What is fascism? By focusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than what they said, the esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question.

From the first violent uniformed bands beating up enemies of the state, through Mussolini's rise to power, to Germany's fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others, and explores whether fascism could exist outside the early-twentieth-century European setting in which it emerged.

A deeply intelligent and very readable book. . . . Historical analysis at its best. -The Economist

The Anatomy of Fascism will have a lasting impact on our understanding of modern European history, just as Paxton's classic Vichy France redefined our vision of World War II. Based on a lifetime of research, this compelling and important book transforms our knowledge of fascism-the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.

Few families in history are as renowned as the Habsburgs, one of the principal sovereign dynasties of Europe from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. These enthralling pages provide glimpses into the lives of their esteemed members. The lessons that their lives teach will help guide your family in faith and will help you live in peaceful prosperity and grow in holiness. Their maxims could also provide a roadmap for healing the world we live in.

You will read about the Imperial House of Habsburg's saints and heroes, sinners, assassinations, and affairs, and the impact that freemasonry, Jansenism, and the Enlightenment had on them and on all of Europe. With warmth and candor, Eduard Habsburg -- a member of the family and archduke of Austria -- shares insights about the Seven Principles (maxims) at the root of Habsburg thought, action, politics, and family life, along with:

• The main ingredient for a stable marriage and how to create a deep bond between spouses
• The secret and value to a happy and productive family life
• How the Habsburg's Empire was different from Star Wars
• Five dates to remember in Habsburg history and their significance
• How to die like a royal (and it's not what you may think!)

You will learn the key role the Habsburgs played in the epic battles of Lepanto and Vienna and be inspired by exemplary Habsburgs such as Bl. Emperor Karl and Rudolf I, the first Habsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, who helped a priest bring Viaticum to a dying man.

This astounding Habsburg history tells of the devout reign of Maria Theresia Habsburg-Lothringen, mother of sixteen children, who saved the family lands and organized pilgrimages and countrywide vigils in honor of Our Lady and the Blessed Sacrament.

It describes how Emperor Charles V safeguarded the Faith and how Venerable Magdalena, archduchess, and later Ferdinand II, heroically countered the Reformation. You will marvel at how Leopold I led his people to the pinnacle of Catholic piety and almost became a priest.

You will discover fascinating Habsburg family lore and the manner in which their marriages were arranged (even in utero!). And you will find out how they promoted subsidiarity and protected people from politicians -- and the extraordinary relevance that has for us today.

Surely our world today be a better place if all of us, our societies and politicians, would study these Seven Rules for Turbulent Times and follow...The Habsburg Way.

A lively, anecdotal, all-encompassing history of Basque ingenuity and achievement. --Atlantic Monthly

From Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod, Salt, Birdseye, and Paper--the illuminating story of an ancient and enigmatic people

Straddling a small corner of Spain and France in a land that is marked on no maps except their own, the Basques are a puzzling contradiction--they are Europe's oldest nation without ever having been a country. No one has ever been able to determine their origins, and even the Basques' language, Euskera--the most ancient in Europe--is related to none other on earth. For centuries, their influence has been felt in nearly every realm, from religion to sports to commerce. Even today, the Basques are enjoying what may be the most important cultural renaissance in their long existence, as displayed by new cookbooks like chefs Alexandra Raij and Eder Montero's The Basque Book and restaurateur Jose Pizarro's Basque. Mark Kurlansky's passion for the Basque people and his exuberant eye for detail shine throughout this fascinating book. Like Cod, The Basque History of the World, blends human stories with economic, political, literary, and culinary history into a rich and heroic tale.
Among the Basques' greatest accomplishments:
- Exploration--the first man to circumnavigate the globe, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, was a Basque and the Basques were the second Europeans, after the Vikings, in North America
- Gastronomy and agriculture--they were the first Europeans to eat corn and chili peppers and cultivate tobacco, and were among the first to use chocolate
- Religion--Ignatius Loyola, a Basque, founded the Jesuit religious order
- Business and politics--they introduced capitalism and modern commercial banking to southern Europe
- Recreation--they invented beach resorts, jai alai, and racing regattas, and were the first Europeans to play sports with balls

Entertaining and instructive... [Kurlansky's] approach is unorthodox, mixing history with anecdotes, poems with recipes. -The New York Times Book Review

