For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place – covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape through volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant state of chemical flux.

Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries?

An utterly dazzling book, the best piece of history I have read for a long time’ Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps’

n 2009, Mark R. Levin galvanized conservatives with his unforgettable manifesto Liberty and Tyranny, by providing a philosophical, historical, and practical framework for halting the liberal assault on Constitution-based values.

Stalinism, that particularly brutal phase of communism, came to an end in most of Eastern Europe with the death of Josef Stalin in 1953 or at least with the Khrushchev reforms that began in the Soviet Union in 1956. However, in one country – Albania – Stalinism survived virtually unscathed until 1990.

A History of God is a book by Karen Armstrong that was published by Knopf in 1993. It details the history of the three major monotheistic traditions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, along with some details on Buddhism and Hinduism.

Henry Kissinger, consummate diplomat and statesman, examines the strategies of six great twentieth-century figures and brings to life a unifying theory of leadership and diplomacy “An extraordinary book, one that braids together two through lines in the long and distinguished career of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger…In Leadership he presents a fascinating set of historical case studies and political biographies that blend the dance and the dancer, seamlessly.” – James Stavridis, The Wall Street Journal

Meditations is a series of personal journals written by Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome from 169 to 180 AD. The last of the “Five Good Emperors,” he was the most powerful and influential man in the Western world at the time