If you like A People's History of the United States, then The Twentieth Century by Howard Zinn will hit many of the same positives and as long as you remember its basic biases and framework it is a useful source for progressive and counter-culture movements.
Tiger Mysore: The Life and Death of Tipu Sultan is one of the best biographies on Tipu Sultan, doing an admirable job of showing him in a non-biased way and with better breadth of subjects covered than most other books.
The Glorious First of June is a very good campaign history which puts the naval fight in 1794 between Britain and France into context and does a good job at showing the two navies and their relative structures and priorities.
A History of the Royal Navy: The Napoleonic Wars is a decent and well-rounded book on the Royal Navy, although rather conventional and could have further expanded supporting information about subjects beyond the batte-line which are only present in mediocre amounts.
The Stricken Peacock is a useful introduction to Anglo-Burmese relations but as a whole is somewhat simplistic and rose-tinted for Burmese history.
Exploration and Empire gives a huge record of the different explorers in the West, but doesn't really give much systemically interesting and is outdated in some of its research or focuses.
History of the Progress and the Fall of the Empire of Mysore is an interesting French book on the Kingdom of Mysore, which gives a useful French look at how it was perceived and its decline, and shows the way opinions on it have changed over time.
If you want an ironic, vaguely absurdist, look at David Sedaris' family, then Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is an engaging if not particularly deep book.
Caste: The Lies that Divide us makes a fascinating comparison between the Indian caste system and the United States' racism system, as well as an excellent look at historical aspects of American racism, but I think it overgeneralizes and the comparison has some inherent flaws.
Although combined in an omnibus book with The Message, Missing Molly is actually a dramatically better Harlequin Romance, with much more emotional depth and a real psychological investigation of the characters.
If you like Harlequin Romances, then The Message is a perfectly serviceable one, but it's simply not very deep, conflict mostly feels contrived, and it is utterly predictable.
Peter Heather's A New History of Rome and the Barbarians gives a great mix of scholarly research and approachable history that places the barbarians at the center of the reasons why the Roman Empire collapsed.
A Very Long Engagement is a unique book, a combination detective book and war novel, one that is a puzzle to discover, richly rewarding if you can but also often frustrating.
A Storm of Songs is a complex and highly researched book examining the Bhakti movement, an Indian spiritual-devotion movement, but it often seems to raise more questions than it answers and is difficult to understand for the neophyte.
A thoroughly brilliant book with a magnificent writing style, extensive documentation, excellent analysis, and which shows the drama, tragedy, and grandeur of the battles for influence and conquests in the Caucasus over the last two centuries
The discovery of On the Nature of Things, The Swerve claims, revolutionized the world, but this fascinating argument is not backed up by the extensive intellectual biography and examination that one would expect.
Indian Sufism since the 17th century does an excellent job of covering the demonstrating the structural development of Sufism, its evolution in terms of changing institutions, and the role of Sufism in shrines in southern India.
Stone's The Trial of Socrates is a brilliant look at Plato's philosophy and the way in which his political views and conduct ultimately led him to be placed on trial by democratic Athens and put to death.
Ancillary Justice has a lot of components to make a brilliant science fiction universe, but it doesn't exploit these and comes out a lot more flat than it could have been otherwise.
There's not terribly much to say about History of Tipu Sultan: it is a very orthodox biography, but with a huge amount of detail that makes it stand above almost all other biographies about the Mysorean ruler.
The Secret Life of Plants is an alternative science book from the 1970s that purports to discuss the range of fascinating scientific facts concerning plants, energy waves and radiation, and ESP. It is mostly pseudoscience, although interesting to see the state of 1970s counterculture science.
A History of Sufism in India has a huge number of individual sufis and their acts but rarely manages to weave a cohesive tale of their ideologies or to passionately engage with them.
A short and mostly unremarkable book. L.T. Robinson Crusoe, USN, is an enjoyable enough if short read, and does reflect some interesting American 1950s cultural concepts stemming from the Robinson Crusoe theme.
If you want a book to look Charles de Gaulle's political relationship with the Soviet Union then there are few better than Le Général de Gaulle et la Russie, although it could have merited some more primary documents and a broader look at Franco-Russian relations during the period.
An incredibly detailed and lengthy look at the beginning of Stalin's life and his rise to power, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power stresses the importance of world events, Marxism-Leninsm, and Soviet institutions in crafting Stalin's dictatorship.
