It was a time of revolution. The Roman Revolution describes the little known "crisis of the third century", and how it led to a revolutionary new Roman Empire. Long before the more famous collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, in the years between AD 235-275, barbarian invasions, civil war, and plague devastated ancient Rome.

The Crusades shook the world. But why did they happen? Their origins are revealed in a new light. As part of a medieval world war that stretched from Asia to Europe. At its center was an ancient empire Byzantium. Told for the first time as a single, linked narrative are three great events that changed history: The fall of Byzantium in the 11th century, the epic campaign of the First Crusade and the origins of modern Turkey. Nick Holmes not only presents the First Crusade in a wider global context but he also puts forwards new interpretations of the original sources.

Prize-winning historian Helen Castor delivers a compelling, eye-opening examination of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six women who exercised power against all odds—and one who never got the chance.

The fifteenth century was a turbulent age: the Hundred Years War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses dominated the lives of people both inside and out of the royal courts. Joan of Navarre, Katherine of Valois, Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Wydeville and Anne Neville were the queens who stood by England's sovereigns, caught up in wars that changed the course of their lives, and the course of history. They were also formidable women who defied the limitations of their times, often living out the brutal consequences of their determination.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering more than 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the 13th century AD.