An unusual presentation of Monet's paintings alongside works painted at the same time, on adjacent easels, by friends such as Manet, Bazille and Renoir.
The distinguished historian of China, author of Vermeer's Hat, argues that it was not so much the Manchu invasion as climate change that brought collapse to the Ming Dynasty.
The rise and fall of the Bacris and Busnachs, two Jewish families whose prominence in trade and banking led them to play a small but crucial diplomatic and logistical role in the Napoleonic ... read more
The first English translation of this often overlooked French intellectual's last lecture, in which Aron emphasises the importance of liberal democracy during the tumultuous years of the Col... read more
'Drawing from such diverse sources as Newton's Principia, military manuals, eighteenth-century games, and cookbooks among others, Lorraine Daston seeks to define the role rules have played i... read more
In a particularly elegant diplomatic gesture, the Caliph Harun al-Rashid sent an elephant to Aachen in 802 AD. This fresh perspective draws on many Arabic sources.
A compelling personal introduction to the life and work of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz by his compatriot and fellow exile Eva Hoffman. The predominant themes here ar... read more
The great historian of late antiquity mixes the personal with the scholarly in telling the story of his life and work. Engagement with the non-European world has been intrinsic to his work.
Erudition and curiosity impel this vivid, detailed portrait by the world's foremost expert on Linnaeus: this biography won several prizes when it was first published in Sweden in 2019.
The long shadow of Ottoman rule: Mestyan argues that new local polities were based on recalibrated Ottoman structures rather than on European colonialism (with the exception of Palestine).
This is a bewitching and sympathetic account of a deliciously odd, brilliantly clever man. He was prone to headstands, toothbrushing and - like Lord Lundy - to tears.
Inspired by Darwin and von Humboldt, ARW travelled to the Amazon Basin and the Malay Archipelago. He published a paper on natural selection in 1858, a year before Darwin's Origin of Species... read more
Reframes the Silk Road as a diplomatic route, not simply a commercial thoroughfare, especially during the late Tang and Five Dynasties period. Draws on documents from Dunhuang.
A magnificent book by Chaucer's biographer: the forthright, funny, dynamic character from the Canterbury Tales is compared with some real medieval women, and is also traced in the work of la... read more
A new translation of Seneca's 'On The Shortness of Life', with the Latin on facing pages and an introduction. One of three niftily pocket-sized classical guides to life.
Fortitude and patience: Cicero's text in Latin and in English translation, with a commentary. One of three niftily pocket-sized philosophical guides from Princeton.
Selections from the man who threatened to bite scoundrels; with the Greek on facing pages and an introduction. One of three niftily pocket-sized classical guides to life from Princeton.
This eloquent little book offers a moving and erudite justification for the survival of high quality book shops and why they are essential places of discovery, refuge and fulfilment. Laced w... read more