E. Badian writes that the efforts of Antiochus Epiphanes to Hellenize his dominions led to a revolt in Judaea under the leadership of the Hasmonaean house, known as the Maccabees, who succeeded in re-asserting Jewish law and the Jewish religion in traditional form.
Dorothy Margaret Stuart introduces a grandee at the court of Edward IV, a warrior both on land and sea, and the first patron of English printing; Earl Rivers, who met his death in the sinister Castle of Pontefract at the orders of Richard III.
Meyrick H. Carré studies the reasons that led Francis Bacon, the distinguished philosopher and man of letters, to become in his political career a vehement upholder of absolute royal authority.
Cecil secured the peaceful accession of the Stuarts and strove with near success, Joel Hurstfield writes, to solve the vexatious problems that confronted the new dynasty in England and upon the European scene.
Dorothy Margaret Stuart gives the political background of the career of Joan of Arc, when France was enfeebled by foreign invasion and civil strife, and the Duchy of Burgundy had almost achieved the status of an independent European power.
Twenty-three crucial years in English history were covered by the arch-episcopate of Thomas Cranmer, whose most enduring monument is the English Book of Common Prayer. By H.A.L. Rice.
To most modern readers little more than a resounding name, the Kingmaker is here described by Paul Kendall as an “early exemplar of that Western European energy” which was presently to transform the civilized world.
France we know, but French governments perplex us, writes J.H.M. Salmon. Mazarin’s was one of the oddest regimes that France has undergone. This Italian “condottiere in diplomacy” ruled France, despite recalcitrant noblemen and civil war, for nearly twenty years.
W.L. Warren makes an attempt to sift the facts from the lurid legend of an English monarch who has left a reputation for evil second only to Richard III’s.
Graham Dukes takes the reader on a visit to Amsterdam in her early modern heyday: a state within a state; a rich, self-assured, multicultural city, run by businessmen, for businessmen.
