Bøger af Catherine Fletcher

'All roads lead to Rome.' It's a medieval proverb, but it's also true: today's European road network still reflects the old pattern of the routes built under the Roman Empire. Over two thousand years - through storms and sunshine - they've been walked by pilgrims and crusaders, tourists and travellers, armies and refugees, from Scotland in the north to Santiago de Compostela in the west, along the North African coast and the shores of the Adriatic, across Greece to Istanbul and the Holy Land.Bringing together the history of the roads with the author's own travels along these old routes, The Roads to Rome is a journey into that past and an exploration of its legacy through successive centuries, showing how and why this world-shaping network came about and how it transformed the vast panoply of peoples it connected. Along the way we encounter spies and bandits, scheming innkeepers, streetwalkers, postmasters, soldiers and tourists, an exiled king, an aristocratic lady with her family of five, even Mussolini on his motorbike. And that's not to mention the famous names of literature who made their way along the ancient roads: Keats, Germaine de Staël, Goethe, Dickens, George Eliot, and many more. Across space and time we meander and march through a series of worlds that existed at a different pace and yet remain intimately connected to our present.The Roads to Rome is the first book to tell the full story of these arteries of empire and channels of human activity which marked Rome's 'extraordinary greatness' then and now, a vivid portrait of lives lived and transformed through travel over two thousand years.

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'erudite, entertaining and infinitely readable' HELENA ATTLEE'a magical and informative ode' MICHAEL SCOTT'a must-read for tourists and armchair travellers alike' ROSS KING'an essential guide to the many hidden layers of history beneath our feet' KELCEY WILSON-LEE'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.

Combining cultural, religious, political, military, and economic topics in a grand narrative, The Crucible of Europe gives a vibrant history of Renaissance Italy and the crucial role it played in the emergence of the Western World.

'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.