Beginning with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the first century BC, this study of French history comprises a cast of legendary characters--Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Joan of Arc and Marie Antionette, to name a few--as Norwich chronicles France's often violent, always fascinating history. From the French Revolution--after which neither France, nor the world, would be the same again--to the storming of the Bastille, from the Vichy regime and the Resistance to the end of the Second World War, A History of France is packed with heroes and villains, battles and rebellion, stories so enthralling that Norwich declared, I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed writing a book more.

With his celebrated stylistic panache and expert command of detail, Norwich writes in an inviting, intimate tone, and with a palpable affection for France. One of our greatest contemporary historians has deftly crafted a comprehensive yet concise portrait of the country's historical sweep.

Critically acclaimed author John Julius Norwich weaves the turbulent story of Sicily into a spellbinding narrative that places the island at the crossroads of world history.

Sicily, said Goethe, is the key to everything. It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily's strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world's most powerful dynasties.

Yet Sicily has often been little more than a footnote in books about other empires. John Julius Norwich's engrossing narrative is the first to knit together all of the colorful strands of Sicilian history into a single comprehensive study. Here is a vivid, erudite, page-turning chronicle of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a Greek city-state to its emergence as a multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, from the rebellion against Italian unification to the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Writing with his customary deftness and humor, Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history--the Romans' fascination with Greek civilization dates back to their sack of Sicily--and tells the story of one of the world's most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way.

This volume has been a long time coming--Norwich began to explore Sicily's colorful history during his first visit to the island in the early 1960s. The dean of popular historians leads his readers through the millennia with the steady narrative hand of a master teacher or the world's most learned tour guide. Like the island itself, Sicily is a book brimming with bold flavors that begs to be revisited again and again.

Praise for Sicily

Suavely readable . . . The very model of a popular historian, Norwich] writes to give pleasure to the common reader. And what pleasure it is.--The Wall Street Journal

Entertaining on every page . . . There is something ancient and sorrowful in Sicily, 'some dark, brooding quality, ' just as captivating as its spellbinding history or its beautiful and varied landscapes, from beaches to lemon groves, pine forests to volcanoes. . . . The most amiable and freewheeling of guides, Norwich will always find time for the amusing anecdote.--The Sunday Times

Utterly engrossing . . . written with passion about the art and architecture of this magical island, filled with gossipy tidbits and sweeping historical theories.--The Daily Beast

Dazzling . . . Norwich is an elegantly graceful and entertaining storyteller.--Richmond Times-Dispatch

Charming . . . richly nuanced history relayed with enormous fondness.--Kirkus Reviews

A brisk and always-lively tour.--Open Letters Monthly

Norwich is deeply in love with Sicily. His] boundless affection has inspired a determined effort to understand its painful past. The result is impressionistic, as love often is.--The Times

Norwich sketches personalities vividly. . . . He does the island and the reader a generous service in providing such an amiable introduction.--The Sunday Telegraph

Norwich tells Sicily's] long, sad but fascinating story with sympathy and brio.--Literary Review

This lively and dramatic book brings roaring to life the grand sweep of 5,000 years of history in the cradle of civilization.

A wonderfully illustrated account of the civilizations that rose and fell on the lands bordering the Mediterranean, The Middle Sea represents the culmination of a great historian's unparalleled art and scholarship. John Julius Norwich provides brilliant portraits of the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the French, the Venetians, the Popes, and the pirates of the Gulf. Above all, he deftly traces the intermingling of ancient conflicts and modern sensibilities that shapes life today on the shores of the Middle Sea.

The classic Christmas carol is told with a very special twist. With inimitable illustrations by Quentin Blake, this is a most elegant and enchanting gift book.

My Dearest Darling -

That partridge, in that lovely little pear tree! What an enchanting, romantic, poetic present! Bless you and thank you.

Your deeply loving Emily

Everyone knows the Twelve days of Christmas, but not as rewritten by John Julius Norwich in this delightful correspondence, which records the daily thank-you letters from one increasingly bemused young lady to her unseen admirer. And who but Quentin Blake could exploit the full comic possibilities of this hilarious debacle as first birds, then maids, and finally the full percussion section of the Liverpool Philharmonic create mayhem in the calm of an English country Christmas?

Today, the majority of people in the world live in cities. The implications and challenges associated with this fact are enormous. But how did we get here?

From the origins of urbanization in Mesopotamia to the global metropolises of today, this book explores how great cities have marked the development of human civilization. Now available in paperback, The Great Cities in History tells the remarkable stories of these cities, beginning with the earliest, from Uruk and Memphis to Jerusalem and Alexandria. After visiting some of the astounding cities of the first millennium--Damascus, Baghdad, Teotihuacan, and Tikal--the book journeys to the medieval world, seeing the rise of powerful cities such as Palermo and Paris in Europe, Benin in Africa, and Angkor in Southeast Asia. The last two sections cover the early modern world up to contemporary cities such as London, New York, Tokyo, Barcelona, Los Angeles, and Sao Paulo.