Homestead has no lack of details, but precious few of them are about the town which it is supposedly dedicated to, and much of the book deals instead with the byzantine politics of American labor unions. When it does focus on Homestead itself it does have great moving power.
There is a haunting and tragedy to The Cross, which has a grandeur in its depressing end to the life of Lavransdatter, returning her power and aura of her youth even as the end approaches.
The Green Mile is a wonderfully moving and heart-rending story that displays the full range of humanity - from wondrous love and compassion to our cruelty and bullying, with brilliant characters and people.
There are a huge host of different books about Tipu Sultan, but few get worse than Tipu Sultan: Villain or Hero, which is a rambling and disconnected collection of heavily one-sided critiques on him with a strange obsession with a TV series.
A good brief but engaging book about Tipu Sultan, which makes for an engaging debut about his life and his rule, as one of the better of the biographies on the man.
An excellent look at the structural dynamics of the Deccan and the way in which it constituted a unique state structure in the early modern world.
A classic and an important historical romance, the Wreath manages to capture some of the heartache and woe of a young woman's coming-of-age romance in 14th century Norway
When Sparrows Became Hawks shows that the Sikhs became warriors throughout the 18th century through events that affected the life of the average Sikh followers and that there were competing narratives of what it meant to be a good Sikh, with more flexible boundaries, but it doesn't go beyond this.
Ticker gives a passionate feel for the search for the artificial heart and a brilliant characterization of those involved, although it could have had additional scientific details.
Landscapes of Urban Memory has a lot of interesting ideas and concepts but it fails to work them together into a cohesive project, leaving it fragmented and difficult to read.
On This Day in History genuinely is fun to read with an engaging style, and has some unusual and exciting days in history ranging from beer vat collapses to vaccinations, but it feels like the diatribe of the terminally online twitter user.
Maverick Cats is an endearing collection of stories about feral cats that goes beyond them simply being cute, with brilliant characterizations of them, although its scientific accuracy sometimes can be doubtful.
Stuffed is a fun detective story book, a quick and enjoyable read, although without much depth and without the sense of humor that would elevate it beyond a humdrum comedy book.
A collection of portraits and looks at big wave surfing, The Big Juice gives a gripping look at the emotions and the feelings of what surfing is like and some of the poignant stories of those involved.
Alistair Horne's book on the Algerian War manages to provide an incredible amount of detail on a highly complicated and byzantine subject, and to convey the fierce and pulsating emotions of the brutal war and all of its passions.
There's a certain grim depression in The Wife, one which forms a backdrop to the evolution of its characters and life in 14th century Norway, in a more evolved and developed form of The Wreath.
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations has a some excellent sections on geography and the development of science, but it also suffers from a degree of tautology and inherently unsubstantiated claims.
An incredible history of the terrible year of Paris, that manages with Horne's panache to go from the bottom to the top of Paris and to bring all of the drama and the horrors of the war and the crushing of the Commune to life.
Einstein's War is a book of popular scientific history but one which manages to do much more to present a more complicated and intellectually engaging story of how international science was divided and nationalized in the Great War.
A great thriller story that manages to delve into something of the feel of the final dying year of the USSR, in a way that manages to not be a simple Hollywood-style pastiche, with a neat caste of characters and action, Red Square is a fun thriller to read.
With some beautiful pictures of textiles and extensive discussion of what the techniques are involved with textile manufacturing, 5,000 Ans de Textiles might not have as much social history as I might have preferred, but it's still a great resource.
Although a well-chosen subject with relatively little information on it, Wenger's biography of Tipu is so slight, and wanders onto so many subjects, that it does hardly more than provide a level of description that Wikipedia might give.
Although some cliches are thrown into The Saints of Swallow Hill, it's still an engaging and fun book with enough historical detail to make it into a good historical novel of the lives of poor workers in the depression on a turpentine plantation.
A beautiful story of the relationship between a mother and her daughter, part historical drama and part family history, The Kitchen God's Wife is a superbly moving book.
Alistair Horne is a brilliant writer, but The Seven Ages of Paris doesn't take full advantage of his talents in a holistic union like in some of his other books: it is still a passable assembly of anecdotes and look at the soul of Paris, but without the same genius.
Roll Back the Sky's cover would lead you to think of it as a military thriller book, but it is actually the author's self-centered ramblings about women, a penny dreadful version of a psychology book.
Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul has a genuinely moving collection of stories about human (and animal) struggles amidst adversity and overcoming life's challenges.
Only dealing with some political events, and even here only at the top levels of government and without much inspiration, The Story of Modern Greece makes for a disappointing book for such an otherwise fascinating country and history.
