History is not about understanding the past for the sake of it, it’s about understanding human nature, says the historian and novelist Ian Mortimer.

The late China specialist and UCLA professor said sometimes he felt genuine admiration for China’s technocratic leaders. Other days he shook his head at their obsessive intransigence and China’s endemic political insecurity

The historian and biographer of London Peter Ackroyd picks five books that shine a light on parts of this vast, complex and confusing city where, he says, pathos and pantomime meet.

The author explains the allure of desert nations, through a discussion of books including Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger and Sultan In Oman by Jan Morris

American presidents may not want to send troops into battle or militarise foreign policy but, in the end, most of them do. The author and journalist explains how this happens, and why it’s not even the military that’s to blame. He picks the best books on American militarism.

Why do huge stories sometimes go unreported? Our news media are good at promulgating conventional wisdom but find it much more difficult to deal with evidence that contradicts it, says the former Washington Post reporter

The explorer and author of Into the Silence, Wade Davis, tells us that the consequences of the Great War were much more than merely political. He says the war had a noticeable impact on exploration, arts and literature, and modernity itself.

The long-time foreign correspondent and author of books on Zaire, Eritrea and Kenya tells us where to turn for engaging foreign perspectives on Africa. She picks the best books on Africa.

The Puritans got modern American cuisine off to a bad start. But the food writer and critic says subsequent immigrants have helped create a culture where food is appreciated.

The Pulitzer prize-winning history professor tells us how the Constitution came to be written and ratified and explains why, after more than 200 years, Americans are still so deeply wedded to it.

As Romney vs Obama enters the final stretch, the statistician and author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State uncovers the (often surprising) realities of how Americans of different backgrounds vote

Travelling to China? What are the best books to read to get a more in-depth understanding of this complex country? Longtime Beijing resident and New Yorker writer Evan Osnos picks some of his favourites.

Who are the men and women in black robes who sit on America’s highest judicial bench? Legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick recommends the best books on the Supreme Court justices of the United States.

Journalist and author Edward Lucas gives an excoriating critique of Putinism and explains how Russia’s amoral present is rooted in a failure to come to terms with its past.

The much-travelled writer and broadcaster tells us about misunderstandings and misadventures of Americans in foreign lands

As the Olympics open, David Runciman looks back at the two previous times that the Games have been staged in London and finds that the thrift of today looks modest compared with austerities of the past

The war on terror relied on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the threat, say author and academic Malise Ruthven. He picks the best books to get a better understanding of Islamism.

Harvard professor and Pulitzer prize-winning historian Bernard Bailyn recommends reading on three centuries of empire, conflict and slave trading between the Americas, Europe and Africa

Before the era of nation states, the great Levantine cities of Beirut, Alexandria and Smyrna experienced a golden age, as the author of Levant, Philip Mansel, explains

Paris in the 1920s was a creative melting pot, the haunt of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce. The Yale English professor gives us a feel for what it was like to be there

Britain is a bewilderingly motley nation of phlegmatic grumblers, says the author and editor Matthew Engel – a seaside resort-going, class-conscious people haunted by loss of empire, and we can’t even agree on what the country is called

Robert Macfarlane, author of an acclaimed trilogy of books about landscape and human thought tells us about the intrepid, sometimes misanthropic writers who inspired his own investigation of wilderness. He chooses some of his favourite books of nature-writing.

Travel is a leap in the dark, says Paul Theroux and one that will leave you a different person at the other end. He recommends five travel books that inspired him, from Mark Twain at sea to VS Naipaul in India

Inner-city crime is a matter of deprivation not race. It comes from a street culture that respects extreme violence, says Gavin Knight, an author who spent two years among British gangs and the police units covering them

The three biggest Italian mafias remain a powerful presence, with tentacles reaching deep inside Italian business and politics. The historian, author and academic John Dickie  busts the myth that it’s all in the family.

The royal biographer Robert Lacey considers Queen Elizabeth II, her legacy, her family history, and her ambivalent relationship with Princess Diana.