This genealogy is a study in the old world as well as the new. Extensive references have been given, countless books have been consulted, nearly all procured from New England Historical and Genealogical Society, and to Colonial Families, compiled by the New York Historical Society. The author depended on printed records, and when authorities differed, a conclusion was reached by critical comparison and the weighing of evidence. Many family records never printed before have been used. Mrs. Rixford, a noted genealogist and author of several works, including Three Hundred Colonial Ancestors and War Service, has traced from Cerdic, first of the West Saxon Kings, 495, through Alfred the Great, 849, Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, King Henry I, II and III, King Edward I, II and III, also many other royal lines through Charlemagne, Louis I, Earls of Warren, Dukes of Normandy, Royal House of Portugal, House of Capet, Counts of Anjou, Kings of Jerusalem, and many other royal families too numerous to name. She has also included several Mayflower lines connected to all members of the Vermont Society of Mayflower Descendants, who are direct descendants of these lines. Those with ancestry to the Earls of Warren have been connected up to the royal families. The book also includes the ancestry of Gen. George Washington, the first President of the United States, traced back 1,000 years to the Earl of Orkney Isles, the founder of the Washington family. It also contains the ancestry of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, who ranked next in military fame to George Washington. Other families addressed in this volume include: Aquitaine, Angouleme, Anjoy, Baskerville, Beauchamp, Bray, Bulkeley, Capet, Castille, Cheney, James Chilton, Francis Cooke, Courtenay, Rixford, De Vere, Farleigh-Hungerford, Devereux, Douglas, Drake, Eaton, Ferrers, Fitz-Alan, Flanders, Graves, Greene, Gregory, Hainault, Heydon, Johnson, William Latham, Lawrence (John and Isaac), Lisle, Marshall, Milbourne, Moore, Mowbray, Phelps, Port, Province, Rogers, Russell, Seymour, De Spineto, Smith and Georges, Sir Henry Smith, Stanley, Throckmorton, Tailefer, Vermandois, Warren, Washburn, Washington, Winnington (Wynnington), Gov. Thomas Welles, Whitney, William the Conqueror, Winslow, and Wyne.

A new history of the Celts that reveals how this once-forgotten people became a pillar of modern national identity in Britain, Ireland, and France

Before the Greeks and Romans, the Celts ruled the ancient world. They sacked Rome, invaded Greece, and conquered much of Europe, from Ireland to Turkey. Celts registered deeply on the classical imagination for a thousand years and were variously described by writers like Caesar and Livy as unruly barbarians, fearless warriors, and gracious hosts. But then, in the early Middle Ages, they vanished. In The Celts, Ian Stewart tells the story of their rediscovery during the Renaissance and their transformation over the next few centuries into one of the most popular European ancestral peoples.

The Celts shows how the idea of this ancient people was recovered by scholars, honed by intellectuals, politicians, and other thinkers of various stripes, and adopted by cultural revivalists and activists as they tried to build European nations and nationalisms during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Long-forgotten, the Celts improbably came to be seen as the ancestors of most western Europeans--and as a pillar of modern national identity in Britain, Ireland, and France.

Based on new research conducted across Europe and in the United States, The Celts reveals when and how we came to call much of Europe Celtic, why this idea mattered in the past, and why it still matters today, as the tide of nationalism is once again on the rise.

The ecological movement discovered that 'nature' prescribes for us a moderation that we cannot ignore with impunity. Unfortunately, 'human ecology' has still not been made concrete. A human being, too, has a 'nature' that is prescribed for him, and violating or denying it leads to self-destruction.
-- Benedict XVI, from the preface

This collection of selected works is Benedict XVI's heartfelt call for Europe to rediscover its true origin and identity, in order to become once again a beacon of beauty and humanity for the world. Such a revival would be not simply about imposing the truths of faith as the foundation of Europe, but about making a fundamental choice for justice: to live as if God exists rather than as if he does not.

Just as Pope John XXIII once called on the great nations of the earth to avoid a devastating nuclear war, Benedict XVI addresses not only Europe but the whole West, so that, by again finding their own soul as a people, they can save the world from self-destruction--both physical and spiritual.

