War

The graduate of West Point Military Academy, fluent Arabic speaker and Iraq war veteran, talks about the books that inspired him to take a stand against the US military's regressive Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy

All empires are obsessed with the prospect of their own decline, says British journalist and novelist James Meek. He recommends books on the death of empires, from Austria-Hungary to Kublai Khan.

The author and political blogger chooses five books on the Israel-Palestine conflict and compares the Palestinians to the Jews in diaspora: as the land disappears under their feet, their identity grows stronger.

Steve Darlow, author of nine books on military aviation, discusses his favourite books on pilots during the Second World War - a time when 800 Allied airmen were lynched

Many soldiers serving in private armies are not bloodthirsty mercenaries, but just trying to get by using the skills they have, argues journalist Stephen Armstrong, author of War Plc. He recommends books on private armies.

Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, an account of the Rwandan genocide, explores five books on the events that left 800,000 dead in 100 days.

The award-winning journalist and author says she laughed out loud when she read Greg Mortenson’s line that if he was killed in Pakistan, he knew it would be in a car accident and not by a terrorist

Award winning reporter and novelist says there are no superlatives too superlative for Anna Politkovskaya, who, after three books and innumerable investigative reporting trips to Chechnya, was murdered in Moscow

The Sunday Telegraph’s chief foreign correspondent on the dangers of being a journalist in the Iraq war. "When a little of group of kids wandered up and said, 'Hello mister, how are you?', it was time to leave"

Edward Mortimer, the former Director of Communications to Kofi Annan talks about the need for reform, how when the Camp David talks broke down "the whole atmosphere in the organization became poison", and his boss. He picks the best five books on the United Nations.