Categorie archieven: Engelse historicus

Britse geschiedenis, Engeland, Engelse geschiedenis, Engelse historicus

Martin Dufferwiel – Northumbria’s Bloody History

Martin Dufferwiel Northumbria’s Bloody History review and information. History Press will publish this book by Martin Dufferwiel, the British historian on November 6 in 2025. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Martin Dufferwiel Northumbria’s Bloody History review

Whenever a book review of Northumbria’s Bloody History, Martin Dufferwiel’s book about the history of the medieval kingdom, appears in the media, we highlight it on this page.

Martin Dufferwiel Northumbria's Bloody History

Northumbria’s Bloody History

  • Author: Martin Dufferwiel (United Kingdom)
  • Book type: Northumbria’s history, English history
  • Publisher: The History Press
  • To be released: November 6, 2025
  • Length: 192 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: £ 16.99
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the book about the history of Northumbria

From the Tees to the Tweed, from Barnard Castle to Berwick and from Hartlepool to Haltwhistle, the North East of England holds a long history and unique heritage. Many have fought and spilled blood on our soil – Roman legions, Dark-Age war lords, Viking raiders, Norman invaders, reivers and rebels; three centuries of cross-border conflict with Scotland changed the course of not just regional but national history.

Historical figures such as Ida the Flamebearer, Aethelfrith the Destroyer, William Wallace and Harry Hotspur all feature, but the sound and fury of arms and armour has largely drowned out the voices of ordinary people and individuals whose names have been lost to history. To this end, Northumbria’s Bloody History also includes accounts of random acts of everyday violence, the ravages of the Black Death and the cruelties of religious persecution in the land which once formed the heart of ancient Northumbria.

Martin Dufferwiel, a resident of Durham is the author of a number of magazine articles and four published books about the city and county. He enjoys writing history for non-historians, offering an alternative to most contemporary volumes about historical topics. He is a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and of the Society of Authors.

Matching books

Britse geschiedenis, Engeland, Engelse geschiedenis, Engelse historicus

Tracy Borman – The Stolen Crown

Tracy Borman The Stolen Crown. Grove Atlantic will publish this new book by Tracy Borman about treachery, deceit, and the death of the Tudor dynasty, on November 4 in 2025. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Tracy Borman The Stolen Crown review

  • “Pacy … makes the case that Elizabeth I played ‘a masterstroke of statecraft’ by not naming her successor … Borman tells the story with panache and urgency.” (The Times)
  • “Reveals sensational new evidence which throws doubt on everything historians thought they knew about the dying days of the Tudors . . . With this bit of dynamite in her toolbox, Borman now casts an eye back over the last decades of Elizabeth’s reign. And what she discovers is far more contorted, contested and downright bloody than previously understood … her interpretation of the latest forensic scholarship on the Elizabethan end days makes this a model work of popular history.” (Daily Mail)
  • “In tracing the history of the rival claimants, secret letters, and palace intrigues that marked the tumultuous end of the Tudor dynasty and start of the Stuart, Borman – thanks to newly uncovered material – lays bare the 400-year lie (zounds!) of Elizabeth I’s supposed deathbed naming of James I as her successor (“I’ll have none but him” she was purported to have declared).” (Globe and Mail)

Tracy Borman The Stolen Crown

The Stolen Crown

Treachery, Deceit, and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty

  • Author: Tracy Borman (England)
  • Book type: British history
  • Publisher: Grove Atlantic
  • To be released: November 4, 2025
  • Length: 448 pages
  • Format: hardback / ebook
  • Prize: £ 30.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the book by Tracy Borman the end of Tudor and launche of the Stuart Dynasty

In the long and dramatic annals of British history, no transition from one monarch to another has been as fraught and consequential as that which ended the Tudor dynasty and launched the Stuart in March 1603. At her death, Elizabeth I had reigned for 44 turbulent years, facing many threats, whether external from Spain or internal from her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. But no danger was greater than the uncertainty over who would succeed her, which only intensified as her reign lengthened. Her unwillingness to marry or name a successor gave rise to fierce rivalry between blood claimants to the throne—Mary and her son, James VI of Scotland, Arbella Stuart, Lady Katherine Grey, Henry Hastings, and more—which threatened to destabilize the monarchy.

