The Goths are the most enigmatic of all the ancient German tribes. Their name today is still widely in use for a variety of cultural and artistic movements. But unlike other famous German tribes whose names are still descriptive of nations they founded - the Franks, the Lombards, the Angles, the Saxons and the Alemanni - the Goths simply disappeared. The subject of Henry Bradley's splendid short history is tracing the rise, the migrations, and the impact of the Goths on European history along with their spectacular fall.

Medieval feudalism is one of those subjects which most of us are familiar with, and yet have difficulty describing. Was is a political, military, economic, or social system? And how did it develop? All these questions are answered in this superb book. Carl Stephenson has done a magnificent job of paring away all extraneous subjects and focusing on just the key elements. This short book, a masterpiece of brevity, succinctly sums up medieval feudalism better than anything ever written.

Appian of Alexander was a Greek historian who lived at the height of the Roman Empire during the first half of the 2nd century AD, having been born around AD 95 and died about AD 165. Very little is known about him beyond what he reveals about himself, along with the fact that he lived in Alexandria. He was a Roman citizen and held several senior-level public offices, both in Alexandria and in Rome.

Louis XIV, known as the Grand Monarch, or the Sun King, was a sovereign of the House of Bourbon who reigned as King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years is the longest recorded of any monarch in European history. In the age of absolutism, Louis XIV's France was the leader in the growing centralization of power.

This magisterial history - sure to become the definitive work on the subject - recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.