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The Crusades Reference Library
The three-volume The Crusades covers everything from the First Crusade (1095-99) through the Ninth Crusade (1271-72).
The Fourth Estate
Did women really constitute a `fourth estate' in medieval society and, if so, in what sense? In this wide-ranging study Shulamith Shahar considers this and the whole question of the varying attitudes to women and their status in western Europe between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries.
Great Events from History: The Middle Ages, 477-1453
This two-volume set explores the significant events that occurred between 477 and 1453, including the invention of the printing press and the fall of Constantinople.
Health and Wellness in Antiquity Through the Middle Ages
Early medical practices are not just a historical curiosity, but real stories about people and health that may teach us much about the 21st century. This intriguing volume offers a comparative examination of early medicine and health care in regions as varied as ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, the Islamic world, and medieval Europe. * Excerpts from significant original texts to illustrate the concepts discussed * Illustrations drawn from many different ancient and medieval cultures portraying health care providers and the treatment of patients * Photographs depicting medical instruments and medicinal herbs * A bibliography that puts special emphasis on identifying English-language translations of original documents for those who would like to read the primary materials themselves
Medieval Europe
This interesting ebook giving an overview of the history of Europe during Medieval times has been specially formatted for today's e-readers. Written by Henry Davis, it covers subjects such as the papacy, the crusades, and the geo-political situa...
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades
This richly illustrated book presents a readable, authoritative, and comprehensive history of the Crusades, from the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095 to the legacy of crusading ideals and imagery today. Written by a team of leading Crusade scholars, it covers crusading in many different theatres of war, and highlights the remarkable art and architecture associated with the Crusades. -;Undertake this journey for the remission of your sins - assured of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven.' When Pope Urban II made his famous speech in 1095 launching the First Crusade, he set in motion a movement that would involve every country in Europe, touch almost every aspect of life, the economy, and society, and have an enduring influence on the history of the Islamic world and the Baltic region. It is a story of popes and peasants, holy wars and barbarian invasions, sieges and slaughters, warriors whose names - Saladin, Richard the Lionheart - have entered the realm of legend.This richly illustrated book presents a readable, authoritative, and comprehensive history of the Crusades, from the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095 to the legacy of crusading ideals and imagery today. Written by a team of leading Crusade scholars, it covers crusading in many different theatres of war. The ideas of apologists, propagandists and poets, and the perceptions and motives of the crusaders themselves are described, as are the reactions of the Muslims to Christian holy war. Thebook highlights the remarkable art and architecture associated with the Crusades, and offers fascinating insights into the history of knightly orders, such as the Knights Templar and the Knights of St John. Including detailed reference material - maps, chronology, a guide to further reading, and a full index - this volume will be welcomed by anyone interested in the ideals and history of the Crusades. Contributors: Jonathan Riley-Smith; Marcus Bull; Simon Lloyd; Michael Routledge; Jonathan Phillips; Jaroslav Folda; Denys Pringle; Alan Forey; Robert Irwin; Norman Housley; Peter Edbury; Anthony Luttrell; Elizabeth Siberry -
The Rise of the Medieval World 500-1300
Beginning in 500 with the fusion of classical, Christian, and Germanic cultures and ending in 1300 with a Europe united by a desire for growth, knowledge, and change, this volume provides basic information on the significant cultural figures of the Middle Ages. It includes over 400 people whose contributions in literature, religion, philosophy, education, or politics influenced the development and culture of the Medieval world. While focusing on Western European figures, the book does not neglect those from Byzantium, Baghdad, and the Arab world who also contributed to the politics, religion, and culture of Western Europe.
War and Peace in Ancient and Medieval History
This is a major study of the ideas and practices involved in the making and breaking of peace treaties and truces from Classical Greece to the time of the Crusades. Leading specialists on war and peace in ancient and medieval history examine the creation of peace agreements, and explore the extent to which their terms could be manipulated to serve the interests of one side at the other's expense. The chapters discuss a wide range of uses to which treaties and other peace agreements were put by rulers and military commanders in pursuit of both individual and collective political aims. The book also considers the wider implications of these issues for our understanding of the nature of war and peace in the ancient and medieval periods. This broad-ranging account includes chapters on ancient Persia, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, Anglo-Saxon England and the Vikings.
