• The best books on Ukraine and Russia - Ukraine and Russia: From Civilied Divorce to Uncivil War by Paul D'Anieri
  • The best books on Ukraine and Russia - Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know by Serhy Yekelchyk
  • The best books on Ukraine and Russia - Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History by Yuri Kostenko
  • The best books on Ukraine and Russia - Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals
  • The best books on Ukraine and Russia - The Orphanage: A Novel by Serhiy Zhadan

The best books on Ukraine and Russia, recommended by Serhii Plokhy

Thousands of people have been killed since 2014 in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in a war that has been rife with disinformation, misleading narratives and false flag operations. Here Serhii Plokhy, Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University, recommends books to better understand the conflict, from an introductory work by an eminent historian to the latest work of some of Ukraine’s leading novelists.

  • The best books on The Venetian Empire - Venice: A Documentary History 1450-1630 by Brian Pullan & David Chambers
  • The best books on The Venetian Empire - The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice 1400-1617 by John Rigby Hale & Michael E. Mallett
  • The best books on The Venetian Empire - Venice: A Maritime Republic by Frederic Chapin Lane
  • The best books on The Venetian Empire - Venice: the Hinge of Europe by William McNeill
  • The best books on The Venetian Empire - The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage by Jan Morris

The best books on The Venetian Empire, recommended by Georg Christ

The Venetian Republic was one of the mightiest empires of early modern Europe, with its Terraferma dominions on land and a maritime empire, the Stato da Màr,  that stretched across the Mediterranean. Its unique strength lay in long-distance trade and, as historian Georg Christ explains, in some ways, it resembled a company more than a state. Here, he recommends books to better understand the Venetian empire, what it was and how it grew.

  • The best books on Alexander the Great - Alexander the Great: The Anabasis and the Indica by Arrian
  • The best books on Alexander the Great - The History of Alexander by Quintus Curtius Rufus
  • The best books on Alexander the Great - The First European: A History of Alexander in the Age of Empire by Pierre Briant
  • The best books on Alexander the Great - The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period by Amélie Kuhrt
  • The best books on Alexander the Great - Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault

The best books on Alexander the Great, recommended by Hugh Bowden

Alexander the Great never lost a battle and established an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indian subcontinent. From the earliest times, historians have argued about the nature of his achievements and what his failings were, both as a man and as a political leader. Here, Hugh Bowden, professor of ancient history at King’s College London, chooses five books to help you understand the controversies, the man behind the legends, and why the legends have taken the forms they have.

  • The best books on New York History - The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto
  • The best books on New York History - New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan by Jill Lepore
  • The best books on New York History - Slavery in New York by Ira Berlin & Leslie Harris (editors)
  • The best books on New York History - Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey
  • The best books on New York History - New York and Los Angeles by David Halle (editor)

The best books on New York History, recommended by Louise Mirrer

Like several of the great cities of the world, New York’s openness to people born elsewhere and relative tolerance lay at the foundation of its success, though darker episodes in the city’s 400-year history also need attention. Historian Louise Mirrer, President of the New-York Historical Society, recommends books that are essential to understanding the essence of the Big Apple.

  • The best books on The Silk Road - The Silk Road: A New History by Valerie Hansen
  • The best books on The Silk Road - Sogdian Traders: A History Étienne de la Vaissière (trans. James Ward)
  • The best books on The Silk Road - Diary: Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law Ennin (trans. E O Reischauer)
  • The best books on The Silk Road - Foreign Devils on the Silk Road by Peter Hopkirk
  • The best books on The Silk Road - Silk Roads: Peoples, Cultures, Landscapes by Susan Whitfield

The best books on The Silk Road, recommended by Valerie Hansen

From the Han dynasty to the time of Marco Polo, the routes connecting Asia, Africa and Europe—now known as the Silk Road—were responsible for enormous amounts of global trade. Yale historian Valerie Hansen, author of The Silk Road: A New History, introduces us to its rich history: “one of the reasons the Silk Road is a misnomer is that silk was not the main good moving along.”

  • The best books on The Mughal Empire - Negotiating Mughal Law: A Family of Landlords across Three Indian Empires by Nandini Chatterjee
  • The best books on The Mughal Empire - The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504–1719 by Munis Faruqui
  • The best books on The Mughal Empire - Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship & Sainthood in Islam by A. Azfar Moin
  • The best books on The Mughal Empire - Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court  by Audrey Truschke
  • The best books on The Mughal Empire - Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary by Rajeev Kinra

The best books on The Mughal Empire, recommended by Richard M. Eaton

The Mughals ruled the Indian subcontinent for three centuries, a multicultural empire that brought together an extraordinary mix of Mongol, Islamic, Persian and Indian practices, religious beliefs and philosophies. Here, historian Richard M. Eaton, a professor at the University of Arizona, chooses some of the best scholarly works on the Mughals that shed new light on how the empire functioned.

