What Happened? New History Titles

Looking at today's headlines, it can seem as though the world has never been more turbulent. In fact, this is absolutely nothing new. Covering centuries in the history of Asia, Europe and the Americas, the current crop of new history titles illustrates that past was every bit as chaotic and fascinating as the present.

• Summer of fire and blood : the German peasants' war / Roper, Lyndal
  "The German Peasants' War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as well over a hundred thousand people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The peasants took control of vast areas of southern and middle Germany, torching and plundering the monasteries, convents, and castles that stood in their way. But they proved no match for the forces of the lords, who put down the revolt by slaying somewhere between seventy and a hundred thousand peasants in just over two months. In Summer of Blood, the first history of the German Peasants' War in a generation, historian Lyndal Roper exposes the far-reaching ramifications of this rebellion"-- Provided by publisher.
  
• Inventing the Renaissance : the myth of a golden age / Palmer, Ada
  "In this new book, the award-winning novelist and renowned historian Ada Palmer seeks to dismantle the myth of the Renaissance as a "golden age" compared to the plague- and war-ridden Middle Ages. For those who inhabited what we now think of as the Renaissance, Palmer argues, it was "a darker, grimmer age than the 'dark ages' that preceded it." The book, then, is as much about the real Renaissance as it is about our constructions of it, taking a close look at how the myth of the Renaissance as a golden age came about. The author peppers her book with fifteen mini-biographies ranging from famous figures-including Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Lucrezia Borgia-to lesser-known ones, examining why history remembers some characters over others and showing in detail how different figures struggled with the trials and tribulations of their time"-- Provided by publisher.
  
• The fate of the day : the war for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 / Atkinson, Rick
  "The first twenty-one months of the American Revolution--which began at Lexington and ended at Princeton--was the story of a ragged group of militiamen and soldiers fighting to forge a new nation. By the winter of 1777, the exhausted Continental Army could claim only that it had barely escaped annihilation by the world's most formidable fighting force. Two years into the war, George III is as determined as ever to bring his rebellious colonies to heel. But the king's task is now far more complicated: fighting a determined enemy on the other side of the Atlantic has become ruinously expensive, and spies tell him that the French and Spanish are threatening to join forces with the Americans. Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson provides a riveting narrative covering the middle years of the Revolution. "-- Provided by publisher.
  
• The golden road : how ancient India transformed the world / Dalrymple, William
  India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world. In the millennium and a half from c. 250 BC to 1200 AD, Indian art, religion, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world - a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. Like ancient Greece, ancient India came up with a set of profound answers to the big questions about what the world is, how it operates, why we are here and how we should live our lives. Today, over half the world's population lives in areas where Indian religions and culture are, or once were, dominant. The Golden Road reveals how Indian ideas transformed the world, crossing political borders to influence everything from the statues of Indian ascetics in Roman seaports to Buddhism in Japan, and the observatories of Baghdad to crucial mathematical concepts such as 'zero' - and even the very numbers we use to this day.
  
• America, América : a new history of the New World / Grandin, Greg
  "The story of how the United States' identity was formed is almost invariably told by looking east to Europe. But as Greg Grandin vividly demonstrates, the nation's unique sense of itself was in fact forged facing south-no less than Latin America's was indelibly stamped by the looming colossus to the north. In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World Grandin reveals how North and South emerged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other. America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest-the greatest mortality event in human history-through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond. A culmination of a decades-long engagement with hemispheric history, drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World"-- Provided by publisher.
  
• The rebel empresses : Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France, power and glamour in the struggle for Europe / Goldstone, Nancy, 1957-
  "When they married Emperors Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, respectively, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France became two of the most famous women on the planet. Young and beautiful--becoming cultural and fashion icons of their time--they also played a pivotal role in ruling their realms during a tempestuous era characterized by unprecedented political and technological change. Between them, Elisabeth and Eugénie were personally involved in every major international confrontation in their turbulent century, which witnessed thrilling technological advances as well as revolutions, assassinations, and wars. With her characteristic jump-off-the-page writing and in-depth research, Nancy Goldstone brings to life these two remarkable women, as Europe goes through the convulsions that led up to the international landscape we recognize today." -- Provided by the publisher.
  
• The Third Indochina War : an international history / Ang, Cheng Guan
  "Comprised of the Vietnam-Kampuchea War (1978-1990) and the brief Sino-Vietnamese War (1979), the Third Indochina War has received less scholarly attention than its predecessors. Bringing together a wide range of primary and secondary material, Ang Cheng Guan reassess this conflict from the perspective of the international history of the Cold War"-- Provided by publisher.