World Eras: Imperial China, 617-1644
Part of a series aiming to help students and researchers understand key periods in world history, this volume is divided into nine chapters that focus on Imperial China.
World Eras: Medieval Europe, 814-1350
Part of a series aiming to help students and researchers understand key periods in world history, this volume is divided into nine chapters that focus on Medieval Europe
World Eras: Rise and Spread of Islam, 622-1500
Part of a series aiming to help students and researchers understand key periods in world history, this volume examines the rise and spread of Islam.
World Eras: West African Kingdoms, 500-1590
Examines major civilizations that have flourished from antiquity to modern times, with a global perspective and a strong emphasis on daily life and social history. This volume provides in-depth coverage of West African kingdoms, 500-1590.
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The Age of Confucian Rule
Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind. In this concise history, we learn why the inventiveness of this era has been favorably compared with the European Renaissance, which in many ways the Song transformation surpassed. With the chaotic dissolution of the Tang dynasty, the old aristocratic families vanished. A new class of scholar-officials--products of a meritocratic examination system--took up the task of reshaping Chinese tradition by adapting the precepts of Confucianism to a rapidly changing world. Through fiscal reforms, these elites liberalized the economy, eased the tax burden, and put paper money into circulation. Their redesigned capitals buzzed with traders, while the education system offered advancement to talented men of modest means. Their rationalist approach led to inventions in printing, shipbuilding, weaving, ceramics manufacture, mining, and agriculture. With a realist's eye, they studied the natural world and applied their observations in art and science. And with the souls of diplomats, they chose peace over war with the aggressors on their borders. Yet persistent military threats from these nomadic tribes--which the Chinese scorned as their cultural inferiors--redefined China's understanding of its place in the world and solidified a sense of what it meant to be Chinese. The Age of Confucian Rule is an essential introduction to this transformative era. "A scholar should congratulate himself that he has been born in such a time" (Zhao Ruyu, 1194).
The Age of the Vikings
The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships to explore. The Age of the Vikings tells the full story of this exciting period in history. Drawing on a wealth of written, visual, and archaeological evidence, Anders Winroth captures the innovation and pure daring of the Vikings without glossing over their destructive heritage. He not only explains the Viking attacks, but also looks at Viking endeavors in commerce, politics, discovery, and colonization, and reveals how Viking arts, literature, and religious thought evolved in ways unequaled in the rest of Europe. The Age of the Vikings sheds new light on the complex society, culture, and legacy of these legendary seafarers.
The Birth of the West
The tenth century dawned in violence and disorder. Charlemagne’s empire was in ruins, most of Spain had been claimed by Moorish invaders, and even the papacy in Rome was embroiled in petty, provincial conflicts. To many historians, it was a prime example of the ignorance and uncertainty of the Dark Ages. Yet according to historian Paul Collins, the story of the tenth century is the story of our culture’s birth, of the emergence of our civilization into the light of day. The Birth of the West tells the story of a transformation from chaos to order, exploring the alien landscape of Europe in transition. It is a fascinating narrative that thoroughly renovates older conceptions of feudalism and what medieval life was actually like. The result is a wholly new vision of how civilization sprang from the unlikeliest of origins, and proof that our tenth-century ancestors are not as remote as we might think.
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism--gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium--long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium--what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today. Bringing the latest scholarship to a general audience in accessible prose, Herrin focuses each short chapter around a representative theme, event, monument, or historical figure, and examines it within the full sweep of Byzantine history--from the foundation of Constantinople, the magnificent capital city built by Constantine the Great, to its capture by the Ottoman Turks. She argues that Byzantium's crucial role as the eastern defender of Christendom against Muslim expansion during the early Middle Ages made Europe--and the modern Western world--possible. Herrin captivates us with her discussions of all facets of Byzantine culture and society. She walks us through the complex ceremonies of the imperial court. She describes the transcendent beauty and power of the church of Hagia Sophia, as well as chariot races, monastic spirituality, diplomacy, and literature. She reveals the fascinating worlds of military usurpers and ascetics, eunuchs and courtesans, and artisans who fashioned the silks, icons, ivories, and mosaics so readily associated with Byzantine art. An innovative history written by one of our foremost scholars, Byzantium reveals this great civilization's rise to military and cultural supremacy, its spectacular destruction by the Fourth Crusade, and its revival and final conquest in 1453.