  • The best books on The Reformation - Christianity In The West 1400-1700 by John Bossy
  • The best books on The Reformation - Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe by Brad Gregory
  • The best books on The Reformation - Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet by Lyndal Roper
  • The best books on The Reformation - The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village by Eamon Duffy
  • The best books on The Reformation - For The Sake Of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation by R W Scribner

The best books on The Reformation, recommended by Peter Marshall

On October 31st 1517, Martin Luther, an unknown friar in an obscure town in eastern Germany may or may not have posted a list of complaints to the door of his local church. His actions would lead to what was later called ‘the Reformation’ — a grisly period in European history that nonetheless paved the way for a more tolerant and pluralistic society. Peter Marshall, one of the period’s leading scholars, talks us through the best books on the Reformation.

  • The best books on The Non-Aligned Movement - The Non-Aligned Movement: Genesis Organization and Politics. by Jurgen Dinkel
  • The best books on The Non-Aligned Movement - Southern Constellations: The Poetics of the Non-Aligned by Bojana Piskur
  • The best books on The Non-Aligned Movement - The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World by Vijay Prashad
  • The best books on The Non-Aligned Movement - Race and the Yugoslav Region: Postsocialist, Post-Conflict, Postcolonial? by Catherine Baker
  • The best books on The Non-Aligned Movement - Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination by Adom Getachew

The best books on The Non-Aligned Movement, recommended by Paul Stubbs

The Non-Aligned Movement was a loose alliance of more than 100 member states whose heyday was during the Cold War, though it continues to exist today. Here, sociologist Paul Stubbs chooses five books to illustrate the cultural, political and economic influence of the Non-Aligned Movement and argues the ideas that animated it are still of vital importance.

  • The best books on Bosnia - Postcards from the Grave by Emir Suljagic
  • The best books on Bosnia - The Quick and the Dead: Under Siege in Sarajevo by Janine di Giovanni
  • The best books on Bosnia - Genocide on the Drina River by Edina Becirevic
  • The best books on Bosnia - When Neighbors Were Real Human Beings by Eli Tauber
  • The best books on Bosnia - A Balkan Journey by Chris Leslie

The best books on Bosnia, recommended by Velma Šarić

As a teenager, Velma Šarić’s hometown of Kladanj welcomed refugees from eastern Bosnia as it was bombed and shelled, her primary school eventually becoming a shelter for people fleeing the massacre at Srebenica. Now she runs Sarajevo’s Post-Conflict Research Centre, trying to prevent anything like it from ever happening again. She recommends books to read on the Bosnian War and explains that it was not a war between different communities, but rather an assault on the country’s multiethnic, multicultural identity.

  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750 by Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture by William Eamon
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Leviathan and the Air-Pump by Simon Schaffer & Steven Shapin
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - Probability and Certainty in 17th Century England. A Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law and Literature by Barbara Shapiro
  • The best books on The Scientific Revolution - The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire by Pamela Smith

The best books on The Scientific Revolution, recommended by Vera Keller

The scientific revolution is often seen as having transformed the way we think and ushered in the modern world, but in highlighting the work of a few key individuals, it has distorted the reality of how science advances in society and how it interacts with truth. Here, Vera Keller, Professor of History at the University of Oregon, challenges popularly held assumptions about the scientific revolution and explains how its meaning, significance and importance have been disputed and misunderstood.

  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen by Linda Heywood
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade by Roquinaldo Ferreira
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Slave Trade and Abolition: Gender, Commerce, and Economic Transition in Luanda by Vanessa Oliveira
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the 17th Century by José Lingna Nafafé
  • The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century) - A History of West Central Africa to 1850 by John Thornton

The best books on The History of Angola (pre-20th century), recommended by Mariana Candido

West Central Africa was involved in the transatlantic slave trade from its inception in the fifteenth century until it ended in the late nineteenth century. It’s the region that lost the largest number of enslaved people to the transatlantic slave trade, with over 5.6 million people taken away. And yet Angola, where three of the five main slaving ports were located, is little studied in English. Here, Mariana Candido, a professor at Emory University, introduces us to some of the best books (available in English) on this era of Angolan history, from the biography of one ruler, Njinga Mbandi, to a survey of the entire period.

  • The best books on The Civil Rights Era - Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby
  • The best books on The Civil Rights Era - God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights by Charles Marsh
  • The best books on The Civil Rights Era - Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow
  • The best books on The Civil Rights Era - The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle by Clayborne Carson, Darlene Clark Hine, David J. Garrow, Gerald Gill & Vincent Harding
  • The best books on The Civil Rights Era - The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and assisted by Alex Haley, Laurence Fishburne (narrator)

The best books on The Civil Rights Era, recommended by Lerone Martin

The struggle for Black freedom in America has been going on since the first enslaved Africans were brought to the continent, but it was the civil rights era of 1954 to 1968 that finally resulted in a raft of legislation that gave equal citizenship to Black people in the United States. Here, Professor Lerone Martin of Stanford University recommends the best books to understand the American civil rights movement, with a focus on some of the individuals who were key to its success.