With his characteristic clarity, immediate accessibility, and at the same time depth, the Pope Emeritus magnificently outlines here the 'idea of Europe' that undoubtedly inspired its Founding Fathers and is the basis for its greatness; the definitive dimming of this ideal would ratify its complete and irreversible decline.
-- Pope Francis, from the Introduction

The Netherlands is known among foreigners today for its cheese and its windmills, its Golden Age paintings and its experimentation in social policies such as cannabis and euthanasia. Yet the historical background for any of these quintessentially Dutch achievements is often unfamiliar to outsiders. This Concise History offers an overview of this surprisingly little-known but fascinating country. Beginning with the first humanoid settlers, the book follows the most important contours of Dutch history, from Roman times through to the Habsburgs, the Dutch Republic and the Golden Age. The author, a modernist, pays particularly close attention to recent developments, including the signature features of contemporary Dutch society. In addition to being a political history, this overview also gives systematic attention to social and economic developments, as well as in religion, the arts and the Dutch struggle against the water. The Dutch Caribbean is also included in the narrative.

A revelatory new account of the magus--the learned magician--and his place in the intellectual, social, and cultural world of Renaissance Europe.

In literary legend, Faustus is the quintessential occult personality of early modern Europe. The historical Faustus, however, was something quite different: a magus--a learned magician fully embedded in the scholarly currents and public life of the Renaissance. And he was hardly the only one. Anthony Grafton argues that the magus in sixteenth-century Europe was a distinctive intellectual type, both different from and indebted to medieval counterparts as well as contemporaries like the engineer, the artist, the Christian humanist, and the religious reformer. Alongside these better-known figures, the magus had a transformative impact on his social world.

Magus details the arts and experiences of learned magicians including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Trithemius, and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Grafton explores their methods, the knowledge they produced, the services they provided, and the overlapping political and social milieus to which they aspired--often, the circles of kings and princes. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, these erudite men anchored debates about licit and illicit magic, the divine and the diabolical, and the nature of good and bad magicians. Over time, they turned magic into a complex art, which drew on contemporary engineering as well as classical astrology, probed the limits of what was acceptable in a changing society, and promised new ways to explore the self and exploit the cosmos.

Resituating the magus in the social, cultural, and intellectual order of Renaissance Europe, Grafton sheds new light on both the recesses of the learned magician's mind and the many worlds he inhabited.

In June 1609, two judges left Bordeaux for a territory at the very edge of their jurisdiction, a Basque-speaking province on the Atlantic coast called the Pays de Labourd. In four months, they executed up to 80 women and men for the crime of witchcraft, causing a wave of suspects to flee into Spain and sparking terror there. Witnesses, many of them children, described lurid tales of cannibalism, vampirism, and demonic sex. One of the judges, Pierre de Lancre, published a sensationalist account of this diabolical netherworld. With other accounts seemingly destroyed, this witch-hunt - France's largest - has always been seen through de Lancre's eyes. The narrative, re-told over the centuries, is that of a witch-hunt caused by a bigoted outsider.

Newly discovered evidence paints a very different, still darker picture, revealing a secret history underneath de Lancre's well-known tale. Far from an outside imposition, witchcraft was a home-grown problem. Panic had been building up over a number of years and the region was fractured by factionalism and a struggle over scarce resources. The Basque Witch-Hunt reveals that de Lancre was no outsider; he was a local partisan, married into the Basque nobility. Living at the Franco-Spanish border, the Basques were victims of geography. Geo-politics caused a local conflict which made the witch-hunt inevitable. The same forces eventually sent thousands of religious refugees from Spain to France where they, in turn, became new objects of popular fear and anger.

The Basque witch-hunt is justly infamous. This book shows that almost everything historians thought they knew about it is wrong.

A riveting look at the story of World War II and the Holocaust through the diaries of Dutch citizens, firsthand accounts of ordinary people living through extraordinary times

Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven't seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.

Journalist Nina Siegal, who grew up in a family that had survived the Holocaust in Europe, had always wondered about the experience of regular people during World War II. She had heard stories of the war as a child and Anne Frank's diary, but the tales were either crafted as moral lessons -- to never waste food, to be grateful for all you receive, to hide your silver -- or told with a punch line. The details of the past went untold in an effort to make it easier assimilate into American life.

When Siegal moved to Amsterdam as an adult, those questions came up again, as did another horrifying one: Why did seventy five percent of the Dutch Jewish community perish in the war, while in other Western European countries the proportions were significantly lower? How did this square with the narratives of Dutch resistance she had heard so much about and in what way did it relate to the famed tolerance people in the Netherlands were always talking about? Perhaps more importantly, how could she raise a Jewish child in this country without knowing these answers?

Searching and singular, The Diary Keepers mines the diaries of ordinary citizens to understand the nature of resistance, the workings of memory, and the ways we reflect on, commemorate, and re-envision the past.

