Peter Marshall Books

The Reformation was a pivotal historical event with lasting effects in Europe and beyond. Initiated by Martin Luther's protests against the sale of indulgences in 1517, it was part of a broader call for reform within the Christian Church. This movement quickly escalated into intense debates across Germany and Europe regarding the nature of God's will and human salvation. These discussions transcended theology, reshaping politics, international relations, social and cultural dynamics, gender relations, and everyday life. The Reformation also spurred Christianity's evolution into a global religion, as the Roman Catholic Church sought to regain influence through new conversions in Asia and the Americas. This illustrated volume explores both Protestant and Catholic reform movements, detailing the Reformation's explosive beginnings and its profound, lasting legacy. The narrative reveals a complex struggle among various groups and individuals, with or without political backing, each pursuing their vision of reform. Ultimately, it illustrates how these efforts, despite their intentions, contributed to the pluralistic and often conflicted world we experience today.

In the late 16th century the greatest philosophers, alchemists, astronomers, painters, and mathematicians of the day flocked to Prague to work under the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, an emperor more interested in the great minds of his times than in the exercise of his immense power.

From Peter Marshall, winner of the Wolfson Prize 2018, Storm’s Edge is a new history of the Orkney Islands that delves deep into island politics, folk beliefs and community memory on the geographical edge of Britain.

Double-entry accounting can be easy if it's explained well, and "Mastering Book-Keeping" does just that. Now in its updated 7th edition, this popular book has helped thousands of people to get to grips with book-keeping. It explains the principles and practice of book-keeping sequentially, and includes: the bank reconciliation, writing up the petty cash book, extracting a trial balance, accruals and prepayments, setting up a Limited Company, and accounting for VAT. Plus step-by-step guides to compiling a balance sheet, depreciation, accounting for bad and doubtful debts, and much more. Everything is made clear with easy-to-follow explanations. Typical transactions are illustrated throughout to make the information even easier to understand. And, if you're taking LCCI, RSA, BTech, Pitman, GCSE or Open College courses, keep this practical and clear guide to hand; it covers the requirements of all those book-keeping courses.

The Reformation was a seismic event in European history, and one which changed the medieval world. Much which followed in European history can be traced back to this event. In this Very Short Introduction Peter Marshall seeks to explain the causes and consequences of religious and cultural division and difference in western Christianity.

Halloween 1636: sightings of the ghost of an old woman begin to be reported in the small English coastal town of Minehead, and a royal commission is sent to investigate. December 1640: a disgraced Protestant bishop is hanged in the Irish capital, Dublin, after being convicted of an 'unspeakable' crime. In this remarkable piece of historical detective work, Peter Marshall sets out to uncover the intriguing links between these two seemingly unconnected events. The result is a compelling tale of dark family secrets, of efforts to suppress them, and of the ways in which they finally come to light. It is also the story of a shocking seventeenth-century Church scandal which cast its shadow over religion and politics in Britain and Ireland for the best part of three centuries, drawing in a host of well known and not-so-well-known characters along the way, including Jonathan Swift, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Walter Scott. A fascinating story in its own right, Mother Leakey and the Bishop is also a sparkling demonstration of how the telling of stories is central to the way we remember the past, and can become part of the fabric of history itself.

Rudolf II—Habsburg heir, Holy Roman Emperor, king of Hungary, Germany, and the Romans—is one of history's great characters, and yet he remains largely an unknown figure. His reign (1576–1612) roughly mirrored that of Queen Elizabeth I of England, and while her famous court is widely recognized as a sixteenth century Who's Who, Rudolf 's collection of mathematicians, alchemists, artists, philosophers and astronomers—among them the greatest and most subversive minds of the time—was no less prestigious and perhaps even more influential.Driven to understand the deepest secrets of nature and the riddle of existence, Rudolf invited to his court an endless stream of genius—Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, German mathematician Johannes Kepler, English magus John Dee, Francis Bacon, and mannerist painter Giuseppe Archimboldo among many others. Prague became the artistic and scientific center of the known world—an island of intellectual tolerance between Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam.Combining the wonders and architectural beauty of sixteenth century Prague with the larger than-life characters of Rudolf's court, Peter Marshall provides an exciting new perspective on the pivotal moment of transition between medieval and modern, when the foundation was laid for the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.

A chance encounter unfolds when a Russian warship docks in Portsmouth, leading Marina Peters, an English girl of Russian descent, to meet a dashing officer she found on a dating site. With her ties to the Royal Navy, their shared backgrounds spark a connection that bridges cultures and explores themes of identity and romance amidst a backdrop of military intrigue.

Sounding Forth the Trumpet brings to life one of the most crucial epochs in America's history--the events leading up to and precipitating the Civil War. In this enlightening book, readers live through the Gold Rush, the Mexican War, the skirmishes of Bleeding Kansas, and the emergence of Abraham Lincoln, as well as the tragic issue of slavery.