As acclaimed Tudor historian Tracy Borman reveals in The Stolen Crown, according to Elizabeth’s earliest biographer, William Camden, in his history of her reign, on her deathbed the queen indicated James was her chosen heir, and indeed he did become king soon after she died. That endorsement has been accepted as fact for more than four centuries. However, recent analysis of Camden’s original manuscript shows key passages were pasted over and rewritten to burnish James’ legacy. The newly-uncovered pages make clear not only that Elizabeth’s naming of James never happened, but that James, uncertain he would ever gain the British throne, was even suspected of sending an assassin to London to kill the queen. Had all this been known at the time, the English people—bitter enemies with Scotland for centuries—might well not have accepted James as their king, with unimagined ramifications.

Inspired by the revelations over Camden’s manuscript, Borman sheds rare new light on Elizabeth’s historic reign, chronicling it through the lens of the various claimants who, over decades, sought the throne of the only English monarch not to make provision for her successor. The consequences were immense. Not only did James upend Elizabeth’s glittering court, but the illegitimacy of his claim to the throne, which Camden suppressed, found full expression in the catastrophic reign of James’ son and successor, Charles I. His execution in 1649 shocked the world and destroyed the monarchy fewer than 50 years after Elizabeth died, changing the course of British and world history.

Tracy Borman was born on January 1, 1972 in Scothern, Lincolnshire, England. She is Chief Historian of Historic Royal Palaces, Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust, and Chancellor and Professor of Tudor History at Lincoln Bishop University. She is the author of many highly acclaimed books, including Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I; Crown and Sceptre; Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him; The Private Lives of the Tudors; Thomas Cromwell; Queen of the Conqueror; Elizabeth’s Women; Witches; as well as the trilogy of novels The King’s Witch, The Devil’s Slave, and The Fallen Angel. Borman is also a regular broadcaster and accomplished public speaker. She was awarded an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours 2024 for services to heritage.

Matching books

Engelse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Tweede Wereldoorlog

Laurence Rees – In de geest van de nazi’s

Laurence Rees In de geest van de nazi’s recensie en informatie over de inhoud van het boek met 12 waarschuwingen uit de geschiedenis. Op 9 oktober 2025 verschijnt bij Uitgeverij Ambo | Anthos de Nederlandse vertaling van The Nazi Mind, het boek van de Britse historicus Laurence Rees over de opkomst en uiteindelijke
ondergang van de nazi’s. Hier lees je informatie over de inhoud van het boek, de auteur en over de uitgave.

Laurence Rees In de geest van de nazi’s recensie

  • “Rees wil zijn lezers expliciet waarschuwen dat alles een stuk fragieler is dan we geneigd zijn te denken.” (Bas Heijne, NRC ●●●●)
  • “De wereldberoemde historicus Laurence Rees schetst een verleden dat tegelijkertijd een griezelig waarschuwend verhaal is voor onze toekomst als we niet voorzichtig zijn.” (Anthony Scaramucci)

Laurence Rees In de geest van de nazi's

In de geest van de nazi’s

12 waarschuwingen uit de geschiedenis

  • Auteur: Laurence Rees (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: oorlogsgeschiedenis
  • Origineel: The Nazi Mind (2025)
  • Nederlandse vertaling: Catalien en Willem van Paassen
  • Uitgever: Ambo | Anthos
  • Verschijnt: 9 oktober 2025
  • Omvang: 488 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: € 34,99 / € 18,99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Boekwereld / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van Laurence Rees over de gevaren van het nazisme

Hoe konden de nazi’s hun misdaden begaan? Waarom tolereerden gewone burgers de uitroeiing van de Joden? In In de geest van de nazi’s combineert Laurence Rees indringende beschrijvingen
van de geschiedenis met nieuwe inzichten uit de (gedrags)psychologie om enkele van de meest verbijsterende vraagstukken over de Tweede Wereldoorlog te ontleden.

Rees baseert zich op niet eerder gepubliceerde getuigenissen van voormalige nazi’s en gewone burgers. Hij volgt de opkomst en uiteindelijke ondergang van de nazi’s door de lens van ‘twaalf waarschuwingen’, waaronder het verspreiden van complottheorieën, ‘wij-zij’-denken, uitbuiten van racisme en gebruik van religie om legitimiteit te verschaffen aan het autoritaire staatsapparaat.

