Showing results by author "Ian Mortimer" in All Categories

Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat? Ian Mortimer shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. He sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking you to the Middle Ages. The result is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: evolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail.

We tend to think about the Middle Ages as a dark and backward time, characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. We believe that life was unchanging over the period, so if a peasant fell asleep in in the year 1000 and woke up six hundred years later, he would return to a world that was instantly recognisable. We hold that change is facilitated by science and technological innovation, and that it was the inventions of recent centuries, from the steam engine to the Internet, that created the modern world. We couldn't be more wrong.

In a contest of change, which century from the past millennium would come up trumps? Imagine the Black Death took on the female vote in a pub brawl, or the Industrial Revolution faced the internet in a medieval joust – whose side would you be on? In this hugely entertaining book, celebrated...

In these sparkling A to Zs, time-travelling historian Ian Mortimer visits four classic periods of English history: the fourteenth century, the Elizabethan age, the Restoration and the Regency. As he ranges from the Great Plague to the Great Freeze, from Armada to Austen, and from tobacco to toenails, he shines a light into corners of history we never knew were so fascinating -- or so revealing of the whole.

What was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit...

Brought to you by Penguin. In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveller's Guides - after the Middle Ages, Elizabethan England and Restoration Britain - Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history: the Regency (aka Georgian England)...

Over a thousand years of history. One house. Countless lives. This is the extraordinary story of England told through one ordinary house – from the bestselling author of the acclaimed Time Traveller’s Guides. This book tells the history of England from the point of view of the people who...

If you could travel back in time, the period from 1660 to 1700 would make one of the most exciting destinations in history. It’s the age of Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London, bawdy comedy and the libertine court of Charles II, Christopher Wren in architecture, Henry Purcell in music...

"A compelling page-turner" about the medieval English baron who invaded his own country and deposed a king (Alison Weir, author of Queen Isabella). One night in August 1323, a captive rebel baron, Sir Roger Mortimer, drugged his guards and escaped from the Tower of London. With the king's men-at-arms in pursuit he fled to the south coast and sailed to France. There he was joined by Isabella, the French-born queen of England, who threw herself into his arms. A year later, as lovers, they returned with an invading army: King Edward II's forces crumbled before them and Mortimer took power.

Edward’s life is one of the most extraordinary in all English history. He ordered his uncle to be beheaded, he usurped his father’s throne, and started a war which lasted for more than a hundred years. He took the crown when it was at its lowest point and raised it to new heights, presenting...

Henry V is regarded as the great English hero, lionised in his own day for his victory at Agincourt, his piety and his rigorous application of justice. But what was he really like? In this ground-breaking book, Ian Mortimer portrays Henry in the pivotal year of his reign. Recording the dramatic...

King Henry IV survived at least eight plots to dethrone or kill him in the first six years of his reign. However he had not always been so unpopular. In his youth he had been a great chivalric champion and crusader. In 1399, at the age of thirty-two, he was greeted as the saviour of the realm...

‘Beautifully written and superbly executed’ Times 'A joyous romp around England’s dark past' Suzie Feay, Guardian From the author of the bestselling The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain, this is a stunningly high-concept historical novel that is both as daring as it is...

A memoir about the meaning of running from renowned historian and author of The Time Traveller's Guides. You might run for fitness. You might run for speed. But ultimately, running is about much more than the physical act itself. It is about the challenges we face in life, and how we measure up...

Die Zeit von Shakespeare und Königin Elisabeth I. gilt als »goldenes Zeitalter«. Aber wie war es eigentlich wirklich, im England des 16. Jahrhunderts zu leben? Wir reisen mit Ian Mortimer zurück und spazieren durch die Straßen Londons. Ein Prediger brüllt seine Botschaft in die Menge aus...

Henry IV is not famous except for the plays that bear his name: He is not even a "much-maligned" king. He is normally overshadowed by his far more famous son, Henry V, despite his many achievements. Shakespeare is partly to blame for Henry's diminution and his son's exaggerated stature but not completely; we just don't know what to make of a man who took the throne from the rightful king.

Nicht berühmte Herrscher, grausame Kriege oder denkwürdige Ereignisse sind das Thema des Historikers Ian Mortimer, sondern der Alltag der Menschen im Mittelalter: Wie feierten sie? Worüber lachten sie? Wie liebten sie? Mortimer beschreibt, wie es in den engen Gassen roch, welche Mahlzeiten...

Of all the questions that arise from the Shakespeare authorship debate, one is more perplexing than any other. Why does neither camp apply the sort of analysis that professional historians are able to apply to the question? In any other debate about 16th century events, historians would be summoned in droves. But when it comes to Shakespeare, everybody feels he or she is at liberty to proceed without professional historical input. In this speech, Dr. Mortimer applies a professional historical methodological approach to the authorship question.

Willkommen im Regency, dem Übergang vom 18. ins 19. Jahrhundert! Ian Mortimer nimmt uns mit in diese kuriose Zeit, die für viele schlichtweg für Übermaß steht. Zwischen der leicht langweilig anmutenden Eleganz des 18. Jahrhunderts und der prüden moralischen Überlegenheit der...

La Guía para viajar en el tiempo a la Inglaterra medieval no es la típica mirada a un periodo histórico. Mortimer da un giro radical a nuestra concepción de la historia: no es solo algo que se estudia, también es algo que se vive, ya sea la vida de un campesino o de un señor. A través de las crónicas diarias, las cartas, los relatos domésticos y los poemas de la época, Mortimer nos transporta al pasado y nos ofrece respuestas a preguntas que los historiadores tradicionales suelen ignorar.