New English translation of the classic work by Adolf Hitler. Now, for the first time ever, in dual English-German text. This is a complete and unedited translation of Volume One of Mein Kampf, in modern and highly readable American English. This is the first such effort since the 1940s, and it far surpasses all existing versions. This edition includes section headings, helpful footnotes, bibliography, and useful index.

Mein Kampf is the autobiography and articulated worldview of one of the most consequential leaders in world history. It is also one of the most maligned and least understood texts of the 20^th century. A major problem in the Anglophone world has been the poor state of English translations. Both the Mannheim and Murphy editions are poor efforts, awkwardly phrased, and replete with archaic British wording; they are simply painful to read. The new Dalton translation is clear, lucid, and highly readable--and yet true to the original. And, unlike every other edition, this version has authentic section headings embedded in the text, which serve to both organize Hitler's ideas and to parse long sections of text into manageable units.

Dalton's translation will become the standard reference for this famous work.

Schama explores the mysterious contradictions of the Dutch nation that invented itself from the ground up, attained an unprecedented level of affluence, and lived in constant dread of being corrupted by happiness. Drawing on a vast array of period documents and sumptuously reproduced art, Schama re-creates in precise detail a nation's mental state. He tells of bloody uprisings and beached whales, of the cult of hygiene and the plague of tobacco, of thrifty housewives and profligate tulip-speculators. He tells us how the Dutch celebrated themselves and how they were slandered by their enemies.

History on the grand scale...An ambitious portrait of one of the most remarkable episodes in modern history.--New York Times

Wonderfully inclusive; with wit and intense curiosity he teases out meaning from every aspect of Dutch seventeenth-century life.--Robert Hughes

The Revised Edition includes New Photos, Star Charts & Information in the last chapter:

The Stars of the Magdalene

The wild breadth of information reaches from King Arthur in Cumbria, the marriage of Mary Magdalene & Jesus to new observations on Bernard de Clairvaux. The Man who put swords in the hands of Cistercian monks and created the most enigmatic chivalrous Order of all time - the Knights Templars, modeled on the Knights of Camelot.

The descendants of the Templars thrive in Cumbria, a landscape steeped in the mysteries of the Dragon Tradition found in the lore of Camelot. The ancient lost kingdom of Rheged in Cumbria is the historical setting for the Knights of the Round Table. Lake Windermere is the home of the Lady of the Lake.

Melusine is an early medieval elf maiden of fountains and springs with the ability to transform into a dragon. She is the inspiration for the Lady of the Lake of Arthurian tales. Noble houses of Western Europe counted her as their ancestor. I believe her to be an allusion to Mary Magdalene. Melusine was also the ancestor of the banking family so important to the Italian Renaissance, the Medici.

The Magdalene line of kings called the Merovingians, springs from the French King, Merovee 374 AD to 425 AD, whose dual fathers were King Clodio and also a magical aquatic beast reminiscent of Neptune.

Napoleon had a great interest in the Merovingian dynasty. He wore 300 golden bees on his coronation robe which had been excavated from the tomb of King Childebert II (570-95). Napoleon wove Templar symbolism into art and architecture, aligning himself with Templarism.

The Templar Contact interviewed for the book is a Medici descendant and also of the Man in the Iron Mask, a true account made famous by Alexander Dumas.

The author was given an Energetic Map of the World which correlates with the Ordnance Survey National Grid of Great Britain and includes historic and modern Templar sites

The Matrix Map of the World is explored in great detail through the lens of Quantum Physics. It is a portal to understanding the ethos behind the current generation of Knights Templar and a wide angle lens as to their thoughts on the future of humanity.

Included in the Map is the location for Atlantis in the Azores. Jesuit scholar Athanasius concurs, Site of Atlantis now beneath the sea according to the beliefs of the Egyptians and the description of Plato.

Included is a map by Athanasiusmaller that shows two small islands off the coast of America. Could these two smaller land masses shown, be the remains of Atlantean satellites and solving the riddle of the Bimini Road in Florida? Might we view the lower island as Saint John's of Nova Scotia and the upper island as once having existed off the coast of Florida? Ancient mysteries are explored in detail.

Conversations with the Templar representative are woven into the authors own research. The text is infused with the essence of the language of the angels, Enochian.

The author discovered a 12th century illuminated manuscript and a star chart from 1627 which portrays Mary Magdalene as the new Queen of Heaven. Two new engravings have been added to the final chapter: The Stars of the Magdalene. Filled with codes, the two new plates reveal how this remarkable woman was venerated down through the centuries.

