Book cover of Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine's Confessions by Kate Cooper
Ancient Civilizations

Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine’s Confessions

Queens of a Fallen World tells a story of betrayal, love, and ambition in the ancient world as seen through a woman’s eyes. Historian Kate Cooper introduces us to four women whose hopes and plans collided in Augustine’s early adulthood: his mother, Monnica of Thagaste; his lover; his fiancée; and Justina, the troubled empress of ancient Rome. Drawing upon their depictions in the Confessions, Cooper skilfully reconstructs their lives against the backdrop of their fourth-century society. […Learn More]

Book cover of Demetrius: Sacker of Cities by James Romm
Ancient Civilizations

Demetrius: Sacker of Cities

The life of Demetrius (337–283 BCE) serves as a through-line to the forty years following the death of Alexander the Great (323–282 BCE), a time of unparalleled turbulence and instability in the ancient world. With no monarch able to take Alexander’s place, his empire fragmented into five pieces. […Learn More]

Book cover of Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth-Century Europe by Osman of Timisoara and Edited by Giancarlo Casale
Biography & Autobiography

Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth-Century Europe

A pioneering work of Ottoman Turkish literature, Prisoner of the Infidels brings the seventeenth-century memoir of Osman Agha of Timişoara—slave, adventurer, and diplomat—into English for the first time. The sweeping story of Osman’s life begins upon his capture and subsequent enslavement during the Ottoman–Habsburg Wars. Adrift in a landscape far from his home and traded from one master to another, Osman tells a tale of indignation and betrayal but also of wonder and resilience, punctuated with queer trysts, back-alley knife fights, and elaborate ruses to regain his freedom. […Learn More]

Book cover of The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s by Alexander Nemerov
Biography & Autobiography

The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s

Set amid the glimmering lakes and disappearing forests of the early United States, The Forest imagines how a wide variety of Americans experienced their lives. Part truth, part fiction, and featuring both real and invented characters, the book follows painters, poets, enslaved people, farmers, and artisans living and working in a world still made largely of wood. Some of the historical characters―such as Thomas Cole, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanny Kemble, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nat Turner―are well-known, while others are not. But all are creators of private and grand designs. […Learn More]