Bøger af Catherine Fletcher

Inspired by original research and filled with color and drama, this is an exploration of two thousand years of history as seen through one the greatest imperial networks ever built.

Brimming with life and drama, this is a magnificent journey into two thousand years of history, from the acclaimed historian of Europe'All roads lead to Rome.' It's a medieval proverb, but it's also true: today's European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire, stitching together our histories and continuing to inspire our imaginations.Over the two thousand years since they were first built, the roads have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and dictators, but also by tourists and writers, refugees and artists. As channels of trade and travel, and routes for conquest and creativity, Catherine Fletcher shows how the roads forever transformed the cultures, and intertwined the fates, of a vast panoply of people across Europe and beyond.Reflecting on his own walk on the Appian Way, Charles Dickens observed that here is 'a history in every stone that strews the ground.' Based on outstanding original research, and brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of history through one of the greatest imperial networks ever built.

Brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of European history through one the greatest imperial networks ever built'A delightful, novel and authoritative history from the ground up' JUDITH HERRIN'Epic and witty ... Fletcher is a thoroughly enjoyable narrator because she peppers her learned prose with wry humour' TOBIAS JONES, Observer'Fletcher is a rare thing: an academic who writes beautifully and accessibly about big subjects ... utterly riveting, filled with golden nuggets' CHARLIE CONNELLY, New European'All roads lead to Rome.' It's a medieval proverb, but it's also true: today's European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire, as Rome's extraordinary legacy continues to grip our imaginations.Over the two thousand years since they were first built, the roads have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and dictators, but also by tourists and writers, refugees and artists. As channels of trade and travel, and routes for conquest and creativity, Catherine Fletcher shows how the roads forever transformed the cultures, and intertwined the fates, of a vast panoply of people across Europe and beyond.Reflecting on his own walk on the Appian Way, Charles Dickens observed that here is 'a history in every stone that strews the ground.' Based on outstanding original research, and brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of history through one of the greatest imperial networks ever built.

"The Italian Renaissance shaped western culture--but it was far stranger and darker than many of us realise. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art but few now appreciate his ingenious designs for weaponry. We know the Mona Lisa for her smile but not that she was married to a slave-trader. We visit Florence to see Michelangelo's David but hear nothing of the massacre that forced the republic's surrender. In focusing on the Medici in Florence and the Borgias in Rome, we miss the vital importance of the Genoese and Neapolitans, the courts of Urbino and Mantua. Rarely do we hear of the women writers, Jewish merchants, the mercenaries, engineers, prostitutes, farmers and citizens who lived the Renaissance every day. In fact, many of the most celebrated artists and thinkers that have come to define the Renaissance--Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, Machiavelli and Castiglione--emerged not during the celebrated 'rebirth' of the fifteenth century but amidst the death and destruction of the sixteenth century. For decades, a series of savage wars dominated Italy's political, economic and daily life, generating fortunes and new technologies, but also ravaging populations with famine, disease and slaughter. In this same short time, the birth of Protestantism, Spain's colonisation of the Americas and the rise of the Ottoman Empire all posed grave threats to Italian power, while sparking debates about the ethics of government and enslavement, religious belief and sexual morality. In 'The Beauty and the Terror,' Catherine Fletcher provides an enrapturing narrative history that brings all of this and more into view. Brimming with life, it takes us closer than ever before to the lived reality of this astonishing era and its meaning for today"

'A spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, Books of the Year 1531 - after years of brutal war and political intrigue, the bastard son of a Medici Duke and a 'half-negro' maidservant rides into Florence.

Set against the backdrop of war-torn Renaissance Italy, The Divorce of Henry VIII combines a gripping family saga with a highly charged political battle between the Tudors and the Vatican to reveal the extraordinary true story behind history's most infamous divorce.