The Mirror and the Light—the final instalment of Hilary Mantel's epic trilogy covering the life of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister and architect of the English Reformation—was published to great acclaim this month. Here, Five Books contributing editor Benedict King chooses five of the best books to help you get to grips with the real Thomas Cromwell and the political and religious environment in which he operated. You can watch Benedict talking about his Thomas Cromwell book choices here.

New scholarship is opening up different ways of looking at the Renaissance. The historian explains what we should read to gain a wider appreciation of this key period in European history

If you’re going to look at the past, you have to understand the people who were living there and see the world through their eyes, says historian and Renaissance specialist Kenneth Bartlett. He picks the best books written during the Italian Renaissance.

On October 31st 1517, Martin Luther, an unknown friar in an obscure town in eastern Germany may or may not have posted a list of complaints to the door of his local church. His actions would lead to what was later called ‘the Reformation’ — a grisly period in European history that nonetheless paved the way for a more tolerant and pluralistic society. Peter Marshall, one of the period's leading scholars, talks us through the best books on the Reformation.

The professor of history at Cambridge asks why Oliver Cromwell remains Britain's most controversial ruler, and what the morbid story of Cromwell's head after his death has to say about British history.

The past may be a foreign country, but the world portrayed in the art of the Dutch Masters is not so very far from our own, says Adam Eaker of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For a society that struggles with materialism and consumption, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the 17th century Golden Age.

Princeton professor of Hellenic studies says the 17th-century Mediterranean is fascinating because it was a time when nobody was in charge. And yet, it was possible to have "order without law"

When William of Orange came from Holland to take the English throne in 1688, was it a foreign invasion, or a revolution from within? Yale historian, Steven Pincus, talks us through the conflicting views on the Glorious Revolution and argues for a new perspective.

The failure of the Stuarts to win back the English or Scottish throne changed the course of history, enabling the buildup of a highly centralized British state and, possibly, America's war for independence. Murray Pittock chooses the best books on Jacobitism, the 18th century phenomenon that nearly overthrew the British government.

The Director of the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands and Islands talks to us about the history of the Highland Clearances in Scotland. Interesting reading on 19th Century Scottish history