The book is heavily illustrated to ignite your imagination and empower your inner sight. Enjoy the extensive bibliography as a tool to help you navigate your own adventurous journey ahead... for the road goes ever on...

https: //thesecretdossier.co.uk/

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Despite its position at the heart of Europe and its quintessentially European nature, Switzerland's history is often overlooked within the English-speaking world. This comprehensive and engaging history of Switzerland traces the historical and cultural development of this fascinating but neglected European country from the end of the Dark Ages up to the present. The authors focus on the initial Confederacy of the Middle Ages; the religious divisions which threatened it after 1500 and its surprising survival amongst Europe's monarchies; the turmoil following the French Revolution and conquest, which continued until the Federal Constitution of 1848; the testing of the Swiss nation through the late nineteenth century and then two World Wars and the Depression of the 1930s; and the unparalleled economic and social growth and political success of the post-war era. The book concludes with a discussion of the contemporary challenges, often shared with neighbours, that shape the country today.

Unveil the Soul of Ireland: A Journey Through Time and Tragedy!

Two manuscripts in one book:

• Irish History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Ireland
• The Great Famine: A Captivating Guide to the History of the Great Hunger in Ireland from 1845 to 1849 and How the Irish Potato Famine Was Solved

Are you ready to embark on an enthralling journey through Ireland's heart and soul? Dive into this gripping two-part saga where history and tragedy intertwine to tell the tale of a nation shaped by courage, conflict, and resilience.

Part One: Irish History - A Captivating Guide

Unearth the mystique of Ireland's rolling green hills and its pivotal role in shaping a nation. From the mystical Celts to the turbulent era of The Troubles, discover how Ireland transformed from a land of myth to a beacon of modern Europe.

Key Highlights:

• Witness the Celtic dawn and Christianity's intricate weave through Irish life.
• Uncover Viking quests and the Norman invasion saga.
• Explore the complex Protestant-Catholic divide and Ireland's journey to independence.
• Marvel at Ireland's metamorphosis into a European economic powerhouse.

Part Two: The Great Famine - A Heart-Wrenching Chronicle

Step into the 1840s, Ireland's darkest hour. Experience the harrowing Great Famine that reshaped not just a nation but the world.

Key Insights:

• Delve deep into Ireland's agricultural roots and colonial shackles.
• Witness the devastation of the potato plague and Britain's controversial response.
• Follow the exodus of millions, shaping the US and the British Empire.
• Reflect on the memorials that immortalize this epoch, reminding us of the indomitable Irish spirit.

A Treasure Trove for History Buffs and Seekers of Truth!

Don't miss this compelling blend of history and emotion. Grab your copy now and unravel the mysteries of Irish history and the Great Famine.

Click add to cart and embark on a journey through time!

Teaching a Dark Chapter explores how textbook narratives about the Fascist/Nazi past in Italy, East Germany, and West Germany followed relatively calm, undisturbed paths of little change until isolated flashpoints catalyzed the educational infrastructure into periods of rapid transformation. Though these flashpoints varied among Italy and the Germanys, they all roughly conformed to a chronological scheme and permanently changed how each dark past was represented.

Historians have often neglected textbooks as sources in their engagement with the reconstruction of postfascist states and the development of postwar memory culture. But as Teaching a Dark Chapter demonstrates, textbooks yield new insights and suggest a new chronology of the changes in postwar memory culture that other sources overlook. Employing a methodological and temporal rethinking of the narratives surrounding the development of European Holocaust memory, Daniela R. P. Weiner reveals how, long before 1968, textbooks in these three countries served as important tools to influence public memory about Nazi/Fascist atrocities.

As Fascism had been spread through education, then education must play a key role in undoing the damage. Thus, to repair and shape postwar societies, textbooks became an avenue to inculcate youths with desirable democratic and socialist values. Teaching a Dark Chapter weds the historical study of public memory with the educational study of textbooks to ask how and why the textbooks were created, what they said, and how they affected the society around them.

A new history of the Spanish Inquisition--a terrifying battle for a unified faith.

