Offers a panorama of Russia's mighty culture.

Defines our understanding of colonialism and empire.

How does environment influence history? How are events and personalities, wars and nationalities shaped by their surroundings, by the very rise and fall of earth, water and forest? This work attempts to answer these questions and gives a portrait of the world around us and how it shapes us.

The classic international bestseller -- a marvellously exciting and stimulating look at the emergence and development of Western civilisation

This is the book that made Simon Schama's reputation when first published in 1987. A historical masterpiece, it is an epic account of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age of Rembrandt and van Diemen.

This work abandons the conventional distinctions between history and science. Diamond focuses on what ancient people were endowed with in the way of land, animals and plants, and on the confrontations between less and more advanced people to see how this led to today's inequalities.

The year 2000 marks the 25th anniversary Fussell's volume about the First World War. It explores the British experience on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918, focusing on the various literary means by which it has been remembered, conventionalised and mythologized. It is also about the literary dimensions of the experience itself.

First published in hardback as Volume 9 in the Cambridge Guide to the Arts in Britain series, this extensively illustrated book is a comprehensive survey for students, specialists and general readers of all major branches of the arts in Britain from 1945.

Features the stories ranging from Beowulf to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, via Chaucer and Shakespeare, to the Bronte sisters, 'Alice through the Looking Glass' and 'Lord of the Rings'. This work takes the reader from medieval mystery plays to music hall and pantomime; painting; and music, with Purcell and Vaughan Williams.

Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than simply quench our thirst. Beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and cola - have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history during pivotal epochs. This book reveals the intricate interplay of different civilizations by appreciating each drink as a kind of technology.

Suitable for students, teachers, and general readers interested in the future of history, this book includes such topics as diverse as parades in 19th-century America, 16th-century Spanish texts, English medical writing, and the visual practices implied in Italian Renaissance frescoes.

A survey of popular culture in 16th century Italy.

This book explores examples of this process of invention and addresses the complex interaction of past and present in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism.

Whether enemy or ally, demon or god, the source of satisfaction or the root of all earthly troubles, the penis has forced humanity to wrestle with its enduring mysteries. Here, in an enlightening and entertaining cultural study, is a book that puts into context the central role of the penis within Western civilization. David M. Friedman shows that the penis is more than a body part. It is an idea,

Presents an account of the changing attitudes in people towards nature and the environment between 1500-1800.

In this classic account of madness, Michel Foucault shows once and for all why he is one of the most distinguished European philosophers since the end of World War II.

Here, one of France's greatest intellectuals explores the evolving social, economic and political forces that have shaped our attitudes to sex. Foucault describes how we are in the process of making a science of sex which is devoted to the analysis of desire rather than the increase of pleasure.

Foucault shows the development of the Western system of prisons, police organizations, administrative and legal hierarchies for social control - and the growth of disciplinary society as a whole.

An exploration of modern assumptions about God, social, economic, and political structures, through the analysis of contemporary cultural expression. This is combined with a study of the locations that successively became the frontiers of modernity, such as Vienna, Moscow, Paris and Berlin, as well as America.