The democratic experiment of 1918-1933, from defeat in WW1 to the rise of the Nazis. Jähner's description of living through this chaotic period is almost as thrilling as Hitchcock.
The remarkable diplomatic mission (Harriman for the US, Archibald Clark Kerr for Britain) that braced Stalin against the Germans and brought him into WW2 as an ally.
While the author's grandfather (Walter Runciman) tried to mediate between the new Czech Republic and the Sudeten Germans, her grandmother publicly favoured the Germans. This is a fascinating... read more
This fascinating account of a forgotten moment in history is part family memoir, part the telling of a Texan offshoot of the early Zionist movement, when 10,000 Jews set sail for Galveston b... read more
Anne Clifford's diaries, Mary Sidney's translations, Aemilia Lanyer's poems, Elizabeth Cary's playwriting: out of these a fine scholar of Renaissance literature constructs an illuminating gr... read more
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.