So you guys can discuss and recommend history book of any kind. This is also the type of book I read most over the years so here’s my recommendation list
On Ancient Mesopotamia
Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization (Paul Kriwaczek)
On Ancient Egypt
The rise and fall of ancient Egypt (Toby Wilkinson)
On Ancient Greece
The Spartans (Paul Cartledge)
Rise of Athens (Anthony Everitt)
Alexander the Great (Paul Cartledge)
Alexander the Great (Philip Freeman)
On Ancient Rome
The Storm before the Storm (Mike Duncan) WARNING: Duncan is not an historian and his books are just a collection of primary sources with his opinions on them, so take this with a grain of salt”
SPQR (Mary Beard)
Augustus (Adrian Goldsworthy)
How Rome fell: Fall of a Superpower (Adrian Goldsworthy)
The Fall of Rome (Bryan Ward Perkins)
On the Byzantines
Byzantium: The surprising life of a medieval empire (Judith Herrin)
On the Baltics
The northern crusaders (Eric Christianssen)
On the Middle East
Jerusalem a Biography (Simon Sebag Montefiore)
The Arabs (Eugene Rogan)
The House of Wisdom (Jimal Khalili)
On precolumbian Americas
The Maya (Michael d Coe)
1491 (Charles Mann)
1493 (Charles Mann)
On the Portuguese Empire
Conquerors (Roger Crowley)
On Caribbean Slavery
Mastery Tyranny and desire (Trevor Burnard)
The Plantation Machine (Trevor Burnard)
Colonial America
The Island at the center of the world (Russell Shorto)
Colonial Africa
King Leopold’s Ghost (Adam Hochschild)
On American slavery
The fall of the House of Dixie (Bruce Levine)
Empire of Cotton (Sven Beckert)
On Imperial Russia
The Romanovs (Simon Sebag Montefiore)
On WW1
The Great War (Peter Hart)
On the Nazi economy
The Wages of Destruction (Adam Tooze)
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One soldiers War about the Chechnya wars
The Crucible of War about the seven years war
The Franco Prussian War, this one is obvious
Storm of Steel about WWI from a German soldiers view
Rubicon
Crusading Warfare 1097-1193
I've read loads of others but these are semi recent. Of the list my favorites would be Storm of Steel and One Soldiers War. All of them are good, The Crucible of War is a tome though. Things massive and I've been working through it forever. Really enjoyable to read but one where you can kinda zone out and end up needing to go back and re-read a page.
Crusading Warfare is the most academic of the bunch. It's something I read for a project I haven't finished, but I did enjoy it. Just a bit dry
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My understanding is that the Charles Mann books have a mediocre reputation among other American historians
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Charles Mann is not an historian, he’s a journ*list and 1491 for instance is a collection of several archeological findings, primary sources of European chronists and DNA studies of precolumbian America to paint a general picture. It’s pop history, not a textbook, but pop history of quality still, unlike Harari’s “Sapiens”.
Michael Doe on the other hand is a respected mayanist, and he authored several high quality textbooks. He’s the type of author you should look into if you’re interested in more serious analysis. Still couldn’t find an author like him for the aztecs and the Inca.
That said, I still think Mann is worth reading, I learned a lot about the Amazon forest and how Indians artificially modified entire landscapes that today we take as “natural”. So even if some of the book’s research is now dated or if some of Mann personal takes are wrong, it can still tell you about things you didn't know you “didn’t know”, and leave you with a desire to learn more about from other sources.
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Actually 2 good history books
coming out under fire
the world turned rightside up
Both happen to be about homos
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The Spanish Labyrinth by Gerald Brenan
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The enemy at the gate- about the siege of Vienna is Fantastic
Hymns of the republic
Destiny of the republic
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