Laurence Rees is geboren in 1957. Hij was directeur van BBC History Programmes. Hij maakte verschillende bekroonde documentaires over de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Zijn documentaire The Nazis: A Warning from History werd bekroond met onder andere een BAFTA en een International Documentary Award. Voor Auschwitz: The Nazis & the Final Solution ontving hij in 2006 de History Book of the Year Award. Van Rees verschenen in vertaling eerder Een tijd van duisternis en Achter gesloten deuren. In Het charisma van Adolf Hitler gaat Laurence Rees in op het thema dat vele historici genegeerd hebben: Hitlers karakter en persoonlijkheid.

Bijpassende boeken

Amerikaanse geschiedenis, Biografie, Engelse historicus

Matthew Restall – The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus

Matthew Restall The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus review, recensie en informatie van de In Genua geboren ontdekkingsreiziger. Op 8 oktober 2025 verschijnt bij W.W. Norton & Company de biografie van Columbus, geschreven door Matthew Renstall, de Engelse historicus. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Matthew Restall The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus review en recensie

  • “In this compelling book, Matthew Restall comprehensively dismantles the myths surrounding Christopher Columbus while simultaneously revealing their power and importance for understanding his ever-changing legacy. A fascinating read for anyone seeking to understand how history is made, contested, and remembered.” (Caroline Dodds Pennock, author of On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe)
  • “I found The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus to be a marvelous fusion of ingenuity and scholarship, a kaleidoscope of the explorer’s provocative legacies.” (Laurence Bergreen, author of Columbus: The Four Voyages)

Matthew Restall The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus

The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus

  • Auteur: Matthew Restall (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: biografie
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: W.W. Norton & Company
  • Verschijnt: 8 oktober 2025
  • Omvang: 368 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 35,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst van de Columbus biografie van Matthew Restall

A gifted historian presents a definitive book on Columbus—his life, his legacies, and the controversies that outlived him.

Christopher Columbus was born Cristoforo Colombo, in the autumn of 1451 in the Mediterranean port city of Genoa, and he died in the Spanish city of Valladolid in May 1506, as don Cristóbal Colón. More than five centuries later, we are still arguing over his life and its significance. Millions if not billions of people have learned his name. Most have some sense of what he did, that it was momentous, a great achievement, an act of primacy. But was his achievement “great” because he “discovered America” and thus made possible the hemisphere’s “great” nations? Or was it an apocalyptic catastrophe for tens of millions of Indigenous and African peoples?

In The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus, acclaimed historian Matthew Restall, perhaps the leading scholar of the Spanish Empire, presents a new, authoritative biography of Columbus, while at the same time tracing his many afterlives down into our own time. He explores the mysteries, many of them manufactured, that color our understanding of Columbus even in the twenty-first century—mysteries surrounding Columbus’s name, nationality, place of birth, ancestry, education, religion, intellectual vision, moral fiber, sexual proclivities, and current resting place. He shows how Columbus became an iconic American hero in the nineteenth century, and how a parallel hero emerged in the form of the Italian American Columbus.

Restall takes us beyond polemic, sifting through the evidence across nations, languages, and five centuries to explore the many questions that make up what he calls “Columbiana.” He demonstrates that, far from a uniquely talented individual, Columbus was typical of the Iberian and northern Italian men of his day—a merchant mariner who became an explorer, slave-trader, and conquistador-settler. And Restall challenges the notion, deeply held to this day, that Columbus can be credited or blamed for all that happened after 1492.

Whatever one’s views of Columbus, Restall’s book is the necessary, definitive account. It dispels the myths and gives us Columbus as he was. It shows how he has been distorted in the centuries since his death—and how we might come to understand him, and his legacies, anew.

Matthew Restall is born on 17 March 1964 in London. He is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Anthropology, and director of Latin American Studies, at Penn State University. He is the author of Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest and When Montezuma Met Cortés, among other books.

