Stephen Alford: 4 books

In a Europe aflame with wars of religion and dynastic conflicts, Elizabeth I came to the throne of a realm encircled by menace. To the great Catholic powers of France and Spain, England was a heretic pariah state, a canker to be cut away for the health of the greater body of Christendom. Elizabeth's...

Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII, became king at the age of nine and died wholly unexpectedly at the age of fifteen. All around him loomed powerful men who hoped to use the child to further their own ends, but who were also playing a long game - assuming that Edward would long outlive them and...

The dramatic story of the dazzling growth of London in the sixteenth century. For most, England in the sixteenth century was the era of the Tudors, from Henry VII and VIII to Elizabeth I. But as their dramas played out at court, England was being transformed economically by the astonishing...

Race and racism have played a divisive and defining role throughout much of America's history. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and Ku Klux Klan terrorism have inflicted deep psychic wounds, social disparities, and economic disadvantages that have diminished the promise of equal rights and opportunities...