Daily Life in the Middle Ages
Although life in the Middle Ages was not as comfortable and safe as it is for most people in industrialized countries today, the term "Dark Ages" is highly misleading. The era was not so primitive and crude as depictions in film and literature would suggest. Even during the worst years of the centuries immediately following the fall of Rome, the legacy of that civilization survived. This book covers diet, cooking, housing, building, clothing, hygiene, games and other pastimes, fighting and healing in medieval times. The reader will find numerous misperceptions corrected. The book also includes a comprehensive bibliography and a listing of collections of medieval art and artifacts and related sites across the United States and Canada so that readers in North America can see for themselves some of the matters discussed in the book.
Eastern Medieval Architecture: The Building Traditions of Byzantium and Neighboring Lands
The rich and diverse architectural traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions are the subject of this book. Representing the visual residues of a "forgotten" Middle Ages, the social and cultural developments of the Byzantine Empire, the Caucasus, the Balkans, Russia, and theMiddle East parallel the more familiar architecture of Western Europe. The book offers an expansive view of the architectural developments of the Byzantine Empire and areas under its cultural influence, as well as the intellectual currents that lie behind their creation. The book alternates chaptersthat address chronological or regionally-based developments with thematic studies that focus on the larger cultural concerns, as they are expressed in architectural form.
The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe
Saints and spies, pirates and philosophers, artists and intellectuals: they all criss-crossed the grey North Sea in the so-called "dark ages," the years between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of Europe's mastery over the oceans. Now the critically acclaimed Michael Pye reveals the cultural transformation sparked by those men and women: the ideas, technology, science, law, and moral codes that helped create our modern world. This is the magnificent lost history of a thousand years. It was on the shores of the North Sea where experimental science was born, where women first had the right to choose whom they married; there was the beginning of contemporary business transactions and the advent of the printed book. In The Edge of the World, Michael Pye draws on an astounding breadth of original source material to illuminate this fascinating region during a pivotal era in world history.
Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire
The legendary Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan (1155-1227) built one of the largest and most powerful empires in all history, striking fear and leaving devastation in his wake. Through their military brilliance, extreme discipline, and innovative weaponry, by 1224 the Mongols had expanded their empire--in which justice ruled, commerce flouished, all religions and races were accepted, and great scientific and artistic strides were made--into modern-day Korea, China, Russia, the Middle East, India, and eastern Europe. This in-depth survey by historian Jean-Paul Roux gives the reader a clear vision of this incomparable leader and the achievements of his mighty empire.
Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages
Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love, and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different from our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or where the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.In this richly illustrated and unusual history, Jack Hartnell uncovers the fascinating ways in which people thought about, explored, and experienced their physical selves in the Middle Ages, from Constantinople to Cairo and Canterbury. Unfolding like a medieval pageant, and filled with saints, soldiers, caliphs, queens, monks and monstrous beasts, this book throws light on the medieval body from head to toe--revealing the surprisingly sophisticated medical knowledge of the time.Bringing together medicine, art, music, politics, philosophy, religion, and social history, Hartnell's work is an excellent guide to what life was really like for the men and women who lived and died in the Middle Ages. Perfumed and decorated with gold, fetishized or tortured, powerful even beyond death, these medieval bodies are not passive and buried away; they can still teach us what it means to be human.
