother was not a holy vocation. The only “spiritual” calling for women was to be found in a convent. The Reformers confronted the bad theology which led to this....

Born in the midst of the Wars of the Roses, Margaret Beaufort became the greatest heiress of her time....

Situated in the early decades of the magnificent Mughal Empire, this first ever biography of Princess Gulbadan offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and unique pictures of the multicultural society in which she lived.

This audiobook combines Jillianne Hamilton's sassy, fun, and snarky storytelling with one of history's most alluring eras. Focusing on the lives of the wives, this audiobook gives the six unfortunate queens the biography for which they almost certainly wouldn't have asked....

During the long 18th century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. Author Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East....

Mary Boleyn, ‘the infamous other Boleyn girl’, began her court career as the mistress of the king of France....

Illegitimate children, adulterous queens, impotent kings, and a whole dynasty resting on their shoulders....