Peter Whitfield

The Renaissance was one of the greatest moments in Western cultural history. It was the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; architects such as Brunelleschi and Palladio; composers such as Palestrina and Tallis; as well as innovative writers and philosophers. It was a time of great social change and remarkable flowering in science, exploration and politics; the age when medieval Christendom was split apart by the Reformation. The printing press...

Great poetry can indeed outlast stone and the glory of princes, and the English poetic tradition is perhaps the richest in the world. This ebook tells the story of that tradition through its towering figures — Spenser and Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden, Wordsworth and Tennyson, Whitman, Dickinson and Eliot — and through scores of other poets. Clear and accessible, blending criticism with imagination and illustrated with scores of quotations, this...

History or myth? The word of God or the words of men? What is the Bible? This history, especially written for this recording, describes clearly and concisely how the Bible came into being and what it contains. In the year that marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, it also traces the immense influence that the Bible has had on world literature, thought and culture.

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) was one of the most influential presidents of the USA, uniting the country and abolishing slavery after a terrible civil war. His life and works are presented here in an easy introductory form. Through a balance of biography and the key speeches and letters, the man is brought to life, demonstrating his keen intelligence and determination, which was maintained all the way to his tragic death at the hand of an assassin....