For a thousand years an extraordinary empire made possible Europe's transition to the modern world: Byzantium. An audacious and resilient but now little known society, it combined orthodox Christianity with paganism, classical Greek learning with Roman power, to produce a great and creative civilization which for centuries held in check the armies of Islam. Judith Herrin's concise and compelling book replaces the standard chronological approach of most histories of Byzantium. Instead, each short chapter is focused on a theme, such as a building (the great church of Hagia Sophia), a clash over religion (iconoclasm), sex and power (the role of eunuchs), an outstanding Byzantine individual (the historian Anna Komnene), a symbol of civilization (the fork), a battle for territory (the crusades). In this way she makes accessible and understandable the grand sweeps of Byzantine history, from the founding of its magnificent capital Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 330, to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Read more

At the end of the twentieth century people spoke as if the Balkans had plagued Europe for ever. But two hundred years earlier, the Balkans did not exist. It was not the Balkans but the ¿Rumeli¿ that the Ottomans ruled, the formerly Roman lands they had conquered from Byzantium, together with their Christian inhabitants. In this original account of the region Mark Mazower dispels current Western clichés and replaces stereotypes with a vivid account of how mountains, empires and religions have shaped its inhabitants¿ lives. As a bridge between Europe and Asia it has been exposed to a constant incursion of nomadic peoples across the centuries. Mazower¿s narrative ranges broadly both in time and in space, treating the former Turkish domains in Europe as part of a common if complex historical inheritance. Read more

A trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the Emperor's reign. Yet all the while the dutiful scribe was working on a very different - and dangerous - history to be published only once its author was safely in his grave. The Secret History portrays the 'great lawgiver' Justinian as a rampant king of corruption and tyranny, the Empress Theodora as a sorceress and whore, and the brilliant general Belisarius as the pliable dupe of his scheming wife Antonina. Magnificently hyperbolic and highly opinionated, The Secret History is a work of explosive energy, depicting holy Byzantium as a hell of murder and misrule. Read more

Black Sea is a homage to an ocean and its shores, from the earliest times to the present. It explores the culture, history and politics of the volatile region which surrounds the Black Sea. Ascherson recalls the world of Herodotus and Aeschylus; Ovid's place of exile on what is now the coast of Romania; the decline and fall of Byzantium; the mysterious Christian Goths; the Tatar Khanates; the growth of Russian power across the grasslands, and the centuries of war between Ottoman and Russian Empires around the Black Sea. He examines the terrors of Stalinism and its fascist enemy, both striving for mastery of these endlessly colourful and complex shores, and investigates the turbulent history of modern Ukraine.WITH A FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR 'A brilliant biography of place' Guardian'Every page is freighted with rich and fascinating detail' Independent Read more