This is the story of 350 years of terror. Established by papal bull in 1478, the first task of the Spanish Inquisition was to question Jewish converts to Christianity and to expose and execute those found guilty of reversion. Authorities then turned on Spanish Jews in general, sending 300,000 into exile. Next in line were humanists and Lutherans. No rank was exempt. Children informed on their parents, merchants on their rivals, and priests upon their bishops. Those denounced were guilty unless they could prove their innocence. Nearly 32,000 people were publicly burned at the stake; the fortunate ones were flogged, fined, or imprisoned.
Joseph P rez tells the history of the Spanish Inquisition from its medieval beginnings to its nineteenth-century ending. He discovers its origins in fear and jealousy and its longevity in usefulness to the state. He explores the inner workings of its councils, and shows how its officers, inquisitors, and leaders lived and worked. He describes its techniques of interrogation and torture, and shows how it refined displays of punishment as instruments of social control. The author ends his fascinating account by assessing the impact of the Inquisition over three and a half centuries on Spain's culture, economy, and intellectual life.

We should welcome the context Kundera gives for the struggles between Russia and Europe, and the plight of those caught between them. His defense of small languages, small cultures, and small nations feels pressing.--Claire Messud, Harper's Magazine

Kundera focuses on the relationship of Europe's central 'small nations' like Czechoslovakia and Ukraine to Western culture and argues that their cultural identities were increasingly threatened.--New York Book Review

A short collection of brilliant early essays that offers a fascinating context for Milan Kundera's subsequent career and holds a mirror to much recent European history. It is also remarkably prescient with regard to Russia's current aggression in Ukraine and its threat to the rest of Europe.

Milan Kundera's early nonfiction work feels especially resonant in our own time. In these pieces, Kundera pleads the case of the small nations of Europe who, by culture, are Western with deep roots in Europe, despite Russia imposing its own Communist political regimes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Kundera warns that the real tragedy here is not Russia but Europe, whose own identity and culture are directly challenged and threatened in a way that could lead to their destruction. He is sounding the alarm, which chimes loud and clear in our own twenty-first century.

The 1983 essay translated by Edmund White (The Tragedy of Central Europe), and the 1967 lecture delivered to the Czech Writers' Union in the middle of the Prague Spring by the young Milan Kundera (Literature and the Small Nations), translated for the first time by Linda Asher, are both written in a voice that is at once personal, vehement, and anguished. Here, Kundera appears already as one of our great European writers and truly our contemporary. Each piece is prefaced by a short presentation by French historian Pierre Nora and Czech-born French political scientist Jacques Rupnik.

Journey to the romantic land of Italy and meet the artists, warriors, and leaders who forever left their mark on Western culture.

Perhaps no country has had such a lasting impact on Western culture as Italy. Whether it's the frescoes of the Renaissance, the politics of ancient Rome, or the struggles of the Catholic Church, Italy holds a central place on the world's stage.

But how much do you actually know about Italy and its history? You've likely heard of Rome, Florence, and Pompeii. But do you know about the Etruscans, who laid the foundations of modern civilization way back in the 6th century BCE? Do you know what happened between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance? Or how and why Mussolini came to power in WWII?

This book gives a brief but detailed overview of Italy's grand, sweeping history, from ancient city-state to modern cultural mecca.

You'll learn about:

• The strange burial practices of the early Etruscans
• The real story of Rome's most infamous leader, Julius Caesar
• How politics and heresies plagued the early Catholic Church
• Why Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and others flocked to Florence as the hub of Renaissance culture
• The intriguing 15th-century conspiracy to assassinate the Medici family
• Mussolini's terrifying quest to establish a dominant, fascist Italy
• Why the rich, vibrant land of Italy still captures our imaginations today

And much more.

Whether you're a student of Italian history looking for a refresher, a brand new learner looking for an introduction, or a future traveler looking to enhance your experience, this book is a concise, easy-to-read overview of the major players, events, and forces in Italian history, from antiquity to today.

After reading this book, you'll be able to:

• Engage in discussions about Italy's history, art, and culture
• Understand the role of Italy in shaping Western civilization
• Fully appreciate important Italian sites and artifacts
• Take your study of Italy's history and culture deeper

Ready to dive into the rich, fascinating history of Italy? Want to discover the true story behind some of the greatest thinkers, artists, and warriors who ever lived? Scroll up and click the Add to Cart button to begin your journey.

Connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millennia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. In this brilliant and expansive book, David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters-sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims-who have crossed and re-crossed it.

Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all a history of human interaction. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. He stresses the remarkable ability of Mediterranean cultures to uphold the civilizing ideal of convivencia, living together.

Now available in paperback, The Great Sea is the definitive account of perhaps the most vibrant theater of human interaction in history.