The veteran reporter and frequent visitor to Afghanistan tells us about the country he loves, and the Westerners (and Central Asian conqueror) who wrote engagingly about it.

The Islamic scholar and commentator tells us what it means to be Muslim and Western, and explains how mainstream views get trapped between noisy extremism and a sensation-seeking media

The celebrated Swedish crime-writing duo take turns to recommend gripping and grisly Scandinavian thrillers, as well as to tell us about visiting prison – and being in it

The author of Groove Interrupted transports us to the world of Fats Domino and Professor Longhair, and tells us how (and where) to sample the city’s unique music culture

Writers in China are afraid to criticise the state and society, says London-based author Ma Jian. From the 3rd century BC to 2008, these five exceptional works show how it’s done.

The Russian revolution was the beginning of the modern age, says award-winning author Roland Chambers. He tells us what Solzhenitsyn imagined Lenin was like, and about the children’s author who led a double life as a spy in Bolshevik Russia.

The acclaimed author recommends the most exciting new writing out of India and South Asia, including accounts of 9/11 from a Pakistani perspective and an emigré’s return to an unfamiliar Bangladesh.

The American economy has been driven by waves of technological change and the successful adoption of ideas from elsewhere. The author of Land of Promise tells us how it happened, and what history teaches us about the way ahead

Postwar Europe was a scene of both physical and moral destruction. The author of Savage Continent, winner of the Hessell-Tiltman History Prize, recommends essential reading for understanding the sheer scale of suffering, dislocation and fighting after the war was over.

The writer dubbed “LA’s number one muckraker” peels away the phoney baloney to tell us about power, pollution and pulp fiction in the City of Angels.

The author of a new book on the Dam Buster squadron tells us about works of fiction or memoir that show the horror of the Second World War in a human light and with fresh immediacy

The author of The Maid and the Queen takes us on an enjoyable ride through European history, looking at well-connected women who outwitted their husbands or asserted their independence.

Half of the world’s population live in cities, and more are moving in. Urbanist Leo Hollis explains how city living makes us smarter and more creative, why slums are set to grow, and what the future of the city holds.

It’s not the first period in history that American society has suffered from a crisis of inequality. Former labour secretary, Robert Reich, recommends books to help us understand the response of previous generations to the same kinds of challenges we now face.

Nelson Mandela was a most unusual and unusually astute leader, says journalist and author of Playing the Enemy, John Carlin. He chooses the best books to understand Nelson Mandela, who used forgiveness as a political tool, and South Africa, the country he brought peacefully out of apartheid.

The job of the intelligence services is to understand others and help leaders act more wisely, says the author of a new history of the FBI. There’s a balance to be struck between liberty and security but when the CIA and FBI do not harmonise their intelligence missions, people die.

In Russia, it’s often fallen to writers to challenge conventions and speak the truth, says the translator and biographer Rosamund Bartlett. She makes a personal selection of some of the most exhilarating Russian short fiction.

The traumas of the 20th century hit Eastern Europe hard – a region of changing borders, uncertain identity, and shattering of moral norms. The journalist and communism expert selects books that capture the spirit of the age.

Novelist Jonathan Evison recommends books that capture a sense of the rugged landscape and people of the American West.

Israeli historian Gabriel Piterberg tells us about works of scholarship that have challenged the Zionist Israeli narrative of modern history.

The author and Arabist tells us about the rich tradition in Islam of travelling to gain knowledge, and directs us towards some of those, both Western and Arab, who’ve inspired with their tales of life on the road.

The historian tells us how French condescension towards America goes back to the 18th century, but more recent antagonisms can be traced to the Second World War

The Norwegians were masters of polar exploration because they were better prepared and did not glamourize it. Author and journalist Roland Huntford picks the best books on the early history of polar exploration.

Discussions about Tibet are often reduced to arguments about China’s right to run it. The Tibetologist says this obscures a much more subtle debate about what it means to be Tibetan in modern Tibetan society.