The Middle Ages
Since the fifteenth century, when humanist writers began to speak of a "middle" period in history linking their time to the ancient world, the nature of the Middle Ages has been widely debated. Across the millennium from 500 to 1500, distinguished historian Johannes Fried describes a dynamic confluence of political, social, religious, economic, and scientific developments that draws a guiding thread through the era: the growth of a culture of reason. Beginning with the rise of the Franks, Fried uses individuals to introduce key themes, bringing to life those who have too often been reduced to abstractions of the medieval "monk" or "knight." Milestones encountered in this thousand-year traversal include Europe's political, cultural, and religious renovation under Charlemagne; the Holy Roman Empire under Charles IV, whose court in Prague was patron to crowning cultural achievements; and the series of conflicts between England and France that made up the Hundred Years' War and gave to history the enduringly fascinating Joan of Arc. Broader political and intellectual currents are examined, from the authority of the papacy and impact of the Great Schism, to new theories of monarchy and jurisprudence, to the rise of scholarship and science. The Middle Ages is full of people encountering the unfamiliar, grappling with new ideas, redefining power, and interacting with different societies. Fried gives readers an era of innovation and turbulence, of continuities and discontinuities, but one above all characterized by the vibrant expansion of knowledge and an understanding of the growing complexity of the world.
The Norman Conquest
An upstart French duke who sets out to conquer the most powerful and unified kingdom in Christendom.An invasion force on a scale not seen since the days of the Romans. One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles ever fought. This new history explains why the Norman Conquest was the most significant cultural and military episode in English history.Assessing the original evidence at every turn, Marc Morris goes beyond the familiar outline to explain why England was at once so powerful and yet so vulnerable to William the Conqueror's attack; why the Normans, in some respects less sophisticated, possessed the military cutting edge; how William's hopes of a united Anglo-Norman realm unraveled, dashed by English rebellions, Viking invasions, and the insatiable demands of his fellow conquerors.This is a tale of powerful drama, repression, and seismic social change: the Battle of Hastings itself; the sudden introduction of castles and the massive rebuilding of every major church; the total destruction of an ancient ruling class. Language, law, architecture, and even attitudes toward life itself were altered forever by the coming of the Normans.
The Oxford History of Medieval Europe
This is the most authoritative account of life in Medieval Europe between the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of the Renaissance.
Full coverage is given to all aspects of life in a thousand-year period which saw the creation of western civilization: from the empires and kingdoms of Charlemagne, the Byzantines, and the Hundred Years War, to the ideals of the crusades, the building of great cathedrals and the social catastrophe of the Black Death; the cultural worlds of chivalric knights, popular festivals, and new art forms. The chapters show the movement of the centre of gravity in European life from the Mediterranean to the north; and the authors explore the contrast between Byzantine and Renaissance cultures in the south and the new, complex political and social structures of north-west Europe, which by 1300 had the most advanced civilization the world had ever seen.
The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades
In 1099, when the first Frankish invaders arrived before the walls of Jerusalem, they had carved out a Christian European presence in the Islamic world that endured for centuries, bolstered by subsequent waves of new crusaders and pilgrims. The story of how this group of warriors, driven byfaith, greed, and wanderlust, created new Christian-ruled states in parts of the Middle East is one of the best-known in history. Yet it offers not even half of the story, for it is based almost exclusively on Western sources and overlooks entirely the perspective of the crusaded. How did medievalMuslims perceive what happened?In The Race for Paradise, Paul M. Cobb offers a new history of the confrontations between Muslims and Franks we now call the "Crusades," one that emphasizes the diversity of Muslim experiences of the European holy war. There is more to the story than Jerusalem, the Templars, Saladin, and theAssassins. Cobb considers the Arab perspective on all shores of the Muslim Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria. In the process, he shows that this is not a straightforward story of warriors and kings clashing in the Holy Land, but a more complicated tale of border-crossers and turncoats; of embassiesand merchants; of scholars and spies, all of them seeking to manage a new threat from the barbarian fringes of their ordered world. When seen from the perspective of medieval Muslims, the Crusades emerge as something altogether different from the high-flying rhetoric of the European chronicles: as acultural encounter to ponder, a diplomatic chess-game to be mastered, a commercial opportunity to be seized, and as so often happened, a political challenge to be exploited by ambitious rulers making canny use of the language of jihad. An engrossing synthesis of history and scholarship, The Race for Paradise fills a significant historical gap, considering in a new light the events that distinctively shaped Muslim experiences of Europeans until the close of the Middle Ages.