  • The best books on American Naval History - US Navy: A Concise History by Craig L. Symonds
  • The best books on American Naval History - Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy by Ian W. Toll
  • The best books on American Naval History - Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery by Nathaniel Philbrick
  • The best books on American Naval History - The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War by Samuel Eliot Morison
  • The best books on American Naval History - Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy by Trent Hone

The best books on American Naval History, recommended by John Kroger

The story of the American navy is deeply intertwined with that of the nation, says John Kroger—former Chief Learning Officer to the US Navy—although we don’t always afford naval history the attention it deserves. Here he selects five of the best books about American naval history and predicts a renewed focus on Pacific naval defenses in the coming decades.

  • The best books on The US Cabinet - The Process of Government under Jefferson by Noble Cunningham
  • The best books on The US Cabinet - The Politics of the US Cabinet by Jeffrey E. Cohen
  • The best books on The US Cabinet - Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • The best books on The US Cabinet - Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris
  • The best books on The US Cabinet - The Man Who Ran Washington by Peter Baker & Susan Glasser

The best books on The US Cabinet, recommended by Lindsay Chervinsky

In contrast to many other countries, the secretaries who serve in the United States cabinet aren’t chosen from among the country’s elected officials but entirely reflect the president’s personal choices. Here, presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky, author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, talks us through the role of the cabinet and recommends which books to read to understand more about it.

  • The best books on The Great Divergence - The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia by E L Jones
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress by Joel Mokyr
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth by Jared Rubin & Mark Koyama

The best books on The Great Divergence, recommended by Davis Kedrosky

After a slow start, why did northwest Europe move ahead of the rest of the world in the early modern period and establish an economic dominance whose effects are felt to this day? Davis Kedrosky, a student at Berkeley and publisher of the economic history newsletter, Great Transformations, introduces ‘the Great Divergence’ and suggests some books that get to the heart of the question.

  • The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist - Survivors: Children’s Lives after the Holocaust by Rebecca Clifford
  • The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist - Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh
  • The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist - Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe by Judith Herrin
  • The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist - Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood by Helen McCarthy
  • The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist - Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden
  • The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist - Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution by Geoffrey Plank

The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist, recommended by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Every year the Wolfson History Prize seeks out books that combine careful research with good writing, aimed at the general reader. Here, Diarmaid MacCulloch, historian and chair of the judges, talks us through the outstanding history books that made the 2021 shortlist, and why, in his view, they’re all must-reads.

  • The best books on Joe Biden - What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer
  • The best books on Joe Biden - Matters of Principle by Mark Gitenstein
  • The best books on Joe Biden - Where the Light Enters by Jill Biden
  • The best books on Joe Biden - Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden
  • The best books on Joe Biden - The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney

The best books on Joe Biden, recommended by Ronald A. Klain

On January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden became the 46th President of the United States. Here Ronald A. Klain, the veteran lawyer who is once again serving as Biden’s chief of staff, recommends books that show the man behind the public persona including his love of Irish poetry, the string of terrible personal tragedies that have affected his life and career, and his leading role in blocking a Supreme Court appointment that would’ve decimated abortion rights.

  • The best books on Boudica - Boudica Britannia by Miranda Aldhouse-Green
  • The best books on Boudica - Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen by Christina Unwin & Richard Hingley
  • The best books on Boudica - The Annals by Tacitus
  • The best books on Boudica - Resist: Stories of Uprising by Ra Page
  • The best books on Boudica - Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott

The best books on Boudica, recommended by Richard Hingley

Boudica was an Iron Age queen who led her people into rebellion against Roman rule in the province of Britannia. She was defeated, but only after she had burned several towns, including London, to the ground. Here Richard Hingley, Professor of Archaeology at Durham University, explains how to sift the truth from the myth, and why Boudica has remained an enduring source of fascination down the centuries.

  • Best Books on the History of the American South - American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia by Edmund S Morgan
  • Best Books on the History of the American South - Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America by Ira Berlin
  • Best Books on the History of the American South - Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps by Amy Murrell Taylor
  • Best Books on the History of the American South - The Souls of Black Folk by W E B Du Bois
  • Best Books on the History of the American South - The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward

Best Books on the History of the American South, recommended by Edward Ayers

To understand the America of today, you must understand the American South of the past, says historian Edward Ayers, Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities and President Emeritus at the University of Richmond. Here, he recommends five books to get started with, and also explains what his own books were aiming to contribute to the field of Southern history.