Call No: PL53.9.B33 A2 2006 PRINT ONLY
"A hardcover edition of the colorful memoirs of Babur (1483-1530), founder and first emperor of the Mughal dynasty in Central Asia and India. With a chronology, bibliography, and introduction by William Dalrymple
This the first critical biography of Zahīr al-Dīn Muhammad Bābur, the founder of one of the great premodern Islamic empires, the Timurid-Mughul Empire of India. It contains an original evaluation of his life and writings as well as fresh insights into both the nature of empire-building and the character of the Timurid-Mughul state. Based upon recently published critical editions of Bābur's autobiography and poetry, the book examines Bābur's life from the time he inherited his father's authority in the Ferghanah valley, east of Samarqand, in 1494, until his death in Agra, India in 1530. The book is written in an alternating series of thematic and narrative chapters. The thematic or analytical chapters examine his major writings, and discuss his cultural personality and his reaction to Indian culture, while the narrative chapters relate the story of his life while critically commenting on his autobiographical intent. The book contributes to the history of the Timurid period, the study of early modern Islamic empires, and the nature of autobiographical literature in Islamic and Asian societies. It is illustrated with fifteen color plates and four maps.
Islamic Central Asia is the first English-language anthology of primary documents for the study of Central Asian history. Scott C. Levi and Ron Sela draw from a vast array of historical sources to illustrate important aspects of the social, cultural, political, and economic history of Islamic Central Asia. These documents—many newly translated and most not readily available for study—cover the period from the 7th-century Arab conquests to the 19th-century Russian colonial era and provide new insights into the history and significance of the region.
The Ghazi Sultans were frontier holy-warrior kings of late medieval and early modern Islamic history. This book is a comparative study of three particular Ghazis in the Muslim world at that time, demonstrating the extent to which these men were influenced by the actions and writings of their predecessors in shaping strategy and how they saw themselves. Using a broad range of Persian, Arabic, and Turkish texts, the author offers new findings in the history of memory and self-fashioning, demonstrating thereby the value of intertextual approaches to historical and literary studies.
This work reexamines the political and military aspects of the Revolution of 1399. It argues that Henry of Lancaster was not the "all-conquering" hero of 1399 and that Richard II worked with all his faculties to outmaneuver his cousin politically rather than simply accept his fate and deposition with resignation.
Henry IV (1399–1413), the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, seized the English throne at the age of thirty-two from his cousin Richard II and held it until his death, aged forty-five, when he was succeeded by his son, Henry V. This comprehensive and nuanced biography restores to his rightful place a king often overlooked in favor of his illustrious progeny. Henry faced the usual problems of usurpers: foreign wars, rebellions, and plots, as well as the ambitions and demands of the Lancastrian retainers who had helped him win the throne. By 1406 his rule was broadly established, and although he became ill shortly after this and never fully recovered, he retained ultimate power until his death. Using a wide variety of previously untapped archival materials, Chris Given-Wilson reveals a cultured, extravagant, and skeptical monarch who crushed opposition ruthlessly but never quite succeeded in satisfying the expectations of his own supporters.
To contemporaries, the Wars of the Roses, the series of dynastic conflicts that tore apart the ruling Plantagenet family in fifteenth-century England were known collectively as a "cousins war." The struggle that ultimately brought into being the Tudor dynasty was truly a domestic drama, as fraught and intimate as any family feud before or since. What set the Wars of the Roses apart, of course, was that there was a kingdom at stake. Since the end of the fourteenth century, control of the House of Plantagenet and the vast territory it ruled in the British Isles had been claimed by.
Call No: DA787.M3 R57 2002 PRINT ONLY
Challenging the conventional interpretation of Mary of Guise as the defender of Catholicism whose regime climaxed with the Reformation Rebellion, this book shows that she was, on the contrary, a shrewd and effective politician whose own dynastic interests and those of her daughter took precedence over her personal and religious convictions. Detailed is how Mary of Guise's dynasticism, and political career as a whole, were inextricably associated with those of Mary, Queen of Scots, whose Scottish sovereignty, Catholic claim to the English throne, and betrothal to the Dauphin of France carried with them notions of Franco-British Imperialism.
Thomas Green examines the Scottish Reformation from a new perspective – the legal system and lawyers. Green covers the Wars of the Congregation, the Reformation Parliament, the legitimacy of the Scottish government in 1558-61, the courts of the early Church of Scotland, and the legal significance of Mary Stewart's personal reign.
Call No: DA784.7 .C54 2016 PRINT ONLY
Although Mary, Queen of Scots continues to fascinate both historians and the general public alike, the story of her mother, Marie de Guise, is much less well known. Political power in her own right, she was born into the powerful and ambitious Lorraine family, spending her formative years at the dazzling and licentious court of François I. Although briefly courted by Henry VIII, she instead married his nephew, James V of Scotland, in 1538.
James' premature death four years later left their six-day-old daughter, Mary, as Queen and presented Marie with the formidable challenge of winning the support of the Scottish people and protecting her daughter’s threatened birthright. Content until now to remain in the background and play the part of the obedient wife, Marie spent the next eighteen years effectively governing Scotland, devoting her considerable intellect, courage, and energy to safeguarding her daughter’s inheritance by using a deft mixture of cunning, charm, determination and tolerance.
The last serious biography of Marie de Guise was published in 1977 and whereas plenty of attention has been paid to the mistakes of her daughter’s eventful but brief reign, the time has come for a fresh assessment of this most fascinating and underappreciated of sixteenth-century female rulers.
The House of Guise was one of the greatest princely families of the sixteenth century, or indeed of any age. Today they are best remembered through the tragic life of one family member, Mary Queen of Scots. But the story of her Guise uncles, aunts, and cousins is if anything more gripping - and certainly of greater significance in the history of Europe. The Guise family rose to prominence as the greatest enemy of the House of Habsburg and had dreams of a great dynastic empire that included the British Isles and southern Italy. They were among the staunchest opponents of the Reformation, played a major role in re-fashioning Catholicism at the Council of Trent before plunging France into a bloody civil war that culminated in the infamous St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. They protected English Catholic refugees, plotted to invade England and overthrow Elizabeth I, and ended the century by unleashing Europe's first religious revolution, before succumbing in a counter-revolution that made them martyrs for the Catholic cause. Martyrs and Murderers is the first comprehensive modern biography of the Guise family in any language. In it Stuart Carroll unravels the legends which cast them either as heroes or as villains of the Reformation, weaving a remarkable story that challenges traditional assumptions about one of Europe's most turbulent and formative eras.