Usurpers, a New Look at Medieval Kings
In the Middle Ages, England had to contend with a string of usurpers who disrupted the British monarchy and ultimately changed the course of European history by deposing England's reigning kings and seizing power for themselves. Some of the most infamous usurper kings to come out of medieval England include William the Conqueror, Stephen of Blois, Henry Bolingbroke, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry Tudor. Did these kings really deserve the title of usurper or were they unfairly vilified by royal propaganda and biased chroniclers?In this book we examine the lives of these six medieval kings, the circumstances which brought each of them to power, and whether or not they deserve the title of usurper. Along the way readers will hear stories of some of the most fascinating people from medieval Europe, including Empress Matilda, the woman who nearly succeeded at becoming the first ruling Queen of England; Eleanor of Aquitaine, the queen of both France and England who stirred her own sons to rebel against their father, Henry II; the cruel and vengeful reign of Richard II which caused his own family to overthrow him; the epic struggle for power between Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, Richard of York, and Edward IV during the Wars of the Roses; the notorious Richard III and his monstrous reputation as a child-killer; and Henry VII who rose from relative obscurity to establish the most famous royal family of all time: the Tudors.
The Viking Age: A Reader
Drawing on a wide range of original primary sources, and tracing the astonishing development of the Viking age from the first foreign raids to the rise and fall of Viking empires, this comprehensive reader is essential to an understanding of Viking history. The diversity of the Viking world is mirrored by the range and variety of the primary documents chosen for inclusion. Chroniclers record European horror in the face of the Viking onslaught. An Arab diplomat gives a gripping account of an encounter with Norsemen in Russia. Great warriors and kings of the period are heralded in Skaldic poetry. With unusual power, saga literature narrates the lives of Norse women and men at home and abroad. The reader includes new translations of all of the Norse material. Brief introductions contextualize the translations and all unfamiliar terms are explained in the body of the text, making this an extremely readable and user-friendly introduction to the Viking age.
Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific
An award-winning scholar explores the sixty-thousand-year history of the Pacific islands in this dazzling, deeply researched account. The islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia stretch across a huge expanse of ocean and encompass a multitude of different peoples. Starting with Captain James Cook, the earliest European explorers to visit the Pacific were astounded and perplexed to find populations thriving thousands of miles from continents. Who were these people? From where did they come? And how were they able to reach islands dispersed over such vast tracts of ocean? In Voyagers, the distinguished anthropologist Nicholas Thomas charts the course of the seaborne migrations that populated the islands between Asia and the Americas from late prehistory onward. Drawing on the latest research, including insights gained from genetics, linguistics, and archaeology, Thomas provides a dazzling account of these long-distance migrations, the seagoing technologies that enabled them, and the societies they left in their wake.
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The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction
First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, John Blair's Very Short Introduction to the Anglo-Saxon Age covers the emergence of the earliest English settlements to the Norman victory in 1066. This book is a brief introduction to the political, social,religious, and cultural history of Anglo-Saxon England.
Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction
After surviving the fifth century fall of the Western European Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire flourished as one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe for a thousand years.In this Very Short Introduction Peter Sarris introduces the reader to the unique fusion of Roman political culture, Greek intellectual tradition and Christian faith that took place in the imperial capital of Byzantium under the emperor Constantine and his heirs. Using examples from Byzantinearchitecture, art and literature, Sarris shows how their legacy was re-worked and re-invented in the centuries ahead, in the face of external challenges and threats. Charting the impact of warfare with the Persian and Islamic worlds to the east, Sarris explores the creativity of Byzantine statecraftand strategy, as well as the empire's repeated (but ultimately forlorn) attempts to enlist aid from the Christian powers of Western Europe to ensure its survival. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction
Crusading fervour gripped Europe for over 200 years, creating one of the most extraordinary, vivid episodes in world history. Whether the Crusades are regarded as the most romantic of Christian expeditions, or the last of the barbarian invasions, they have fascinated generations ever since,and their legacy of ideas and imagery has resonated through the centuries, inspiring Hollywood movies and great works of literature. Even today, to invoke the Crusades is to stir deep cultural myths, assumptions and prejudices.Yet despite their powerful hold on our imaginations, our knowledge of them remains obscured an distorted by time. Were the Crusaders motivated by spiritual rewards, or by greed? Were the Crusades an experiment in European colonialism, or a manifestation of religious love? How were they organizedand founded?With customary flair and originality, Christopher Tyerman picks his way through the many debates to present a clear and lively discussion of the Crusades; bringing together issues of colonialism, cultural exchange, economic exploitation, and the relationship between past and present.
