FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL PRIZE FOR HISTORY ‘Not only deserves the description “epic”, in its true sense, but the term “masterpiece” as well’ Independent

Wonderful . . . a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours. Natalie Haynes, Independent"

The adventurous stories of the greatest explorers in history.

In this highly original work Jeremy Black, one of world's leading military and cartographic historians, shows how fundamental maps were to the conflict as he charts its historical sweep across each of the major theatres.

With great flair and authority, the author describes Prussia's great battles, dynastic marriages and astonishing reversals of fortune, its brilliant and charismatic leaders from the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg to Bismarck and Frederick the Great, the military machine and the progressive, enlightened values on which it was built.

The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. This title explains a compelling series of events.

A rich, wide-ranging history of ignorance in all its forms, from antiquity to the present day