World

Books are like men, you can be surprised by the ones you find cute, says the former deputy editor of Granta magazine. She recommends the best books from the Diaspora.

Professor Kent Deng says there are no grounds for Eurocentricism in explaining the world history of economic growth. Intensive growth of the modern type was first recorded in Song dynasty China

It's hard to understand what's going on in the Xinjiang region of China and the nationalism of the Uyghurs who live there without reading some history. Here Professor Michael Dillon, a historian at King's College London, suggests books to read on the Uyghurs, focusing in particular on scholars and diplomats whose work gives insight into the period before the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949.

The emeritus professor of social anthropology at the London School of Economics and author of Speak of the Devil says the Dinka and the Nuer are famous in anthropology for not being preoccupied with misfortune

With their bleak, isolated backdrops and dysfunctional, melancholic lead detectives, Nordic crime novels have captured readers around the world. Award-winning British crime writer Ann Cleeves picks some of her favourites from around the region.

In one of the saddest interviews on our site, Sri Lankan activist Ahilan Kadirgamar talks us through the books he hopes will be a source of inspiration to the next generation.  He picks the best books on Sri Lanka and its tragic civil war.

The director of The Institute for State Effectiveness, Clare Lockhart, questions the role of the state and discusses the effects of failed states on both neighbouring and local populations. She picks the best books on failed states.