History Books

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

From the tyranny of Franco in Spain to the silence of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust, Carmen Callil (1938-2022), author of Bad Faith, recommends books on some darker aspects of European and French history in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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.

The Pakistani author and professor describes the past and future of Pakistan, the influences of India, Britain, the US and Islam, via two seminal non-fiction works and three sweeping Pakistani works of fiction

Reading about Russia's 20th century is like finding another vision of how the world might have been. Francis Spufford, author of Red Plenty, recommends books that tell the story of Russia in the last century — from Soviet science fiction set in capitalist wastelands to Khrushchev as raconteur.

Using examples that range from vaudeville plays to secret societies, Josefowicz paints a colourful picture of the period when, inspired by Napoleon, the French were whipped into an Egyptian frenzy

University College London professor Helen Hackett selects five books on the Virgin Queen, including one by the monarch herself. "You get a sense of her independence of mind. She does her own thing"

The American writer has an obsession with recording Burma’s vanishing stories before the current regime's actions result in the rewriting of Burmese history. She chooses five books on the real Burma

Mary Elise Sarotte, holder of the Kravis Chair in Historical Studies at Johns Hopkins, discusses five books on the end of the Cold War and East Germany's attempts to grapple with its new future post-reunification