Political

Lord David Cecil appraises the eventful career of William Lamb, who influenced momentous political reform in both Ireland and England.

In the 1860s the Republic of Paraguay, under its dictator, Francisco Solano López, and his Irish consort, Eliza Lynch, became engaged in a desperate seven-years war with its neighbours. The memoirs of a small group of British doctors and engineers provide the basis for this account of the struggle.

Michael Grant offers the tale of Rome's most infamous emperor from both his fans and detractors.

Harold Kurtz continues the story of France's Napoleonic traitor.

Christopher Lloyd asserts that the first contacts between Elizabethan England and the Russia of Ivan the Terrible mark the true birth of the British Empire.

Harold Kurtz describes how, ordered by Louis XVIII to arrest Napoleon on his return from Elba in 1815, Marshal Ney went over to his former master.

Anthony Rhodes introduces Diocletian, the first sovereign to voluntarily resign power, and how, at the opening of the fourth century, he spent his last years in a huge fortified seaside palace of his own construction.

Richard Harris describes the various forces of change at play in China's tumultuous first half century.

Roger L. Williams assesses exactly how enlightened a despot was Louis-Napoléon, in light of later European events.

Alfred Cobban traces the ups and downs of the quintessential Bourbon king of France.