Bijpassende boeken

Britse geschiedenis, Engelse geschiedenis, Engelse historicus, Verenigd Koninkrijk

Alwyn Turner – A Shellshocked Nation

Alwyn Turner A Shellshocked Nation review and information book about Britain between the wars. Profile Books will publish this book by Alwyn Turner, the British historian on January 22 in 2026.

Alwyn Turner A Shellshocked Nation review

  • “An admirable analysis of this most misunderstood – yet most relevant – period of British history.” (Simon Jenkins)
  • “A sparkling account of popular culture in Britain between the wars, embracing Gracie Fields and George Formby as well as Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain.” (Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government, King’s College, London)
  • “This is just glorious: almost every page stops you dead with insight into a world at once utterly strange, yet still living somewhere within us all.” (James Hawes)

Alwyn Turner A Shellshocked Nation

A Shellshocked Nation

  • Author: Alwyn Turner (England)
  • Book type: British history of the interbellum
  • Publisher: Profile Books
  • To be released: 22 January 2026
  • Length: 384 pages
  • Format: hardcover / ebook
  • Prize: £ 25.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the book about Britain between the Wars

A fresh and inventive social history of interwar Britain, from Armistice and the Spanish flu to the announcement of war.

After the calamity of the Great War, there was a desire in Britain for escapist fun – the lights of the Jazz Age, radio comedies and the pictures were a welcome respite from the grim reality of the Great Depression. Yet the storm clouds were gathering, and Britain between the wars was a turbulent, restless place – and where the foundations of the modern nation were laid.

Combining cultural, social and political history, A Shellshocked Nation is the next instalment in Alwyn Turner’s highly original history of the twentieth century, sketching a portrait of the interwar nation through its entertainments and scandals, its people and political crises. From the General Strike to the BBC, Irish Home Rule and the rise of fascism, this is the definitive story of Britain’s most anxious era.

Alwyn Turner is a historian and writer who teaches at the University of Chichester. He is best known for his histories of twentieth-century Britain; All in it Together was a Sunday Times Book of the Year, and his last book, Little Englanders, Britain in the Edwardian Era, was a Times History Book of the Year.

Matching books

Engelse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken

Josephine Quinn – Het westen

Josephine Quinn Het westen recensie en informatie boek over de 4000-jarige geschiedenis van de westerse wereld. Op 9 september 2025 verschijnt bij Uitgeverij Thomas Rap van How the World Made the West van Josephine Quine, de hoogleraar Oude Geschiedenis aan de Universiteit van Cambridge. Hier lees je informatie over de inhoud van het geschiedenisboek, de auteur en over de uitgave.

Josephine Quinn Het westen recensie

  • “Quinn houdt de onthullingen en ze heeft veel meer gedaan dan alleen het wiel opnieuw uitvinden. Wat we hier hebben, is een waarlijk encyclopedisch en monumentaal verslag van de antieke wereld. In 400 heldere pagina’s worden 30 samenlevingen aan ons gepresenteerd met vergelijkende reflectie en humor. Sterker nog, Quinns boek is polemisch. Tegenwoordig aanbidden veel te veel academische historici het altaar van nuance in plaats van argumentatie, met als gevolg dat de lezer het boek niet met een gevoel van tevredenheid sluit, maar eerder met een vraag: en dan? Dat geldt niet voor Het westen.” (Pratinav Anil, The Times)
  • “Het boek is rijk aan prachtige details en slaagt erin de pre-klassieke wereld tot leven te brengen… Vol met kleine, parelachtige perspectiefwisselingen… Bovenal triomfeert het boek als een briljante en geleerde uitdaging aan het moderne westerse chauvinisme.” (Steven Poole, Guardian)
  • “Quinns doel is om de bevoorrechte band tussen de oude Grieken en Romeinen en het moderne Westen van de troon te stoten en zich in plaats daarvan te richten op de millennia van interactie met andere culturen. Quinn zet deze claim kracht bij met een indrukwekkende demonstratie van grondige, licht versleten wetenschappelijke kennis, waarbij hij met succes een enorme hoeveelheid materiaal behandelt.” (Tristram Hunt, Financial Times)
  • “Quinn combineert archeologie, DNA-analyse en geschiedenis om te laten zien hoe dergelijke scheidslijnen ons misleiden over een oude wereld die wordt gekenmerkt door zowel vreedzame als gewelddadige verbindingen… De uitstekende kaart in elk hoofdstuk helpt om dergelijke reizen in perspectief te houden… Het is buitengewoon indrukwekkend om de dynamische stroom en reikwijdte van haar verhaal te volgen… Een meesterlijk geschreven verhaal.” (Christopher Kissane, Irish Times)