The Macedonian Campaign has been largely ignored by history. Such neglect is misplaced. The annals of the First World War hold few events to compare with the triumphant final offensive of the Allied Army of the East, and the whole story of the campaign is rich, diverse, and relevant.Almost accidental in its origins the reality of a six-nation Allied army gradually took shape. The terrain fought over, from marshy river valleys to 2,000 meter mountain ranges, presented special military challenges. The ambivalent position of Greece, the Romanian misadventure, the intricacy of Balkan politics, the depredations of malaria, and inter-allied tensions both in Macedonia and at Allied government level all added further layers of complexity. But in the end the Allied Army of the East met its defensive objectives and vastly exceeded its offensive ones.The campaign had its origins in October 1915 when a small Franco-British force disembarked at Salonica, with orders to advance into Serbia to aid the beleaguered Serbs. It was too late, but a large part of the Serbian Army escaped to the Adriatic. Reconstituted into six divisions it was subsequently shipped to Salonica to form part of an Allied force of 15 divisions under the command of General Maurice Sarrail. By the end of 1916 the Allied Army of the East, with contingents also from Italy and Russia, had expanded into 20 divisions.Apart from tying down a substantial Germano-Bulgarian army, the Allied army's objectives were to prevent the Central Powers from breaking into Greece, to bring Greece and its army into the Allied camp, and, above all, to prepare for actions and advances into Bulgaria and enemy-held Serbia from the south.While the first two of these objectives were met, territorial gains in 1916 and 1917 were limited. The Serbians consolidated a strong position to the west of the Moglena mountain range, and with the French advanced into Serbia as far as Monastir. The British fought successful actions in the Struma valley but suffered costly reverses against the virtually impregnable Bulgarian defenses west of Lake Doiran on two occasions.Then in 1918 a key leadership change was made with the appointment of General Franchet d'Espèrey. In September under his dynamic command French and Serbian forces finally punched their way through the Bulgarian lines in the center of the Moglena mountains, and, supported by a Franco-Italian force on their left and a British-Greek force on their right, advanced at a phenomenal pace towards the upper Vardar and Skopje, splitting the enemy forces into two. Within 15 days the Bulgarians capitulated. This was followed shortly and inevitably by an armistice with Turkey. While the First World War was won and lost on the Western Front, the defeat of Bulgaria in September 1918 and the relentless advance of the Allied Army towards the undefended Danube frontier played a critical role, recognized also by the German High Command, in bringing the war to a close before the end of the year. Read more

'Bill Bryson on two wheels' IndependentScaling a new peak of rash over-ambition, Tim Moore tackles the 9,000km route of the old Iron Curtain on a tiny-wheeled, two-geared East German shopping bike. Asking for trouble and getting it, he sets off at the Arctic winter's brutal height, bullying his plucky MIFA 900 through the endless and massively sub-zero desolation of snowbound Finland. Haunted throughout the journey by the border detritus of watchtowers and rusted razor wire, Moore reflects on the curdling of the Communist dream, and the memories of a Cold War generation reared on the fear of apocalypse - at a time of ratcheting East-West tension. After three months, 20 countries and a 58-degree jaunt up the centigrade scale, man and bike finally wobble up to a Black Sea beach in Bulgaria, older and wiser, but mainly older. Read more

'A great achievement' Timothy Garton AshBloodshed. Invasions. Nationalist fervor. In this classic and celebrated history of the Balkans, Misha Glenny shows how the countries on the South-Eastern edge of Europe are seen by the rest of the world, and how the real story of the last 200 years is much more surprising. There are groups we think of as implacable enemies, who have, over the centuries, formed unlikely alliances, disrupting the idea that conflict in the Balkans is the inevitable product of ancient grudges. And there is the often-catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the rest of Europe, a dark history that raises profound questions about Western intervention. From the region's turbulent nineteenth century to the recent brutal conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia, the surge of organised crime, the rise of Turkey and the rocky road to EU membership, The Balkans remains the essential and peerless study of Europe's most complex and least understood region. 'An endeavour which deserves extraordinary admiration and as yet has no rival' Guardian'Glenny is the wisest and most reflective of all the Western journalists who have covered this part of Europe in the past two decades... This was an enormously ambitious book to undertake, but it is the book which Europe and America need' Observer Read more

Written between 1143 and 1153 by the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, The Alexiad is one of the most popular and revealing primary sources in the vast canon of medieval literature. Princess Anna Komnene, eldest child of the imperial couple, reveals the inner workings of the court, profiles its many extraordinary personages, and offers a firsthand account of immensely significant events such as the First Crusade, as well as its impact on the relationship between eastern and western Christianity. A celebrated triumph of Byzantine letters, this is an unparalleled view of Constantinople and the medieval world.This Penguin Classics edition is based on E. R. A. Sewter's renowned translation, revised by Peter Frankopan. It also includes an introduction, notes and other critical apparatus by Frankopan. Read more

