An Economist and Sunday Times Best Book of the Year “Deserves to be hailed as a magnum opus.” —Tom Holland, The Telegraph “Ambitious...seeks to rehabili

A new interpretation of the Holy Roman Empire that reveals why it was not a failed state as many historians believe The Holy Roman Empire emerged in the Middle

The Holy Roman Empire survived for over 1,000 years--and its institutions, ideas, and political divisions haunt Europe still. Starting with Charlemagne's corona

Voltaire's description of the Holy Roman Empire as 'neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire' is often cited to underline its worthlessness. German historians tra

The Holy Roman Empire has often been anachronistically assumed to have been defunct long before it was actually dissolved at the beginning of the nineteenth cen