Magna Carta: A Very Short Introduction
The Magna Carta has long been considered the foundation stone of the British Constitution, yet few people today understand either its contents or its context. This Very Short Introduction is introduces the document to a modern audience, explaining its origins in the troubled reign of KingJohn, and tracing the significance of the role that it played thereafter as a totemic symbol of the subject's right to protection against the raw and absolute authority of the sovereign. Drawing upon the great advances that have been made in the past two decades in our understanding of thirteenth-century English history, Nicholas Vincent demonstrates why the Magna Carta continues to be of enormous popular interest.
Medieval Britain: A Very Short Introduction
First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths' Very Short Introduction to Medieval Britain covers the establishment of the Anglo-Norman monarchy in the early Middle Ages, through to England's failure to dominate the British Isles and France in the later Middle Ages.
The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction
The Middle Ages is a term coined around 1450 to describe a thousand years of European History. In this Very Short Introduction, Miri Rubin provides an exploration of the variety, change, dynamism, and sheer complexity that the period covers. From the provinces of the Roman Empire, which becameBarbarian kingdoms after c.450-650, to the northern and eastern regions that became increasingly integrated into Europe, Rubin explores the emergence of a truly global system of communication, conquest, and trade by the end of the era. Presenting an insight into the challenges of life in Europe between 500-1500 - at all levels of society - Rubin looks at kingship and family, agriculture and trade, groups and individuals. Conveying the variety of European experiences, while providing a sense of the communication, cooperation, andshared values of the pervasive Christian culture, Rubin looks at the legacies they left behind.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
The Mongols: A Very Short Introduction
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Mongols carved out the largest land-based empire in world history, stretching from Korea to Russia in the north and from China to Syria in the south, and unleashing an unprecedented level of violence. But as Morris Rossabi reveals in this VeryShort Introduction, within two generations of their bloody conquests, the Mongols evolved from conquerors and predators to wise rulers who devised policies to foster the economies of the lands they had subjugated. By adopting political and economic institutions familiar to the local populations and recruiting native officials, they won over many of their non-Mongol subjects. In addition, Mongol nobles were ardent patrons of art and culture, supporting the production of Chinese porcelains and textiles, Iraniantiles and illustrated manuscripts, and Russian metalwork. Perhaps most important, the peace imposed by the Mongols on much of Asia and their promotion of trade resulted in considerable interaction among merchants, scientists, artists, and missionaries of different ethnic groups - includingEuropeans. Modern Eurasian and perhaps global history starts with the Mongol empire.
The Norman Conquest: A Very Short Introduction
The Norman Conquest in 1066 was the last time England was successfully invaded, and was one of the most profound turning points in English history, cataclysmically transforming a disparate collection of small nations into a European state. But what actually happened? How was the invasionviewed by those who witnessed it? And how has its legacy been seen by generations since? This fascinating Very Short Introduction reveals how dramatically English life was changed, from its language to its law, and focuses on the differing ways the conquest has been viewed by historians and infolklore ever since.
The Vikings: A Very Short Introduction
The Viking reputation is of bloodthirsty seafaring warriors, yet they were also traders, settlers, and farmers, who have been variously perceived as poets, explorers, democrats, and statesmen. Julian Richards uses the latest archaeological evidence to reveal the whole Viking world, and examines their legacy - from medieval sagas to 19th Century nationalism. - ;The Viking reputation is of bloodthirsty seafaring warriors, repeatedly plundering the British Isles and the North Atlantic throughout the early Middle Ages. Yet Vikings were also traders, settlers, and farmers, with a complex artistic and linguistic culture, whose expansion overseas led them to cross the Atlantic for the first time in European history. Highlighting the latest archaeological evidence, Julian Richards reveals the whole Viking world: their history, society and culture, and their expansion overseas for trade, colonization, and plunder. We also look at the Viking identity, through their artistic expression, rune stones, their ships, and their religion. The Viking story is also brought up to date, by examining their legacy from the medieval Icelandic sagas to 19th Century nationalism, Wagner, and the Nazis.
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