The first of two volumes offers a unique combination of over 270 color maps and illustrations with a detailed chronological summary. The accompanying text gives full details of the main cultural, scientific, religious, and political events of the centuries from the Old Stone Age to the eve of the French Revolution.

Today we can walk into any well-stocked bookstore or library and find an array of historical atlases. The first thorough review of the source material, Historical Atlases traces how these collections of "maps for history"—maps whose sole purpose was to illustrate some historical moment or scene—came into being. Beginning in the sixteenth century, and continuing down to the late nineteenth, Walter Goffart discusses milestones in the origins of historical atlases as well as individual maps illustrating historical events in alternating, paired chapters. He focuses on maps of the medieval period because the development of maps for history hinged particularly on portrayals of this segment of the postclassical, "modern" past. Goffart concludes the book with a detailed catalogue of more than 700 historical maps and atlases produced from 1570 to 1870. Historical Atlases will immediately take its place as the single most important reference on its subject. Historians of cartography, medievalists, and anyone seriously interested in the role of maps in portraying history will find it invaluable.

In an era of extensive foreign commitments and seemingly perpetual irregular warfare, America's traditional national security model no longer works. Our forces are exhausted, our small wars stalemated, and our defense budget under inexorable downward pressure. In The New Legions, Major General (Ret.) Edward B. Atkeson reviews the political and military strategies that brought us to this point and proposes an innovative solution: shifting the military burden from U.S. soldiers and Marines to friendly indigenous fighters recruited, trained, and equipped for operation in their native environments. Looking back through history as far as the Roman Empire, Atkeson finds ample precedent for the effectiveness of similar legions of fighters. He lays out how such a program would work and shows how these legions could help the United States achieve its global objectives in six troublesome regions from South America to Southeast Asia in a more cost-effective way. The New Legions will be of interest to policy makers, military strategists, and all citizens seeking a more effective military strategy.

Here, for the first time, an author weaves together threads that explain the mysterious disappearance of ancient cultures in which women and the environment were at the center, a loss that has dramatically influenced 3,500 years of Western history.

Early Modern Tales of Orientchallenges the widely held assumption that English travelers originally went to the Orient to colonize. Gathered together for the first time, this collection of Renaissance traveler's tales presents startling evidence that early modern journeys were oftentimes made not to conquer exotic foreign countries, but instead to beg favors. Entertaining and highly readable, these ten stories of exploration, diplomacy, commerce, and tourism were extremely popular in their own time. Though 400 years old, the stories bring to light issues that resonate today: Islamophobia, English nationalism, representations of Turks and Persians, and the Catholic/Protestant divide.

The Habsburg Empire's grand strategy for outmaneuvering and outlasting stronger rivals in a complicated geopolitical world The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Yet somehow Austria endured, outlasting Ottoman sieges, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. A. Wess Mitchell tells the story of how this cash-strapped, polyglot empire survived for centuries in Europe's most dangerous neighborhood without succumbing to the pressures of multisided warfare. He shows how the Habsburgs played the long game in geopolitics, corralling friend and foe alike into voluntarily managing the empire's lengthy frontiers and extending a benign hegemony across the turbulent lands of middle Europe. The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire offers lessons on how to navigate a messy geopolitical map, stand firm without the advantage of military predominance, and prevail against multiple rivals.

The fundamental question of political theory, one that precedes all other questions about the nature of political life, is why there is a state at all. This book describes the foundations of stateless societies, why and how states emerge, and the basis of political obligation.