Josephine Quinn Het westen

Het westen

Een 4000-jarige geschiedenis

  • Auteur: Josephine Quinn (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenisboek
  • Origineel: How the World Made the West (2024)
  • Nederlandse vertaling: Brenda Mudde, Maarten van der Werf
  • Uitgever: Thomas Rap
  • Verschijnt: 9 september 2025
  • Omvang: 624 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: € 44,99 / € 22,99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van Josephine Quinn over 4000 jaar westerse geschiedenis

Het Westen is een baanbrekend boek dat het traditionele verhaal van de westerse beschaving volledig herziet. Quinn onderzoekt hoe de oude wereld, van de bronstijd tot de verlichting, werd gevormd door voortdurende wereldwijde ontmoetingen en uitwisselingen. In plaats van de gebruikelijke opvatting van afzonderlijke ‘beschavingen’, laat Quinn zien dat het contact tussen verschillende samenlevingen – van het ontstaan van het alfabet in Egypte tot de intrede van Indiase cijfers in Europa – de échte motor van de geschiedenis was. Een monumentaal werk dat het beeld van de westerse geschiedenis voor altijd zal veranderen.

Josephine Quinn is geboren op 10 september 1973 is een bekroond schrijver, docent en hoogleraar Oude Geschiedenis aan de Universiteit van Cambridge. Naast historicus is ze ook archeoloog. Haar diepgravende onderzoek en toegankelijke schrijfstijl maken haar tot een van de meest gerespecteerde stemmen op het gebied van de Oudheidkunde.

Bijpassende boeken

Engelse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Oorlogsgeschiedenis, Tweede Wereldoorlog

Gareth Williams – The Impossible Bomb

Gareth Williams The Impossible Bomb review, recensie en informatie de verborgen geschiedenis van Britse wetenschappers en de race om een ​​atoombom te ontwikkelen. Op 2 september 2025 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het boek van Gareth Williams de emeritus hoogleraar van de University van Bristol over de rol van Britse wetenschappers bij de ontwikkeling van de atoombom. er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Gareth Williams The Impossible Bomb review en recensie

  • “Winston Churchill’s wartime military assistant Ian Jacob quipped to him that the Allies won the war ‘because our German scientists were better than their German scientists.’ Three of these scientific refugees from 1930s Nazi Germany who became British citizens played key roles in the pivotal British contribution to creating the apparently all-American atomic bomb—the subject of Gareth Williams’s history, which reveals and brings to life this crucial but unfamiliar drama.” (Andrew Robinson, author of Einstein on the Run)
  • “An engaging, well-researched account … The Impossible Bomb reads like an eye-witness account. With colorful descriptions, Williams portrays the British scientists who contributed their insights and expertise to the atomic bomb project. His book is a timely tribute on the 80th anniversary of the Anglo-American project’s success.” (Cynthia C. Kelly, president, Atomic Heritage Foundation)
  • “A significant contribution to our understanding of ‘the most significant international collaboration of the 20th century.’ It’s eminently readable, too.” (Christopher Harding, Telegraph)

Gareth Williams The Impossible Bomb

The Impossible Bomb

The Hidden History of British Scientists and the Race to Create an Atomic Weapon

  • Auteur: Gareth Williams (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: oorlogsgeschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 2 september 2025
  • Omvang: 480 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 40.00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de rol van Britse wetenschappers bij de atoombom

The remarkable story of the forgotten British scientists who enabled the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb.

Atomic weaponry is widely understood as a story of American scientific achievement—but scientists working in Britain played a vital role in its development. Including Nobel Prize winners and Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, these scientists have long since been forgotten. But without their expertise, Robert Oppenheimer’s research at Los Alamos would never have succeeded.

