What are some of your favorite history books and why?
What are some great history books that stuck with you after you finished them? Or that led you down deeper rabbit holes of learning? I’m not even looking solely for nonfiction (historical fiction is great too).
I’ve been on a huge history kick lately…just all periods. I want to learn everything and have been craving more and more awesome, gripping and engaging history books. Some stuff I’ve enjoyed recently:
Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen- presents an amazing background of various presidents who died in office and were succeeded by their vice president, who each became unlikely leaders and changed the course of US history in a myriad of ways. Super interesting and tons of tidbits that I never knew!
Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder - I admit I don’t know a ton about WW2 and the Holocaust beyond most of what you learn or hear about in popular culture. This book was mind boggling and devastating. The amount of killing and torture that Hitler and Stalin effectuated on their own people is astounding and horrendous.
The Women by Kristin Hannah - I know this isn’t “history”, but historical fiction, but I still loved the emotion in this book. I have never dove much into Vietnam war era stories so this was super interesting. I would love to learn more about this time in world history.
SPQR by Mary Beard - I’d love to expand my knowledge of the Roman Empire…candidly I haven’t finished this book (it’s been a bit dry for me), but the topic is so intriguing I really want to keep at it and learn more. Any Roman History book suggestions?
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I don't read much history, but this was used in my AP American History class (in East Texas in the 1990's). At the time I didn't know how subversive it was. I found an omnibus version in a thrift store a few years ago and aspire to read the whole thing someday.
From this article published rains the author's death
I've always loved this line from the afterword:
Such a simple idea but it changes the way you read everything else.
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. One of those books that gives you an 'aha' moment every dozen pages. Really changed my view of ancient history.
Absolutely loved this one. I'm currently reading through Graeber's 'Debt: The first 5000 years' and... Wow. I was expecting this one to be a bit more dry, and it is anything but. He takes up all these threads of philosophy, religion, linguistics, modern politics and culture and weaves it through around the central and surprisingly heavy topic of debt. Can definitely recommend.
He's a terrific writer and thinker. My sister gave me Utopia of Rules, also by Graeber, and I had the same experience. You might check that one out next.
I need to give this one a go...as well as Debt and Utopia of Rules...I've had all three sitting not only in my Audible library, but also in my Kindle for a long time...I've always felt kind of intimidated by his vast work and the heaps of praise Graeber gets...but I should get over that!
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman. Extremely readable exploration of World War I - what happened and why it happened. Would that all history books were as well written.
The Anarchy by Dalyrimple tells the story of the conquest of India,
Bury my heart at Wounded knee tells the story of the conquest of the United States, broken treaty by broken treaty.
Cadillac Desert tells the story of diverting water to allow the southwest United States to urbanize and grow large scale crops ,
The Ghost Map tells the story of the discovery of water distribution of disease
Some good ones that tell small related stories are How Big Things get done by Bent Flyvbjerg, Algorithms to live by by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths and Being Wrong Adventures on the Margin of Error
I came here to recommend The Ghost Map as well. It's very well written, and the way it trickles revelations to the reader is right up there with a good mystery novel.
I like reading history books but they're so often overrun (often with good reason) by names and dates that the actual story gets lost, but The Ghost Map managed to keep a solid balance between the narrative and the raw data.
This is great.
I highly recommend Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides. It's difficult material to get through, but interesting history and has stayed with me since I first listened to it over 15 years ago. The author does an impressive job highlighting the conflicted nature of Kit Carson's relationship with the Navajo and carefully handles Carson's role in carrying out the tragic parts of "Manifest Destiny" along with the policies of the U.S. Army/government in dealing with a culture foreign to them. It would be nice if this were required reading in history classes as it's well-written and an important part of America's evolution.
I haven't read The Anarchy yet, but it's on my list to get around to. It goes on sale on Kindle once in a while, so people should keep an eye out for it there or at used book stores.
The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder - by David Grann.
It's really fascinating to read about sea journeys from the 1700s. They still didn't really know how to navigate with great accuracy, and often ended up hundreds of miles from where they thought they should be. And how anyone survived on their diets at sea is just amazing. This one was a good read.
