History Books

Robert Chandler, one of the best known translators of Russian literature, recommends some of his favourite tales of Soviet Russia. There's the one about a dog in space and the one about the Soviet café which stocked nothing but champagne and Mars bars...

Yale professor John Lewis Gaddis points to research showing that, contrary to widespread belief, Mao was regularly briefed on the famine he had caused

From the Cold War to the post-9/11 world, Professor Patrick Porter looks at America’s destiny and international function. Grappling with geopolitical questions, he looks at whether America's flirtations with empire can be reconciled with republican ideals.

The author and historian Richard Wolin explains that French people in the late 1960s were desperate for a utopian political alternative.

The historian and author chooses five books on de Gaulle and the Resistance. He says the British tried to veto de Gaulle’s famous 1940 speech from London calling on the French to stand up to German occupation

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"

The veteran British journalist and broadcaster on his history reading list. Says Stalingrad was touch and go. Wellington was feared, respected and admired by his men, but he wasn’t loved.

Acknowledged expert on the unresolved conflicts of the South Caucasus selects five books that encapsulate the fragility of the region and the impact of the desperate scramble for the spoils of the Soviet Union

Author and founder of Virago Press decries the absolute silence of the church during the Holocaust, and discusses five books on the "dark and murky side" the French have now "faced up to"

Anthropologist and Afghanistan expert Thomas Barfield gives a panoramic view of Afghanistan, from founding dynasties  to the failed central Asian states of today. He picks the best books on Afghanistan.