★《卫报》《华尔街日报》年度历史图书，一部引人入胜的地中海史诗

★当奥斯曼土耳其遭遇基督教欧洲，东西方争霸如何影响普通人的生活与命运？

★牛津大学教授遍寻欧洲档案馆，以二十年求索复原地中海世界纷繁复杂的历史图景

16世纪下半叶，地中海世界犹如巨大的角斗场。但就在激烈的冲突之下，依然存在着密切的往来。

凭借地域和语言优势，布吕尼-布鲁蒂家族以代理人的身份活跃于大国博弈的台前幕后。

他们跨越东地中海及欧洲腹地，游弋在威尼斯、罗马、伊斯坦布尔之间。为实现统治者的意志，也为谋求个人与家族的成功，深入间谍活动、奴隶赎买、反奥斯曼叛乱、公共与隐秘外交等一系列和平与战时活动。

追踪这一家族的兴衰，本书揭开了地中海世界纷繁复杂的面目，展示了基督教国家互相矛盾的地缘战略，也描述了奥斯曼帝国雄心勃勃的征服计划。

《帝国代理人》描绘了16世纪后期威尼斯与奥斯曼帝国在地中海东部的霸权之争，是一部嵌在近乎普鲁斯特式的早期现代欧洲百科全书中的家族“微观史”。——《国家利益》杂志

《帝国代理人》描绘的是费尔南·布罗代尔在《地中海与菲利普二世时代的地中海世界》中呈现的世界，展示了娜塔莉·泽蒙·戴维斯在《马丁·盖尔归来》中采用的“微观史”技巧。——《立场》杂志

《走进中国城市内部：从社会的最底层看历史》作者以简明清新的笔调，展示出西方思潮与本土文化的冲突、精英阶层与底层民众的冲突、国家权力与社会功能的冲突，不但表达了对民众及其所代表的文化的认同、对国家权力无限膨胀的担忧，还借由某个或某些特定的公共空间，在时代变迁的历史画卷中，描绘出自己对于历史与现实、国家与社会关系的理解。

A survey of popular culture in 16th century Italy. Ginzburg’s study The Cheese & The Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-century Miller, first published in 1976, is one of those fascinating micro-histories which explores the remote lives of unknown and forgotten people. The story of Menocchio is one of a peasant life of obscurity but also one of strange and powerful ideas – confused and half-baked even – but powerful enough to bring him into conflict with the Inquisition and thereafter to the final purgatorial flames. “I have said that, in my opinion, all was chaos … and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels, and among that number of angels, there was also God, he too having been created out of that mass at the same time ….” This was Menocchio’s own version of Genesis, recounted at his first interrogation: it has perhaps something in common with modern chaos theory. Sadly, the inquisitors did not appreciate the idea that God might have started out as a worm in a primordial curd. Nonetheless, this was Menocchio’s oft-repeated explanation, one he never recanted. More than an independent mind, Menocchio’s was a rebel spirit, harshly critical of Church and clergy and determined to have his say. His ‘learning’ was a fascinating hotch-potch of superstition, oral tradition, ‘strong’ ideas, misunderstood reading, peasant radicalism, paganism and ‘cottage cheese cosmology’. Ginzburg’s book details the patient mechanism of the Inquisition in Counter Reformation Italy as it sought to eradicate suspected heresy and heretical groups rather in the same way that Stalin suspected counter-revolution everywhere. Bruno burned for the books he had written; Menocchio burned for the books he had misunderstood. Both burnings demonstrate among other things the truth of the old adage; a little learning can be a dangerous thing. Menocchio’s roasting generated more heat than light but at least it did not contradict the Laws of Thermodynamics. Today in Montereale the visitor will find the Domenico Scandella Social Centre. In the piazza there is a monument in the form of a large wheel of cheese with one slice missing. Our heretic has become a hero. Stephen Dedalus said of Bruno that, heretic or not, ‘he was terribly burnt’; so was the poor miller from Friuli.

本书以19世纪、20世纪之交的一位山西绅士刘大鹏的日记为核心资料，描绘出其人作为儒者、孝子、商人、议政者、农民的不同身份状态下的人生景况，讨论了中国在从传统社会转型为现代社会的动荡中下层知识分子所面临的生活的困难、身份认同的焦虑，以及由此而来精神的折磨与坚守。从一个人的遭遇折射出清末民初中国社会、中国知识群体的转型之痛。