For a thousand years an extraordinary empire made possible Europe’s transition to the modern world: Byzantium. An audacious and resilient but now little known society, it combined orthodox Christianity with paganism, classical Greek learning with Roman power, to produce a great and creative civilization which for centuries held in check the armies of Islam. Judith Herrin’s concise and compelling book replaces the standard chronological approach of most histories of Byzantium. Instead, each short chapter is focused on a theme, such as a building (the great church of Hagia Sophia), a clash over religion (iconoclasm), sex and power (the role of eunuchs), an outstanding Byzantine individual (the historian Anna Komnene), a symbol of civilization (the fork), a battle for territory (the crusades). In this way she makes accessible and understandable the grand sweeps of Byzantine history, from the founding of its magnificent capital Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 330, to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Read more

This intriguing book describes the Romans’ formidably warlike enemies in modern Romania and Bulgaria – their ‘most illustrated’ opponents, thanks to friezes on Trajan’s Column and carvings on Trajan’s Adamklissi monument.Formidable warriors, able to field tens of thousands of infantry and cavalry and led by a military aristocracy, the Dacians and Getae presented a real threat to Rome’s north-eastern frontier. They inflicted several defeats on Rome, crossing the Danube to invade the province of Moesia, and later stubbornly resisting counter-invasions from their strong mountain fortresses. Historians believe that the Dacians and Getae were essentially the same group of tribes during successive periods, related to Thracian tribes from territory south of the Carpathian Mountains, but their exact relationship in place and time is a subject for debate. Those called the ‘Getae’ by ancient Greek sources were actively expanding by at least the 4th century BC; some enlisted as mercenaries in Roman armies during the 1st century BC, and others later clashed with the army of Augustus, fighting alongside the Sarmatians. The people whom the Romans called the ‘Dacians’ are best known from wars against the emperors Domitian in AD 85–89 and Trajan in 101–106. At their peak, the Dacians and Getae defeated neighbouring peoples stretching from modern Slovakia to southern Ukraine and it is believed that the effectiveness of their weapons caused modifications in Roman infantry armour. Although most direct ancient sources have been lost to us, enough references remain to reconstruct a picture of their society and culture. Using previously unseen photos of archaeological finds with colour illustrations showing the appearance and weaponry of their warrior kings, noblemen, infantry and cavalry, this detailed book draws upon the latest literary and archaeological research to provide a complete account of these fascinating fighters. Read more

A revised edition of Anna Komnene's Alexiad, to replace our existing 1969 edition. This is the first European narrative history written by a woman - an account of the reign of a Byzantine emperor through the eyes and words of his daughter which offers an unparalleled view of the Byzantine world in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Read more

“A skilled storyteller…Holmes presents a riveting account of Rome’s decline” Kirkus ReviewsAttila is a household name. But his true character and impact on the Roman Empire have always remained elusive. Until now.In the first major work written about Attila in decades, Nick Holmes rewrites the story of Attila and Rome. Contrary to his brutal legend, Attila was a complex and captivating personality. A great warlord who despised ostentation, admired bravery and valued loyalty.He led his steppe nomads further west than Genghis Khan or Tamerlane. He nearly destroyed the Roman Empire. But his vast ambition undid him. This book is a must read for those interested in Rome, the Huns and military history.This is the third volume in Nick Holmes’ series on The Fall of the Roman Empire. The first volume, The Roman Revolution, covers the little known ‘crisis of the third century’ when barbarian invasions nearly destroyed classical Rome and led to a revolution in Roman government, the army and religion, including the extraordinary growth of Christianity. The second volume, The Fall of Rome, covers the barbarian invasions of the western half of the empire, culminating in the sack of Rome itself by the Goths in AD 410. Further volumes will continue Rome's turbulent history, from its revival under the emperor Justinian to the rise of Islam, the beginnings of Byzantium and the dawn of the Middle Ages. Read more

