On August 9, 2012 By bookguide Topic: Books and Literature, Book list, Remarkable
A good way to read history is to read histories of individual events - the rich details in these books are a refreshing change from sweeping histories.
Best history books about WW2/WW1:
Savage Continent: Europe in the aftermath of WW2 by Keith Lowe (if you only have to read only 1 WW2 book)
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang (pre WW2 - atrocities by Japanese soldiers)
Five Days in London: May 1940 by John Lukacs
Night by Elie Wiesel (holocaust memoirs)
The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill
Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose (last days of WW2)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan
Also read Sven Hassel's book on WW2 (He was a soldier in the German army in WWI - he describes his experiences on the front)
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre
Also read The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (about the first days of WWI)
Somme, a First World War military history book by Lyn MacDonald
Best history books about World History:
Anabasis by Xenophon
The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
The Peloponnesian Wars by Thucydidies (the great book of real politik)
The Histories by Herodotus (great book by the father of history)
The Jewish War by Josephus
Genghis Khan And The Making Of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford
The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman (about the Revolutionary War)
Salt: A world history by Mark Kurlansky
Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky
Rising Tide (a history of the 1927 floods on the Mississippi River) by John Barry
The Enemy at the Gate by Andrew Wheatcroft *about the 1683 siege of Vienna, the "battle between Muslim 'East' and Christian 'West.'")
The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton (French history)
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild (exploitation of Congo Free State)
Bloody Falls of the Coppermine: Madness, Murder, and the Collision of Cultures in the Arctic, 1913 by Mckay Jenkins
The Crimean War by Orlando Figes
Eyewitness Bloody Sunday by Don Mullan (police massacre during a civil rights march in Ireland)
Problem From Hell by Samantha Power (Genocides in 20th century)
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy
Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor, (POW camp in Georgia)
The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor
One Day in September by Simon Reeve
A Secret History of IRA by Ed Moloney
Death of a President by William Manchester (JFK killing)
Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dallaire (French general on the 100 days of the Rwandan Genocide)
Soweto : 16 June 1976 by by Ntshanghase, Malugane etc (Soweto Uprising in South Africa)
Post election violence in Kenya by Enrico Dagnino (2007-8)
McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny
The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg (about the Inquisition trial of Mennochio in the 16th century)
Misha Glenny on the fall of communism - The Fall of Yugoslavia, The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999, The Rebirth Of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy
Wild Swans by Jung Chang (about three different events - Fall of the Ching dynasty, Mao's rise to power and the cultural revolution)
France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Brief Documentary History by Michael Burns
Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia by Michael Sells
Best history books about US Civil War:
Lincoln At Gettysburg by Garry Wills
April 1865: The Month That Saved The Nation by Jay Winik
For Cause & Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War by James McPherson
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
Also read these books on American history:
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis
The Confessions of Nat Turner by Kenneth Greenberg (the slave rebellion)
Best history books about Vietnam War:
French war in Indochina by Bernard Fall
Street Without Joy and Hell by Bernard B. Fall
The U.S. Propaganda Campaign in Vietnam by Lt Col Robert W. Chandler
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