A collection of narratives on the subject of history and the people who make it. One follows the last expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh before he was sent to the Tower, another chronicles Francisco de Miranda's disastrous invasion of South America, a third is about a Panamanian communist in the 1930s.

"A dazzling account of the men (and occasional woman) who led the world's empires, a book that probes the essence of leadership and power through the centuries and around the world. From the rise of Sargon of Akkad, who in the third millennium BCE ruled what is now Iraq and Syria, to the collapse of the great European empires in the twentieth century, the empire has been the dominant form of power in history. Dominic Lieven's expansive book explores...

European history is deeply embedded in the global civilization that has emerged in the 21st century. More than two thirds of today's nations were once European colonies or protectorates. Europe's legacy is evident in the trajectory of the United States and has influenced aspiring hegemonic powers like China. For centuries, Europe was the heart and soul of the West, and European powers enjoyed unprecedented global hegemony, not only by military and...

"2.6 billion people inhabit former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter-planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound from the spread of Christianity by missionaries, to the shaping of international law. Even today, one in three drive on the left-hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of the...

"In this brilliantly illuminating work exploring the realities and legacies of empire, Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in its imperial past. In prose that is at once both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how the past is everywhere in the United Kingdom, also drawing critical links to similarities in the United States and around the world. Empire--British or otherwise--informs...

This global environmental and political history “will redefine the way we think about the European colonial project” (Observer).

“ . . . sets the triumph of the late 19th-century Western imperialism in the context of catastrophic El Niño weather patterns at that time . . . groundbreaking, mind-stretching.” —The Independent
Examining a series of El Niño-induced...

How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. Then we retreat-until the cycle begins again. No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether to intervene...