An exhaustive examination of trade in the Indian Ocean, particularly in the Bay of Bengal, The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500-1650 is very specialized and often lacking in decisiveness for the neophyte but is doubtless excellent for expert readers.
Written by the great history Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire is an excellent look at the facets of empire, patriotism, nation-state construction, politics, economic structures, and classes in the heyday of European imperialism.
Tipu Sultan: A Crusader for Change is an extremely positive book about Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore, probably too much so but with a huge amount of information which is very useful for Mysorean 1780s history.
Although its 1947 publication date makes The History of Japan useful as a primary source in of itself, even when it was written it would have been a purely functional general history, and one that doesn't offer any real reason to read it as a history of Japan.
A venerable book by now, The French Revolution and Napoleon does do a decent job at covering the political developments of the French Revolution but it is neither very readable nor capable of matching the great specialized multi-volume works.
A harshly critical account of the Mysorean leader, Tipu: As He Really Was provides some very well-sourced material that presents a brutal indictment of his politics and alleged tolerance, although in a short book and which ignores some conflicting evidence.
A fascinating overview of India's various religious traditions and their effects on Indian philosophy, ethics, and cosmology, although lacking in many secular writings.
Tipu Sultan: The Search for Legitimacy is an excellent book for reconciling many of the contradictory trends present in Tipu Sultan's Mysore, and sheds valuable light on domestic politics and the cosmology of south India in the period.
Despite such a promising subject, The Hooghly: A Global History fails to really focus on the river and ignores many aspects of a global history of Bengal, only concentrating on European influence.
An extremely dense work that lays out in exacting detail the thesis of continuity in 18th and 19th century India and of gradual Indian social change within Indian institutions.
The Rebirth of Ancient India in Modern Germany does a good job of providing a historiographic overview of the development of German orientalism and how India was interpreted in Germany.
The War Against Oblivion's heart is in the right place and it has a lot of information, but it misses the forest for the trees and feels very limited and lacking in context.
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword was an impressive piece of work for its circumstances and offered great insight on many pieces of Japanese society, but its particular historical context and time must be remembered.
Although sometimes overly hagiographic of Tipu Sultan, Confronting Colonialism gives a variety of interesting and useful chapters that cast new light on Tipu Sultan's Mysore.
An extremely detailed and lengthy look that gives a fascinating amount of information on Mysore over the centuries, Splendours of Royal Mysore is a refreshingly cheery and enthusiastic look at the kingdom.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress charming and piercing depiction of the absurdity of mankind and the beauty of the human soul amidst the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, full of wit and irony.
Jacon Burckhardt's portrayal of the Roman Empire and its political and cultural changes during the 3rd century and under Constantine the Great might lack some of the panache of his Renaissance writing, but still helps give a feel for the era.
A good collection of some of the writings about hell which showcases Medieval ideas, although it could have had additional social commentary and comparative analysis.
It's a fascinating premise and some of its case studies are really interesting, but Doctrines of Development is written in such a convoluted, continental philosophy style that it can be almost incomprehensible at times.
A l'Assaut de l'Asie (Attack on Asia) reflects many of its biases of its 1901 publication, making this French history book on Asia of little use for its original subject but interesting to see French mindsets at the turn of the 20th century.
Farley Mowat's voyage across Siberia has genuine charisma and warmth, but its vision of the USSR is so unbelievably rosy to almost make it a mockery of itself.
The Kaikkoolar weavers caste of Tamil Nadu are a bundle of contradictions, and The Warrior Merchants helps to understood how caste works in practice and grounds it in historical roots for this particular people.
An excellent book to look at the structural evolution of the Marathas and of Indian statehood and polities in the Early Modern Era, the New Cambridge History of the Marathas is invaluable to understand the Marathas.
A superb book to look at how the geography and the environment of a town affects its teenagers, and what life was like for American teenagers in the 1990s.
An extremely detailed and lengthy examination of the life and the trajectory of French colonial officers serving in the French Empire, how they were trained, and what their stories were.
An excellent statistical look at French commercial history in the 20th century, relativizing degrees of French protectionism and explaing why France pursued its trade policies.
A Colonial Roadshow does a good mixture of empirical and cultural analysis of the automobile in Indochina, showing how it was reflected in cultural writings such as Marguerite Duras' books and its importance in Indochina itself during the time.
