The Imperial Road - the Conqueror's Path to Supreme Power

The disaster of witchcraft was a major event in the history of the Western Han Dynasty, which involved the political struggle of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the overt and covert struggles of various princes to seize the throne. The truth of this major historical event has become an unsolved mystery due to the lack of historical data. The author of this book uses historical materials and existing research results to make bold and creative arguments and conjectures about the gaps in history, reexamines the origins of the witchcraft disaster, reveals the truth, and proposes a new perspective that cannot be falsified.

King Henry VIII of England, King Francois I of France, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire, these four great monarchs were born in the same decade (1491-1500). They were all important in the history of their respective countries, and in this book, John Julius Norwich zooms in to show how the feud between these four monarchs laid the foundation for modern Europe, against the backdrop of the Renaissance and Reformation. Individually they were different, Henry had six wives and Charles was ascetic; together they dominated the world stage. This book describes the meeting of the Golden Sea that nearly bankrupted France and Britain, tells the story of Suleiman's pile of two thousand enemy heads after the Battle of Mohács, mentions that Anne Boleyn's left hand has six fingers that pious people are afraid of, and mentions the true story of the Maltese Falcon. These stories make "The Four Monarchs" an extremely vivid and interesting historical work.

During World War II, facing the powerful Nazi war machine, Britain had to find ways to weaken the enemy. The author of this book, Giles Milton, uses vivid descriptions to describe several wonderful sneak attacks and assassinations carried out by the British army outside the main battlefields of World War II. With the support of Churchill, several typical British gentlemen planned and led these completely ungentlemanly actions, despite the opposition of the old-fashioned people in the army and government who insisted on tradition. They invented new weapons, established schools for training guerrillas, and transported explosives to the resistance organizations in the occupied areas... These secret fighters who did not belong to the conventional army made a huge contribution to the final victory of the war.

This book tells the story of how merchants and adventurers from Elizabethan England crossed the Atlantic and settled in the New World. In 1584, a voyage organized by Walter Raleigh arrived at Roanoke Island. In order to establish a settlement here, they made many attempts and explorations over the next 20 years and invested a lot of money, manpower and materials. Their experiences ranged from funny to tragic, and the whereabouts of some remain a mystery to this day. With the efforts of generations of adventurers, Jamestown was finally built in 1611. This was the first permanent colony established by the English on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean. Based on a large number of diaries and manuscripts, the author tells readers this ups and downs, exciting, mysterious and vivid story, and leads readers on an adventure journey to America.

In European history, there are few figures as great as King Friedrich the Great. When he succeeded to the Prussian throne in 1740, he ruled a weak and scattered kingdom; by the end of his reign, Prussia had become one of the great powers of continental Europe. In this book, historian Timothy Braining gives us a comprehensive portrait of the king who dominated the political, military, and cultural life of Europe half a century before Napoleon. Friedrich had a complex and multi-faceted character. He was sometimes a ruthless monarch, sometimes a strategizing battlefield commander, and sometimes an enthusiastic patron of the arts. He also maintained active contacts with other major thinkers of the era such as Voltaire. Timothy Breining's ambitious biography recounts Friedrich's remarkable life and the sweeping political and cultural transformation of Prussia under his rule. Readers can delve into the mind of this great monarch and better understand Prussia's rise to become a European power.

Unique and unparalleled among the kings of England, Richard I played an active and leading role in many great achievements in world history. No monarch had ever faced the formidable challenges he faced in the Third Crusade. For centuries, Richard was regarded as one of the greatest kings for his crusading exploits. However, historians in modern times have begun to criticize Richard harshly, believing that he neglected to manage domestic affairs and regarded him as a reckless ruler and an unfit husband. In this authoritative work, Professor John Gillingham examines in detail the reasons for the mixed reviews of Richard and discusses Richard's governance of the country, proposing compelling new perspectives. The book also comes with an updated reference list for the reader's convenience.

On Christmas Day 800, King Charles of the Franks was crowned Emperor of the Romans. This was an emperor who shaped Europe. Barbero vividly depicts Charlemagne's appearance, tastes, habits, family life, thoughts and behavior. The author also unfolds the overall history of the Frankish Kingdom and the Carolingian Empire, showing Charlemagne's method of ruling the empire, how to ensure justice, and how to organize wars; he also describes the daily life, economic activities, and religious concepts at that time. He analyzes the development of feudalism in the Carolingian Empire and the changing concepts of slavery and freedom, thereby explaining the dramatic changes that the emperor's wars brought to the political and social structure of the empire.

This book is a new heavyweight work in the field of research on the history of the Mongolian Empire in recent years. From the perspective of world history and global history, the author focuses on describing the Eurasian cultural exchanges promoted by Genghis Khan and the emergence of a new Eurasian world after the successive disintegration of the Mongolian khanates. Under the forcible promotion of the Mongol rulers, the East and the West began a process of mutual exchange, and a new Eurasian culture was born under the "Mongol rule." This, to a certain extent, corrected the image of Mongolia as a barbarian who destroyed the civilized world.

In 1570, Queen Elizabeth I of England was excommunicated by the Pope. In order to get rid of being surrounded by mainland Catholic countries, England started a period of alliance with the Islamic forces fighting in the Mediterranean and Catholic Spain, and had in-depth cultural, economic and political exchanges with the Islamic world. It was a remarkable period, with England signing treaties with the Ottoman Empire, accepting ambassadors from the King of Morocco, and sending arms to Marrakech. By the late 1680s, hundreds of merchants, diplomats, sailors, craftsmen, and privateer captains were regularly traveling from Morocco to Persia. Among them was the resourceful merchant Anthony Jenkinson, who met Suleiman the Magnificent and Shah Tahmasp of Persia in the 1560s. The Norfolk merchant William Haban became the first ambassador to the Ottoman court in 1582, while the adventurer Antoninus Sherry remained at the court of Shah Abbas the Great for much of the 1600s. The news these people brought back about the Islamic world was of great interest to the British and was expressed in many great literary works, such as Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and The Merchant of Venice. The creation of "Othello" is probably related to the visit of the Moroccan ambassador Anouli to Britain. This book demonstrates the extensive, often friendly, connections between Elizabethan England and the Islamic world. In today's era of globalization, this history of exchanges between heterogeneous cultures can still bring us great inspiration.