• The best books on Empires - The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture by Peter Garnsey & Richard Saller
  • The best books on Empires - The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India, Awadh and Punjab, 1707-48 by Muzzafar Alam
  • The best books on Empires - A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology by Pamela Kyle Crossley
  • The best books on Empires - Empire: The Russian Empire and its Rivals (from the 16th century to the present) by Dominic Lieven
  • The best books on Empires - The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914 by C.A. Bayly

The best books on Empires, recommended by Peter Fibiger Bang

Empires are a reflection of the fact some states are stronger than others and are by no means just a relic of the past, says Peter Fibiger Bang, historian of empire and world history at the University of Copenhagen. Here, he recommends books on a variety of empires, from the ancient Romans to the Mughal, Qing and Russian empires and explains what it is that made some empires so durable and resilient across the centuries.

  • The best books on The Achaemenid Persian Empire - The Persian Empire by J M Cook
  • The best books on The Achaemenid Persian Empire - Discovering Cyrus: a Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World by Reza Zaghamee
  • The best books on The Achaemenid Persian Empire - The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period by Amélie Kuhrt
  • The best books on The Achaemenid Persian Empire - The Palace of Darius at Susa: The Great Royal Residence of Achaemenid Persia by Jean Perrot
  • The best books on The Achaemenid Persian Empire - Creation by Gore Vidal

The best books on The Achaemenid Persian Empire, recommended by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

At the height of its greatness, the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the largest empire the world had ever known. Too often it is given merely a villainous walk-on part in the heroic history of classical Greece. Here, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones explains why that needs correcting, looks at its cultural achievements and discusses why the first Persian empire is worth studying in its own right and on its own terms.

  • The best books on The Ghana - Golden Trade of the Moors: West African Kingdoms in the Fourteenth Century by E.W. Bovill
  • The best books on The Ghana - Ancient Ghana and Mali by Nehemiah Levtzion
  • The best books on The Ghana - Social History of Timbuktu: The Role of Muslim Scholars and Notables 1400-1900 by Elias Saad
  • The best books on The Ghana - Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples by David C. Conrad
  • The best books on The Ghana - Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa'di's Ta'rikh Al-Sudan down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents by John Hunwick

The best books on The Ghana, Mali and Songhai African Empires, recommended by Michael Gomez

Long before the Europeans arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries, sub-Saharan West Africa saw the emergence of a series of African empires that lasted for centuries and stretched over vast swathes of the continent. They were known as the Ghana, Mali and Songhai Empires. Here, historian Michael Gomez discusses what led to their greatness, what sustained them and why they fell.

  • The best books on Environmental History - The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail by W. Jeffrey Bolster
  • The best books on Environmental History - Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown
  • The best books on Environmental History - Ecological Imperialism by Alfred Crosby
  • The best books on Environmental History - The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World by John F. Richards
  • The best books on Environmental History - The Ecology of Oil: Environment, Labor, and the Mexican Revolution, 1900-1938 by Myrna I. Santiago

The best books on Environmental History, recommended by John R McNeill

Environmental history is the study of the relationship between society and the natural world—both in terms of human impacts on the environment, and the constraints placed upon cultures by the landscapes they live in. Here, John R. McNeill, a pioneer of the field, recommends five of the best environmental history books with ambition, engaging prose, and heft.

  • 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 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 Age of Revolution - The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 by Eric Hobsbawm
  • The best books on The Age of Revolution - Europe Between the Revolutions 1815-1848 by Jacques Droz
  • The best books on The Age of Revolution - A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution by François Furet & Mona Ozouf
  • The best books on The Age of Revolution - Revolution and the Republic: A History of Political Thought in France Since the Eighteenth Century by Jeremy Jennings
  • The best books on The Age of Revolution - The Enlightenment That Failed by Jonathan Israel

The best books on The Age of Revolution, recommended by Paschalis Kitromilides

The American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789 upended the political order on both sides of the Atlantic. The battle of Waterloo in 1815 did not bring things to a close. Revolutionary activity continued in Europe and Latin America with varying degrees of success right through to 1848. Here political scientist Paschalis Kitromilides, Professor Emeritus at the University of Athens, discusses the various forces that drove the ‘age of revolution.’

  • Best Books for History Reading Groups - The Guns of August by Barbara W Tuchman
  • Best Books for History Reading Groups - The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present by John Pomfret
  • Best Books for History Reading Groups - An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson
  • Best Books for History Reading Groups - A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William Bernstein
  • Best Books for History Reading Groups - Bolívar: American Liberator by Marie Arana

Best Books for History Reading Groups, recommended by Donna McBride

It’s a golden age for narrative history, with lots of highly readable books bringing to life many different aspects of the past, says historian Donna McBride. A Fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, she has led ‘The Historians’ reading group there for the last five years. Here, she recommends some of the best popular histories the group has read and shares some tips on how to set up and run your own history reading group.

  • History of Prostitution Books - Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London, 1885-1960 by Julia Laite
  • History of Prostitution Books - The World of Prostitution in Late Imperial Austria by Nancy M. Wingfield
  • History of Prostitution Books - Code of Misconduct: Regulating Prostitution in Late Colonial Bombay by Ashwini Tambe
  • History of Prostitution Books - When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria 1900-1958 by Saheed Aderinto
  • History of Prostitution Books - Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health, and Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico City by Katherine Elaine Bliss

History of Prostitution Books, recommended by Siobhán Hearne

Societies of all different stamps have tried to eliminate prostitution but it never works and there are always unintended consequences. Siobhan Hearne, a historian of sexuality in Tsarist and Soviet Russia, explains how exploring the history of prostitution provides fascinating insights into social and political history as well as offering some genuine, and very clear, lessons from the past.