In the summer of 1779, having served as an officer in the Continental Army, eighteen-year-old Lorenzo Bannister enjoys a quieter life practicing medicine in Spanish-controlled New Orleans, until his fiancee is kidnapped and the governor of the Louisiana territory, Bernardo De Gálvez, decides to lead Spanish troops in a surprise attack against the British.

In 1776, fifteen-year-old Lorenzo Bannister leaves Texas and his father's new grave to carry a letter to the Virginia grandfather he has never known, and becomes involved with the struggle of the American Continental Army and its Spanish supporters.

'Lorenzo' is a fictionalised version of a conspiracy to assassinate Florence's untitled prince, Lorenzo de Medici. The site is the city's cathedral during Sunday Mass: the date is 26 April 1478. The backdrop is High Renaissance when the city-state stands unchallenged as the intellectual and cultural centre of western civilisation. Superimposed on that time and place is Lorenzo, scholar, art patron, poet, falconer, soldier, banker, diplomat and lover. There are other fascinating characters as well including the spell-binding preacher Savonarol and the brilliant Sixtus IV. What they say and do is based on what is known of them. As an example, it is from Savonarola's prophetic and thunderous sermons that the author derives his words, his sentiments and his fire. Researched with scholarly meticulousness, 'Lorenzo' reads like a mystery novel.

A historian examines how a once-ardent hero of the American Revolutionary cause became its most dishonored traitor. General Benedict Arnold’s failed attempt to betray the fortress of West Point to the British in 1780 stands as one of the most infamous episodes in American history. In the light of a shining record of bravery and unquestioned commitment to the Revolution, Arnold’s defection came as an appalling shock. Contemporaries believed he had been corrupted by greed; historians have theorized that he had come to resent the lack of recognition for his merits and sacrifices. In this provocative book Stephen Brumwell challenges such interpretations and draws on unexplored archives to reveal other crucial factors that illuminate Arnold’s abandonment of the revolutionary cause he once championed. This work traces Arnold’s journey from enthusiastic support of American independence to his spectacularly traitorous acts and narrow escape. Brumwell’s research leads to an unexpected conclusion: Arnold’s mystifying betrayal was driven by a staunch conviction that America’s best interests would be served by halting the bloodshed and reuniting the fractured British Empire. “Gripping… In a time when charges of treason and disloyalty intrude into our daily politics, Turncoat is essential reading.”—R. R. B. Bernstein, City College of New York “The most balanced and insightful assessment of Benedict Arnold to date. Utilizing fresh manuscript sources, Brumwell reasserts the crucial importance of human agency in history.”—Edward G. Lengel, author of General George Washington “An incisive study of the war and the very meaning of the American Revolution itself…. The defining portrait of Arnold for the twenty-first century.”—Francis D. Cogliano, author of Revolutionary America

Of all the authors of Italy, there is surely none to whom both epithets might be applied more justly than to Giulio Carcano. His fecundity is almost as amazing as that of Lope de Vega in Portugal. His variety is greater. He wrote poetry and prose, fact and fiction, with equal facility, though with various degrees of feli city. But he never was dull and he was always lucid. And when he had no original work in hand he wreaked himself on translations. He was author, editor, critic, dramatist, orator, statesman. He was a member, actual or honorary, of every learned or literary society in Italy, and by virtue of his translation of Shakespeare - still accepted as their standard version by his countrymen was a vice-president of the English Shakespeare Society.