• The best books on Central Asia’s Golden Age - History of Civilizations of Central Asia by UNESCO
  • The best books on Central Asia’s Golden Age - The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
  • The best books on Central Asia’s Golden Age - Empires of the Steppes by RenĂ© Grousset
  • The best books on Central Asia’s Golden Age - Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide by Bijan Omrani & Matthew Leeming
  • The best books on Central Asia’s Golden Age - Avicenna by Lenn Goodman

The best books on Central Asia’s Golden Age, recommended by S. Frederick Starr

Central Asia’s history is rarely a focus for students in the West, but its flourishing cities and great thinkers once made it one of the world’s most dynamic and important regions. Frederick Starr, a leading expert on Central Asia and author of a number of books about it, talks us through the highlights of an area that was so much more than just a stopping place on the ancient Silk Roads.

  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2024 Duff Cooper Prize - The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748–1789 by Robert Darnton
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2024 Duff Cooper Prize - France on Trial: The Case of Marshal PĂ©tain by Julian Jackson
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2024 Duff Cooper Prize - Monet: The Restless Vision by Jackie Wullschläger
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2024 Duff Cooper Prize - Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849 by Christopher Clark
  • The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2024 Duff Cooper Prize - Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire by Nandini Das

The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2024 Duff Cooper Prize, recommended by Susan Brigden

If you’re looking for nonfiction with a literary sensibility and a historical bent, the books highlighted by the annual Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize are a great place to start. British historian Susan Brigden, author of Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest and one of the prize’s judges, talks us through the 2024 shortlist — from war and revolution to the splendours of Mughal India and Monet’s garden at Giverny.

  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe by James Belich
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers by Emma Smith
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire by Henrietta Harrison
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History by Hakim Adi
  • The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize - Vagabonds by Oskar Jensen

The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize, recommended by Sudhir Hazareesingh

The Wolfson History Prize is the UK’s most prestigious history book prize. The judges, all professional historians, pick out books that combine excellence in research with readability. Oxford University historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, one of the Wolfson judges and author of Black Spartacus, talks us through the six terrific books that made the 2023 shortlist, from the Black Death and its critical impact on economic development to the magic of our relationship with books. Read more history book recommendations on Five Books