Chart the course of history through the ages with this collection of oversize foldout charts and timelines. Timeline of World History is a unique work of visual reference from the founders of the Useful Charts website that puts the world's kingdoms, empires, and civilizations in context with one another. A giant wall chart shows the timelines and key events for each region of the world, and four additional foldout charts display the history of the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, and Africa and the Middle East. Packed with maps, diagrams, and images, this book captures the very essence of our shared history.
Containing more information on Asian culture than any other English-language reference work, Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture is the first of its kind: a set of more than thirty chronologies for all the countries of Asia—East, South, Southeast, and Central—from the Paleolithic era through 1998. Each entry is clearly dated and, unlike most chronologies found in standard history texts, the entries are complete and detailed enough to provide virtually a sequential history of the vast and rich span of Asian cultures. The contributing writers and editors have ensured the book's usefulness to general readers by identifying individuals and groups, locating places and regions, explaining events and movements, and defining unfamiliar words and concepts. The thirty-two chronologies on individual countries, in conjunction with a detailed index, allow readers to find specific information quickly and efficiently, whether they seek the date for the invention of the iron plow or gunpowder, the fall of the Han Dynasty in China, or Ho Chi Minh's declarations of Vietnamese independence. This invaluable reference culminates with three appendices: "National/Independence Days," "Scientific-Technological Achievements in Asia," and "Asia: A Chronological Overview," which provides an accessible summary of key events and developments in various fields of activity throughout the continent. The Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture features: three discrete chronologies on (1) Politics/History, (2) Art/Culture/Religion, and (3) Science/Economics/Everyday Life for each of Asia's three major cultures—China, India, and Japan—as well as a combined chronology for each of the other nations; detailed entries of thousands of historical events as well as important milestones in religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts; entries on technological developments and natural events (famines, floods, etc.) affecting the lives of ordinary people; and authoritative and accessibly written entries by a team of Asian scholars from Columbia, Harvard, and other major research universities. Beyond its detailed accounting of Asia's political history, Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture also gives full recognition to religious, intellectual, artistic, and general cultural achievements, as well as to scientific, technological, industrial, agricultural, and economic developments. Concise yet complete, it will stand as an indispensable reference work in the field of Asian studies.
First published over thirty years ago, War in European History is a brilliantly written survey of the changing ways that war has been waged in Europe, from the Norse invasions to the present day. Far more than a simple military history, the book serves as a succinct and enlightening overview of the development of European society as a whole over the last millennium. From the Norsemen and the world of the medieval knights, through to the industrialized mass warfare of the twentieth century, Michael Howard illuminates the way in which warfare has shaped the history of the Continent, its effect on social and political institutions, and the ways in which technological and social change have in turn shaped the way in which wars are fought. This new edition includes a fully updated further reading and a new final chapter bringing the story into the twenty-first century, including the invasion of Iraq and the so-called 'War against Terror'.
First published in 2005. This original study the author writing in 1936 has tried to sketch the character and general movement of the economic and social evolution of Western Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the middle of the fifteenth century.
"The sixteenth century in Europe was a period of vigorous economic expansion that led to social, political, religious, and cultural transformations and established the early modern age. This resource explores the emergence of monarchial nation-states and early Western capitalism during this period. Also examined in depth are the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, which exacerbated tensions between states and contributed to the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Readers will come to understand how these events developed, how they led to the age of exploration, and how they inform modern European history."
The Song of Roland is a book of poems by an anonymous author. It depicts a gory French tale of war, where General Charlemagne was ambushed in a remote Pyrenean pass, showcasing a symbolic struggle between Christianity and Islam.
In 1447 Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples, engaged the humanist antiquarian Biondo Flavio to compose in Latin a catalogue of famous men of Italy. This commission became Italia Illustrata, the first historical topography. In it, Biondo superimposed upon Italy’s classical heritage and her troubled medieval history a panorama of Italy in his own time. Although Italia Illustrata and three other major Latin treatises made Biondo’s reputation as the father of modern historiography and archaeology, these works have been accessible only in early modern printed editions to specialists with entrée to rare book rooms. Catherine J. Castner has now made this important treatise available in modern text with English translation and commentary. The Latin text is the best-known early printed edition, that of Froben (Basel, 1559). A clear, flowing English translation provides modern Italian equivalents for the majority of Biondo’s Latin toponyms. The commentary summarizes scholarship on the location and history of towns and cities of Italy and the building activities of their Renaissance lords. The plates include maps of cities and regions of Italy from medieval and early modern times. Italia Illustrata is an essential resource for any serious scholar of Renaissance humanism. Historians of medieval Italy, and of art and architecture, classicists, archaeologists, and epigraphers will value this work for its treasure of evidence: for example, Biondo’s eye-witness reports on the status of the building projects of the Malatesta; the Renaissance reception of Livy, Pliny, and Virgil (and the transmission of forged or misinterpreted inscriptions); and correlations of ancient sites with fifteenth-century settlements. This book will appeal to interests ranging from the current popular appetite for travel in Italy, to the growing scholarly attention to early modern geographical and travel literature; in short, to any reader with more than superficial interest in the urban centers and landscapes of Italy.