The Speckled Monster:a Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox - by Jennifer Lee Carrell. This one goes really deep into the resistance to innoculation. A duke's daughter was disfigured by smallpox, and wanted to protect her own children. She married an ambassador to Turkey, and discovered that the women there had been innoculating their children and she wanted to bring this to England, but people were vehemently opposed to the idea. People experimented on prisoners, and in the American colonies a doctor had a similar struggle to implement change and was almost murdered for doing it. Really the history of smallpox is fascinating no matter what time frame you look at it. Our species history is completely inseparable from that disease, it's crazy how much it has shaped our world. Eradicated in the 1970s so we are collectively starting to forget it's impacts.
I can't speak to how robust or accurate the book is but during my teens I read Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and it was the first non-fiction history book I read that made me think "wow, historical biographies can be really cool".
I suggest Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo.
Thanks, I'll check it out!
I've got this one downloaded and ready to go in my Audible library! Just need to push "play" at this point...
I'll share two that stood out to me from a historiography class I took in grad school:
The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis
Against the Grain by James Scott
Thanks, Against the Grain sounds good. I just put it on hold at the library.
You're welcome! It's been a few years since I first read it, but I remember it really resonating with me when I did.
I read a lot of military history, so some of my recommendations are more in that direction. Case in point, I'm currently enjoying reading Lawrence Freedman's The Future of War: A History. It reads more like a dissertation (but the citations are at the back of the book, no footnotes or in-line), but it's a fascinating and dense read without, in my opinion, getting boring or pouring of minutiae the way that some books get about specific battles (Gettysburg, Waterloo, Austerlitz).
Since OP is looking for more books on Rome and that time period: I'll mention that I thought Hannibal: One Man Against Rome by Harold Lamb was quite engaging and might be something of a classic (I listened on audiobook, so when reading YMMV; his book on the Crusades/Islam I did not enjoy as much). Tom Holland also has a number of popular books on the Roman period (and on WWII).
John Toland, Max Hastings, and Ian W. Toll have the big tomes on theaters of WWII that are worth diving into. The pop-history books from Ben Macintyre and the like aren't written the best and are kind cumbersome to get through as a result, but more approachable and I quite enjoyed Prisoners of the Castle. I'm sure Rogue Heroes is in a similar situation. There are a few WWII memoir classics, like A Helmet for My Pillow, that I'm sure others will go into.
I'm kinda interested in Russian literature, so I've gotten into some lengthy biographies on tsarist Russia. There is always something from Suzanne and Robert K. Massie that will be worth the deep dive. I enjoyed Catherine the Great and Castles of Steel (about dreadnoughts and the arms race for battle-cruisers/battleships). They also have books on the Romanovs as well as Peter the Great.
White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
Kevin M. Kruse
This book is about the birth of the American suburbs, and how contempt for equality and civil rights of African Americans from whites of the era fueled the mass exits from city centers and cratered the tax bases, leaving public services in shambles and creating the mess we have today (education, infrastructure, transit, etc.). Essential read for understanding such an important part of our country that is often not talked about. The political aspect on the title is also interesting, and you start to understand the hatred that a lot of our countries foundations are built on. Hatred borne from no longer being able to own human beings, and subsequently being told to treat said humans as equals.
The Power Broker
Robert A. Caro
Must read for any New Yorker first of all. While this book is about Robert Moses, it's essential reading for understanding how this current NY came about, how it used to work, and how Moses did what he did. It's fascinating and an important look into this guy's story. I find the discussions online about him lacking quite a bit of nuance. Yes, he should be hated for the bad that he did, but he is responsible for so much necessary changes to government. He truly modernized the system and brought it into the 20th century. At the same time he was an absolute cunt. Both things can be true, but you only ever hear about the latter from people who I assume don't know the full breadth of his work.
If you want to read this, the podcast 99% Invisible (one of my top 3 podcasts, listen to episodes each week) is doing a book club thing this year where they have an episode each month for a group of chapters from the book. You'd probably be starting too late to follow along, but if you ever read this, definitely check out the podcast as a great companion to the book. Episode 1 or 2 even featured the author himself.
If I may include historical fiction... I love I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves.
To that I'd add the Seven Dreams series by William T. Vollmann. Highly literary, mythic, historical fiction centered on different European incursions against the native peoples of North America. 5 of the planned 7 have been released over the course of 3 decades. I've read the first two, The Ice-Shirt on the Norse in Newfoundland, and Fathers and Crows on the French & Dominicans in the St. Lawrence watershed.
Also Europe Central, his National Book Award winner is a gem, covering Stalinist Russia, the campaign through eastern Europe, and a lot of Shostakovich.
The Battle Cry of Freedom is probably one of the best single volume books on the American Civil War as you're going to read.