What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorIbn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North
'Hmd bn fDln, Ahmad ibn Fadlan · 256 pages
"In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River. In his subsequent report on his mission he gave a meticulous and astonishingly objective description of Viking customs, dress, table manners, religion and sexual practices, as well as the only eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship cremation. Between the
The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings
Lars Brownworth · 269 pages
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman
Nancy Marie Brown · 313 pages
Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed past the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, few believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scienti
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth
Helen Castor · 477 pages
When Edward VI died in 1553, the extraordinary fact was that there was no one left to claim the title of king of England. For the first time, England would have a reigning queen, but the question was which one: Katherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth; or one of their cousins, Lady Jane Grey or Mary, Queen of Scots. But female rule in England also had a past. Four h
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
Dan Jones · 392 pages
The crown of England changed hands five times over the course of the fifteenth century, as two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought to the death for the right to rule. Celebrated historian Dan Jones describes how the longest-reigning British royal family tore itself apart until it was finally replaced by the Tudors. Some of the greatest heroes and villains of history were thrown together in
The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller
Carlo Ginzburg · 177 pages
City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire
Roger Crowley · 405 pages
A magisterial work of gripping history, City of Fortune tells the story of the Venetian ascent from lagoon dwellers to the greatest power in the Mediterranean - an epic five hundred year voyage that encompassed crusade and trade, plague, sea battles and colonial adventure.
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
Judith Herrin · 403 pages
For a thousand years an extraordinary empire made possible Europe's transition to the modern world: Byzantium. An audacious and resilient but now little known society, it combined orthodox Christianity with paganism, classical Greek learning with Roman power, to produce a great and creative civilization which for centuries held in check the armies of Islam.Judith Herrin's concise and compelling bo
The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe
Michael Pye · 394 pages
Tells the story of how modernity emerged on the shores of the North Sea, uncovering a lost history of a thousand years rife with saints, spies, pirates, philosophers, artists, and intellectuals.
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century
John Boswell · 436 pages
From back cover: Boswell's highly acclaimed study of the history of attitudes toward homosexuality in the Christian West challenges received opinion and our own preconceptions about the Church's past relationship to its gay members, among whom were priests, bishops and even canonized saints. The historical breadth of Boswell's research (from the Greeks to Aquinas) and the variety of sources consul
History of the Byzantine State
George Ostrogorsky · 624 pages
Succinctly traces the Byzantine Empire's thousand-year course with emphasis on political development and social, aesthetic, economic and ecclesiastical factors.
Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade
James Reston Jr. · 312 pages
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
Maria Rosa Menocal · 315 pages
A brilliant and fascinating portrait of medieval Spain explores the golden age when Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance. of photos. 3 maps.
Blood Sisters: The Women Behind The War Of The Roses
Sarah Gristwood · 408 pages
"In Pembroke Castle, on 28 January 1457, the 13-year-old Margaret Beaufort gave birth to a son she named Henry. Her husband was already dead; her sufferings in childbirth were grave... England was in the grip of civil war - the War of the Roses. Known to contemporaries as 'The Cousins War', beyond the fields of battle raged a family feud, a violent and emotional domestic drama. For the noble women
The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam
Bernard Lewis · 176 pages
The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc
Nancy Goldstone
Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World
Colin Wells · 368 pages
The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century
Ross E. Dunn, Ibn Battuta · 357 pages
Known as the greatest traveler of premodern times, Abu Abdallah ibn Battuta was born in Morocco in 1304 and educated in Islamic law. At the age of twenty-one, he left home to make the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. This was only the first of a series of extraordinary journeys that spanned nearly three decades and took him not only eastward to India and China but also north to the Volga River valley and
The New Concise History of the Crusades
Thomas F. Madden · 259 pages
"How have the crusades contributed to Islamist rage and terrorism today? Were the crusades the Christian equivalent of modern jihad? In this sweeping yet crisp history, Thomas Madden offers a narrative of the crusades and their contemporary relevance." "Placing all the major crusades within their medieval social, economic, religious, and intellectual environments, Madden explores the uniquely medi