Black Sea is a homage to an ocean and its shores, from the earliest times to the present. It explores the culture, history and politics of the volatile region which surrounds the Black Sea. Ascherson recalls the world of Herodotus and Aeschylus; Ovid's place of exile on what is now the coast of Romania; the decline and fall of Byzantium; the mysterious Christian Goths; the Tatar Khanates; the growth of Russian power across the grasslands, and the centuries of war between Ottoman and Russian Empires around the Black Sea. He examines the terrors of Stalinism and its fascist enemy, both striving for mastery of these endlessly colourful and complex shores, and investigates the turbulent history of modern Ukraine.WITH A FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR 'A brilliant biography of place' Guardian'Every page is freighted with rich and fascinating detail' Independent Read more

Bulgaria became a member of the European Union in 2007, yet its history is amongst the least well known in the rest of the continent. R. J. Crampton provides here a general introduction to this country at the cross-roads of Christendom and Islam. The text and illustrations trace the rich and dramatic story from pre-history, through the days when Bulgaria was the centre of a powerful medieval empire and the five centuries of Ottoman rule, to the cultural renaissance of the nineteenth century and the political upheavals of the twentieth, upheavals which led Bulgaria into three wars. This updated edition includes the years from 1995 to 2004, a vital period in which Bulgaria endured financial meltdown, set itself seriously on the road to reform, elected its former King as prime minister, and finally secured membership of NATO and admission to the European Union. Read more

For those living outside Scandinavia, the Viking Age effectively began in 793 with an attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne. The attack on Lindisfarne was a characteristically violent harbinger of what was in store for Britain and much of Europe from the Vikings for the next 300 years, until the final destruction of the heathen temple to the Norse gods at Uppsala around 1090. Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls 'the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history'. His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia - the eddas, the poetry of the skalds and the sagas - is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries and the evidence of picture-stones, runes, ships and objects scattered all over northern Europe, to make the most convincing modern portrait of the Viking Age in any language. The Hammer and the Cross ranges from Scandinavia itself to Kievan Rus and Byzantium in the east, to Iceland, Greenland and the north American settlements in the west. Beyond its geographical boundaries the book takes us on a journey to a misty region inhabited by Hallfred the Troublesome Poet, Harald Bluetooth, Ragnar Hairy-Breeches, Ivar the Boneless and Eyvind the Plagiarist, in which literature, history and myth dissolve into one another. Read more

Since the days of Dimitur Blagoev, a member of the first Marxist group in Russia and a founder of Bulgarian communism, the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) was closely identified with its Russian counterpart. In the waning days of the Soviet Bloc, the best-known fact about Bulgaria was that it modeled itself closely on the USSR and was allegedly linked to KGB terrorist activities.Those similarities were more than superficial. Nonetheless, their extent and effect were inevitably colored by Bulgaria's size, its role in the complicated politics of Eastern Europe, and, of course, the fact that the BCP did not come to power in Bulgaria until after World War II and occupation by the Red Army.Under Todor Zhivkov, the head of the BCP from 1954 until its near demise in 1989, Bulgaria continued its close collaboration with the USSR while reviving elements of Bulgarian national culture. Zhivkov proved an enduring leader whose anticorruption campaigns and attempts to professionalize the Bulgarian bureaucracy were relatively successful. But even at the time this history of the BCP was written, in 1986, before the fall of the Soviet Union, the path of Bulgaria's future was uncertain. Read more

The story of the diverse communities of Eastern Europe’s borderlands in the centuries prior to World War II Focusing on the former province of Galicia, this book tells the story of Europe’s eastern borderlands, stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans, through the eyes of the diverse communities of migrants who settled there for centuries and were murdered or forcibly removed from the borderlands in the course of World War II and its aftermath.   Omer Bartov explores the fates and hopes, dreams and disillusionment of the people who lived there, and, through the stories they told about themselves, reconstructs who they were, where they came from, and where they were heading. It was on the borderlands that the expanding great empires―German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman―overlapped, clashed, and disintegrated. The civilization of these borderlands was a mix of multiple cultures, languages, ethnic groups, religions, and nations that similarly overlapped and clashed. The borderlands became the cradle of modernity. Looking back at it tells us where we came from. Read more