Freud said he owed them everything and even people who have never read a poem in their lives speak their language today. Professor and author Gillen D’Arcy Wood introduces the greatest Romantic poets.

In 2014 Hong Kong’s ‘Umbrella Protests’ made news around the world. But will continuing protests in Hong Kong lead to advances in democracy or crackdowns by Beijing? Jason Ng, lawyer and author of Umbrellas in Bloom, chooses five of the best books for understanding China’s ‘foster child’ city.

Journalists are no longer able to properly investigate organised crime in modern Italy — leaving it to crime fiction writers to pick up the slack, says the acclaimed Italian novelist, Massimo Carlotto. Here he chooses five noir novels that explore the reality of Italian corruption in highly original ways.

Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics at Cornell and former Chief Economist of the World Bank (2012-2016), says there’s a Gandhian way of evaluating society that takes account of both growth and inequality, and tells us why his job is an anthropologist’s dream come true. He picks the best books to understand India’s economy.

Current UK higher education policies, which treat students as consumers, are not only killing thinking but also likely to lead to a financial crisis. And yet, academia is a beautiful vocation, with the power to transform lives year in, year out. University of London professor, Les Back, picks the best books on academia.

China’s minority peoples have shaped the country’s history and its identity. They led its most successful dynasty, the Qing. But nowadays, their role has been reduced to that of tourist spectacle. Beijing-based writer James Palmer picks the best books on China’s ethnic minorities.

What are the economic effects of immigration? Economist Ian Goldin, a professor at Oxford University and founding director of the Oxford Martin School, recommends books and explains.

The city of romance and art is also, like most big cities, a place of grit and grime. The American writer and long-time Paris resident David Downie tells us where to look if we’re to understand the people and past of this most alluring city.

Christine L. Corton describes how Londoners loved and hated the fog that defined their city for over 200 years. Fog bought confusion, suicide and death; but also anonymity, mystery and beauty. Here, she picks the best five books on the pea-souper

Turkey’s most read author, Elif Shafak, describes Istanbul as ‘a she-city with a female personality’. She chooses five books on Turkey, including a biography of the she-city in all its vibrant energy and intensity.

The author and journalist describes how racism, violence, and corruption became entrenched in police departments across America. He picks five books describing a stark reality, and suggests a blueprint for change

Katrina was not a natural disaster but an engineering one, says the journalist and author. He chooses the best books on Hurricane Katrina, ranging from a novel to a geographical biography of New Orleans. 

The philosopher argues that a culture of debate, in which people of all backgrounds can openly discuss the truth, is philosophy’s real answer to conflict.

Everything we have been told about drugs and drug addiction and how society should deal with them is wrong, says the British author and journalist Johann Hari. He chooses the best books on the War on Drugs.

With hindsight, was the euro a good idea? Will it come through the present crisis intact or will any country decide to leave? And what happens if they do? Economist Barry Eichengreen recommends the best books on the Euro.

More than 100 years after the Armenian genocide, author Tom de Waal chooses books that sidestep the politics and bring us back to the human story. He picks the best memoirs of the Armenian genocide.

Americans remember Reagan fondly, but what did the Gipper really stand for? The historian chooses the best books on Ronald Reagan and his time.

Journalist and author Edward Lucas explains how a revanchist Russia can be traced back to Putin’s sense of betrayal after the collapse of the USSR

In contrast to Eastern Europe, the 1989 protests in China did not lead to the overthrow of the Communist Party. But if China’s leaders chose the right course on June 4th, 1989, why are they still frightened to come to terms with it? Sinologist and historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom picks the best books to understand events at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and around China on that hot summer night.

Palestinians living in Israel are cut off from both sides of the conflict and constantly trying to square the circle, argues Nazareth-based writer Jonathan Cook.

William Wordsworth probably did not get his greatest creative impetus from solitude, but from his extremely close relationship with his sister, suggests Oxford scholar Lucy Newlyn

The Soviet writer bore witness to the horrors of Russia’s World War Two and the Shoah — and deserves a place in literary history, says scholar Maxim D Shrayer. He recommends the best books by and about Vasily Grossman.

The writer and historian Ian Buruma selects five Western perspectives of the East, including a novel of colonial India, a travelogue of disappearing Japan, and the collection of essays that lifted the veil on Mao’s China.

The social historian argues London is an intrinsically addictive city. He charts its history through its dependencies on chocolate, tobacco, coffee, and tea.

The ‘Great Fire Wall of China’. How has the Chinese Communist Party managed to survive the internet? Economist correspondent Gady Epstein chooses books on the world’s most successful case of authoritarian control of the internet.

The Mail on Sunday’s Royal Correspondent, Katie Nicholl, looks at how the histories of the previous generation have shaped Princes William and Harry. She picks the best books on the British royals.

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 Belle Epoque combined a preoccupation with the noblesse of the old regime with the seeds for modernism, says Oxford history professor Ruth Harris, author of an award-winning book on the Dreyfus affair. She picks the best books on a golden period in France before the outbreak of World War I.

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.