Gareth Williams unearths the true story of the top-secret British atomic programme, codenamed “Tube Alloys,” established in 1940. These pioneering scientists struggled to convince sceptics in Britain and the USA that an atomic “super-bomb” capable of destroying entire cities was feasible, and could be built in time to influence the outcome of the Second World War. Williams shows how the British atomic programme, despite the often disruptive involvement of political leaders such as Winston Churchill, was vital to the success of the Manhattan Project.

The Impossible Bomb sheds new light on how humanity’s deadliest weapons came to exist—and the massive destruction they wrought.

Gareth Williams is emeritus professor and former dean of medicine at the University of Bristol. He is the author of over 200 medical papers and 20 books, including Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox and Unravelling the Double Helix.

Bijpassende boeken

Biografie, Engeland, Engelse geschiedenis, Engelse historicus, Middeleeuwen

David Woodman – The First King of England

David Woodman The First King of England review, recensie en informatie boek over koning Æthelstan en de geboorte van een koninkrijk. Op 2 september 2025 verschijnt bij Princeton University Press het boek van de Engelse historicus David Woodman over Æthelstan, de eerste Engelse koning. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

David Woodman The First King of England review en recensie

  • “A fascinating, meticulously researched, and vital new study of the man who has the best claim to be the first true king of England. David Woodman takes us as close as we can ever hope to get to the personality of Æthelstan, and in doing so shines a light on an intriguing and formative period in British history.” (Dan Jones)
  • “England’s founding father deserves this book: at once scholarly and accessible, attentive to every last morsel of detail yet possessed of a thrillingly epic sweep. David Woodman has done Æthelstan proud.” (Tom Holland)
  • “A magisterial account not only of England’s first king, but of the kingdom itself. Beautifully written and filled with insights, it sheds new light on Æthelstan, his life, and his times.” (Peter Frankopan)

David Woodman The First King of England

The First King of England

Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom

  • Auteur: David Woodman (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: Engelse geschiedenis, historische biografie
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Princeton University Press
  • Verschijnt: 2 september 2025
  • Omvang: 344 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 35,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over Æthelstan de eerste koning van Engeland

From one of today’s leading historians of the early medieval period, an enthralling chronicle of Æthelstan, England’s founder king whose achievements of 927 rival the Norman Conquest of 1066 in shaping Britain as we know it.

The First King of England is a foundational biography of Æthelstan (d. 939), the early medieval king whose territorial conquests and shrewd statesmanship united the peoples, languages, and cultures that would come to be known as the “kingdom of the English.” In this panoramic work, David Woodman blends masterful storytelling with the latest scholarship to paint a multifaceted portrait of this immensely important but neglected figure, a man celebrated in his day as much for his benevolence, piety, and love of learning as he was for his ambitious reign.

Set against the backdrop of warring powers in early medieval Europe, the book sheds new light on Æthelstan’s early life, his spectacular military victories and the innovative way he governed his kingdom, his fostering of the church, the deft political alliances he forged with Europe’s royal houses, and his death and enduring legacy. It begins with the reigns of Alfred the Great and Edward the Elder, Æthelstan’s grandfather and father, describing how they consolidated and expanded the “kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons.” But it was Æthelstan who would declare himself the first king of all England when, in 927, he conquered the viking kingdom at York, required the submission of a Scottish king, and secured an annual tribute from the Welsh kings.

Beautifully illustrated and breathtaking in scope, The First King of England is the most comprehensive, up-to-date biography of Æthelstan available, bringing a magisterial richness of detail to the life of a consequential British monarch whose strategic and political sophistication was unprecedented for his time.

Bijpassende boeken

Engelse geschiedenis, Engelse historicus, Oorlog

Dickon Whitewood – Stoke Field 1487

Dickon Whitewood Stoke Field 1487 review, recensie en informatie boek over de laatste slag van de War of the Roses in Engeland. Op 28 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Osprey Publishing het boek van de Britse historicus Dickon Whitewood over de laatste slag tijdens de Rozenoorlogen. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Dickon Whitewood Stoke Field 1487 review en recensie

Als er in de media een boekbespreking, recensie of review verschijnt van Stoke Field 1487, The Last Battle of the Wars of the Roses, geschreven door Dickon Whitewood, dan besteden we er op deze pagina aandacht aan.

