This beautiful, extensively researched volume investigates the birth and early life of one of the most familiar British monarchs, Queen Victoria (1819-1901). A wealth of material, including many unexamined sources and unpublished images, sheds new li...

Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a quiet innovator whose fame has too often been yoked to that of her husband, Jean Arp. Over time, however, she has slowly come to be seen as one of the foremost abstract artists and designers of the twentieth century. The Swis...

Confiscated by Soviet authorities in the 1950s, the diaries of Ivan Maisky, the USSR's ambassador to Great Britain from 1932 to 1943, have been unearthed, annotated, and edited for publication in a three-volume set that Niall Ferguson predicts "will...

For sale in CIS only! Alexander von Humboldt was the most admired scientist of his day. But the achievements for which he was most celebrated in his lifetime always fell short of perfection. When he climbed the Chimborazo, then believed to be the hi...

If you were an independent, adventurous, liberated American woman in the 1920s or 1930s where might you have sought escape from the constraints and compromises of bourgeois living? Paris and the Left Bank quickly come to mind. But would you have ever...

For sale in CIS only! John Henry Newman was in many ways the Catholic Church's Duke of Wellington in Victorian times-except that he fought his campaigns and won his battles with his pen rather than the sword. Similar in appearance, both were very gr...

The extraordinary story of African American composer Edmond Dede, raised in antebellum New Orleans, and his remarkable career in France In 1855, Edmond Dede, a free black composer from New Orleans, emigrated to Paris. There he trained with France's b...

Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, was the archbishop of Canterbury who guided England through the early Reformation – and Henry VIII through the minefields of divorce. This is the first major biography of him for mo...

It's midnight and there are fists pounding on the door. Authoritative voices shouting, "We're coming in! Get on the floor!" A few terrorized minutes later a family member is dragged out by armed men, disappearing into the night. This scenario is the...

For sale in CIS only! Martti Ahtisaari is the world's most renowned and successful mediator in international conflicts. In 2008 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his lead role in bringing independence to Namibia, Serbia's withdrawal from Koso...