Charles River Editors

Different branches of the same religion are the exception more than the rule, and they have had a profound impact upon history....

One of the most important and memorable events of the United States' westward push came with the discovery of gold, in the lands that became California, in January 1848....

The Portuguese Inquisition: The History of the Portuguese Empire’s Religious Persecution of Non-Christians in Portugal and Asia looks at how the Inquisition came to be and how people were persecuted by it over the course of several centuries....

The library of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, is as significant in the study of early Christianity as the writings of the Essenes to the understanding of Judaism during the time of the Roman occupation....

During the first half of the 1st millennium CE, an empire arose in Persia that extended its power and influence to Mesopotamia in the east, Arabia in the south, the Caucasus Mountains in the north, and as far east as India.

This audiobook chronicles the early efforts by the Portuguese that helped initiate the Age of Exploration, and the ramifications the colonization had across the world....

Japan's blissful isolation changed with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. In awe of the American weapons and ships, the Tokugawa shogunate quickly realized that they needed to evolve and modernize their military to survive, and a time of rapid change descended on Japan.

Those unfamiliar with the Mohawk associate them with the conspicuous Mohawk haircut, and images of a warlike people who scalp their enemies are still evoked....

Many ancient civilizations have influenced and inspired people in the 21st century....

Any work about the mercurial Aleister Crowley is better off being labeled a “story” than a “biography” thanks to the impossibility of being sure that anything one reads about him is true....

Native American Tribes: The History and Culture of the Blackfeet and Blackfoot Confederacy comprehensively covers the history and legacy of one of the Great Plains’ most famous Native American groups....

Latin American Revolutionaries: The Life and Legacy of Che Guevara chronicles the world's most famous revolutionary's life and examines his writings and the revolutions he led....

The Punjab is defined by the floodplains of the five rivers that give the area its name, and as a result, it is one of the most fertile regions of South Asia. However, since the 1947 partition of India, the “Land of Five Rivers” is something of a misnomer....

The Apocrypha of the Bible examines the history of the books excluded from the Bible, the characters and events told by the books, and the discoveries that have influenced Biblical studies in the last few centuries....

Persepolis was the capital of Persia, the largest empire the world had ever seen, but after its destruction, it was largely forgotten for nearly 2,000 years....

Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky profiles the friends and partners as they rose from the streets of the Lower East Side to become some of the most influential organized crime leaders in America....

In the eighth century BCE, one of the most important provinces within the Assyrian Empire was Samaria....

The most improbable approach toward American civil rights for Black citizens blended the beliefs of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, and it was spearheaded by global activist Marcus Aurelius Garvey. He aimed to transport much of America’s Black population back to Africa....

Yugoslavia was arguably one of the most unusual geopolitical creations of the 20th century. The Yugoslav state had never existed in any historical sense, and the ties that bound together its constituent peoples were tenuous at best. Listen to learn more about Yugoslavia....

"We, conquered by William, have liberated the Conqueror’s land." So reads the memorial to the British war dead at Bayeaux, Normandy. Commemorating those who gave their lives to free France in 1944, it also serves to remind us of an earlier conflict....