Dickon Whitewood Stoke Field 1487

Stoke Field 1487

The Last Battle of the Wars of the Roses

  • Auteur: Dickon Whitewood (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: Engelse oorlogsgeschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Osprey Publishing
  • Verschijnt: 28 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 98 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback
  • Prijs: £ 16,99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de laatste War of the Roses

An in-depth look at a critical battle of the Wars of the Roses, which decisively ended the Yorkist cause and ensured the Tudor dominance that followed.

The Battle of Stoke is popularly considered to be the last battle of the Wars of the Roses. Less than two years previously, King Henry VII had been crowned on the battlefield following his victory over Richard III at Bosworth. Henry soon took steps to secure his crown, and made certain to keep control of any potential rivals. Despite these efforts, a plot soon emerged against his rule, which culminated in the crowning of a rival king in Ireland. Launching an invasion of England, the rebels had a number of early successes but failed to secure widespread support for their cause. Moving south, they met the hastily assembled but more numerous army of Henry VII outside the village of East Stoke, four miles south of Newark.

With stunning artwork and detailed maps, this expertly written title offers in-depth coverage of the battle that secured the new Tudor dynasty’s hold on the throne. It is one of the least well documented conflicts of the period, but remains highly interesting and significant, not only as the final decisive action in the bloody Wars of the Roses, but also due to the nature of the soldiers present on the battlefield. This book explores the role these various factions played and how that contributed to the final victory.

Dickon Whitewood has long held a passion for medieval history and the practice of warfare and has an MA in Medieval & Renaissance Studies from University College London. He is currently employed as a Research Assistant on the Norwich Castle: Gateway to Medieval England project and has previously worked at the British Museum, English Heritage and the Museum of the Order of St John.

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Engelse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken

Faisal Devji – Waning Crescent

Faisal Devji Waning Crescent review, recensie en informatie boek over de opkomst en ondergang van de wereldwijde islam. Op 26 augustus 2026 verschijnt bij Yale University Press het nieuwe boek van Faisal Devji de in Islam gespecialiseerde historicus en Beit Hoogleraar Wereld- en Imperiale Geschiedenis en fellow van het Balliol College, Oxford. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Faisal Devji Waning Crescent review en recensie

  • “Faisal Devji has emerged as the preeminent historian of global religion in its most surprising, intractable, and understudied aspects. His newest book is no less original in its stunning and disarming approach. Waning Crescent forms essential reading for a wide audience that will appreciate its erudition and for those rare acute political observers rightly concerned with the present spell cast by our more oppressing spiritual pasts but also intrigued by the normative resources that may yet be found there.” (Hent de Vries, Dutch Philospoher and professor at  New York University)
  • “Every book Faisal Devji writes is important. This biography of Islam as an historical actor is daring, learned, occasionally outrageous, invariably revelatory. Here there is no deference to the Western gaze. Devji gives us not only a study of Islam, but a study of modernity that shifts the world on its axis.” (Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania)

Faisal Devji Waning Crescent

Waning Crescent

The Rise and Fall of Global Islam

  • Auteur: Faisal Devji (Engeland)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenis van de Islam
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Yale University Press
  • Verschijnt: 26 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 280 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 30,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van Faisal Devji over de opkomst en ondergang van de wereldwijde islam

A compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actor.

Until the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began to see their faith as an historical actor on the world stage, they needed to narrate Islam’s birth anew as well as to imagine its possible death. Faisal Devji argues that this change, sparked by the crisis of Muslim sovereignty in the age of European empire, provided a way of thinking about agency in a global context: an Islam liberated from the authority of kings and clerics had the potential to represent the human race itself as a newly empirical reality.

Ordinary Muslims, now recognized as the privileged representatives of Islam, were freed from traditional forms of Islamic authority. However, their conception of Islam as an impersonal actor in history meant that it could not be defined in either religious or political terms. Its existence as a civilizational and later ideological subject also deprived figures like God and the Prophet of their theological subjectivities while robbing the Muslim community of its political agency. Devji illuminates this history and explores its ramifications for the contemporary Muslim world.

Faisal Devji was born in 1964 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is the author of The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence and Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea.

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