Heavy on History - Refreshing the Audiobook Queue

From time to time, I clear out the seven books in my audiobook queue to start fresh. When I do, I enjoy thinking about my selections strategically. Do I want to focus on a given subject, or do I want seven diverse subjects which are only related to one another in very tenuous ways? This time around, I have elected to replenish my currently reading Audible titles with a lot of history spanning the past millennium from the Crusades to the present. As I list the titles and give you their summary, I want also to revisit this idea of seeing the connections between seemingly disparate things by intentionally overlapping and overlaying subjects with common threads and themes.