A distinguished cast of contributors, including Jan Morris, Colin Thubron, Simon Schama, Orlando Figes, and A. N. Wilson, beautifully evoke the character of each place--its people, its art and architecture, its government--and explain the reasons for the city's success. Richly illustrated with photographs, paintings, maps, and plans, this volume is nothing less than a portrait of world civilization.

Francis I of France was the personification of the Renaissance, and a highly influential patron of the arts and education. Henry VIII, who was not expected to inherit the throne but embraced the role with gusto, broke with the Roman Catholic Church and appointed himself head of the Church of England. Charles V, the most powerful and industrious man at the time, was unanimously elected Holy Roman Emperor. Suleiman the Magnificent--who stood apart as a Muslim--brought the Ottoman Empire to its apogee of political, military, and economic power.

Against the vibrant background of the Renaissance, these four men collectively shaped the culture, religion, and politics of their respective domains. With remarkable erudition, John Julius Norwich delves into this entertaining and layered history, indelibly depicting four dynamic characters, and how their incredible achievements--and obsessions with one another--changed European history.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In a chronicle that captures nearly two thousand years of inspiration and intrigue, John Julius Norwich recounts in riveting detail the histories of the most significant popes and what they meant politically, culturally, and socially to Rome and to the world. Norwich presents such popes as Innocent I, who in the fifth century successfully negotiated with Alaric the Goth, an invader civil authorities could not defeat; Leo I, who two decades later tamed (and perhaps paid off) Attila the Hun; the infamous pornocracy--the five libertines who were descendants or lovers of Marozia, debauched daughter of one of Rome's most powerful families; Pope Paul III, the greatest pontiff of the sixteenth century, who reinterpreted the Church's teaching and discipline; John XXIII, who in five short years starting in 1958 instituted reforms that led to Vatican II; and Benedict XVI, who is coping with today's global priest sex scandal. Epic and compelling, Absolute Monarchs is an enthralling history from an enchanting and satisfying raconteur (The Washington Post).

In this magisterial adaptation of his epic three-volume history of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich chronicles the world's longest-lived Christian empire. Beginning with Constantine the Great, who in a.d. 330 made Christianity the religion of his realm and then transferred its capital to the city that would bear his name, Norwich follows the course of eleven centuries of Byzantine statecraft and warfare, politics and theology, manners and art.

In the pages of A Short History of Byzantium we encounter mystics and philosophers, eunuchs and barbarians, and rulers of fantastic erudition, piety, and degeneracy. We enter the life of an empire that could create some of the world's most transcendent religious art and then destroy it in the convulsions of fanaticism. Stylishly written and overflowing with drama, pathos, and wit, here is a matchless account of a lost civilization and its magnificent cultural legacy.

Strange and fascinating . . . filled with drollery and horror.
--Boston Globe

The cities of the ancient world built the foundations for modern urban life, their innovations in architecture and politics essential to cities as we know them today. But what was it like to live in Babylon, Carthage, or Teotihuacan?

From the first cities in Mesopotamia to the spectacular urban monuments of the Maya in Central America, the cities explored in Cities That Shaped the Ancient World represent almost three millennia of human history. Not only do they illustrate the highest achievement of the cultures that built them, but they also help us understand the rise and fall of these ancient peoples. In this new compact paperback, eminent historians and archaeologists with first-hand knowledge of each site give voice to these silent ruins, bringing them to life as the teeming, state-of-the-art metropolises they once were.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The long awaited and highly revealing diaries of the politician, diplomat, and socialite (married to Lady Diana Cooper)

'This is a fabulous, jaw-dropping read' SUNDAY TIMES

'Duff Cooper was as close to the action as anyone during the dramatic events of the mid-20th century. He was also comically priapic, committing enough sexual indiscretions to fill a dozen diaries' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

'Fascinating for two things: their testament to an exhilarating century and their witness to a vanished age of power and privilege ... What a man' OBSERVER

Duff Cooper was a first-rate witness of just about every significant event from 1914 to 1950. His diary includes some magnificent set pieces - as a young soldier at the end of WWI, as a politician during the General Strike of 1926, as King Edward VIII's friend at the time of the Abdication, and from Paris after the liberation in 1944, when he became British ambassador.

If Duff Cooper's name has dimmed in the 50 years since his death, publication of these diaries will bring him to the fore once again. His family have long resisted publication - indeed Duff Cooper's nephew, the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis, was so shocked by the sexual revelations that he suggested to John Julius Norwich that it might be best for all concerned if they were burnt. Now, superbly edited by John Julius Norwich, who familial link ensures all kinds of additional information as footnotes, these diaries join the ranks.

An obligatory stop on the Grand Tour for any cultured Englishman (and, later, Americans), Venice limped into the 19th century-first under the yoke of France, then as an outpost of the Austrian Hapsburgs, stripped of riches yet indelibly the most ravishing city in Italy. Even when subsumed into a unified Italy in 1866, it remained a magnet for aesthetes of all stripes-subject or setting of books by Ruskin and James, a muse to poets and musicians, in its way the most gracious courtesan of all European cities. By refracting images of Venice through the visits of such extravagant (and sometimes debauched) artists as Lord Byron, Richard Wagner, and the inimitable Baron Corvo, Norwich conjures visions of paradise on a lagoon, as enduring as brick and as elusive as the tides.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.