A great microhistory of the creation of Dalat, a French hill station in Colonial Indochina, which is used to examine the development of French ideology, the Indochina project, and social history of French colonial society.
Although with some omissions and its age, the History of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan is a useful additional biographic source on Mysorean leadership in the 18th century, particularly for some of their personalities and wars.
A good selection of some of the diplomatic endeavors of the Mysorean leader Tipu Sultan and particularly his relationships to the Ottomans and France, although some of the articles are disconnected and it could have been further expanded.
The Eighteenth Century in India is not a general history of India but rather a look at the contours of the debate over the decline of the Mughal Empire, whether the 18th century was a dark age in India, and the rise of British colonialism, giving a good introduction to scholarly discussion.
Steve Runciman's Byzantine Civilization helped to revalorize the Byzantine Empire after centuries of harsh criticism and accusations of decadence, but many of its points have become very generalized and prejudiced since it was written in the 1930s
France's agricultural sector is known for its high-quality artisan products, but it is actually a highly profitable and productive high-tech industry. Organic Resistance covers the creation of modern French high-tech agriculture and the opposition and synthesis with alternative agriculture ideology.
Tolstoy's genius in The Death of Ivan Ilyich shows us a fundamental critique of our materialist ways of life and his truly Christian vision of humanity.
A Connecticut Yankee founded many of the modern American tropes of time travel, for better or worse, but its lack of sympathy for the era and brutality makes it less enjoyable than many of Twain's other books.
A short but engaging book which looks at France's attempts at encouraging a digital economy at the turn of the millennia, and which is useful to recognize the roots of many of France's current digital policies.
Although some inaccuracies enter into The Guns of August, it's still an impressively well-written and engaging text about the military battles at the beginning of the Great War in 1914.
Marianne in the Market is a fascinating examination of how the development of a consumer society, largely bourgeois and feminine, was interpreted in France in the late 19th century.
An excellent look at the transformation of France's economy and the classes of its society throughout the course of the early modern era, exploring the way in which hierarchy and corporatism evolved.
Les gens de rien, or people with nothing, is an excellent history of poverty in 20th France and the way it has been treated and dealt with, representations of it, its nature, and statistics, written cogently and sympathetically.
A good look from above at the French economy, Comprendre l'économie française gives a good grasp of issues affecting the French economy and some possible solutions.
France's economy is often a conundrum, in terms of its policies and its relationship to other economies, a bundle of paradoxes. The Blind Decades gives an excellent charting of how many of these features came to be and French economic policy over the last half-century.
Educated tells the story of a survivalist family in rural Idaho and the path of one girl in the family to becoming and independent and educated woman, in a tapestry of family ties and divided loyalties.
An excellent look at the French economy's structural development, patterns, the integration into the world economy, and historiography throughout the 20th century.
The Three-Body Problem paints a fascinating and original depiction of first contact with alien civilization that concentrates upon the effects that it would cause upon our own species.
David Fraser's biography of Frederick the Great is certainly hagiographic but it does do an excellent job of describing the personality, achievements, and goals of Prussia's greatest king.
Although certain elements of it might have been surpassed by the time which has elapsed since its publication, the Dancing Wu Li Masters is still a great
Both as a micro-history of the Naval Aviation Factory and a guide to a broader look at American aircraft production and industrial policy in the beginning of the 20th century, Wings for the Navy is an excellent production-military book.
Excellent at showing, in exacting detail, the operations of the French regulatory state in textiles, La fortune du colbertisme does great work at rehabilitating France's regulatory state and showing how it evolved during the Enlightenment.
11/22/63 shows many of Stephen King's best features as a writer, although with an unfortunately rushed ending, and helps show some of the priorities and focuses of his generation.
Brilliantly showing different historiographic understandings of French history, ideas, and crucial moments in France's development and their meaning for the presence, France in Modern Times is a superb French history primer and framework.
Nippon Gods is a fun and engaging fantasy-history book about the Mongol Invasion of Japan, with some good characters and drama, but which needs a lot of editing to fix its tone and pacing.
Life Along the Silk Road brings the Silk Road and its daily life, people, and drama to live, while still giving an appropriate feeling of its context and broader history.
French Wine: A History gives a great understanding of the way that French wine formed a role in French society, its evolution, structures, economy, and cultivation.
Origins of the French Welfare State does a superb job in showing the relationships between labor, the state, and workers in crafting the French welfare state in the Interwar periods and the unique features of family allocations that it produced in an effort to control workers.
Une Histoire de la Francophonie helps give a feeling for some of the sentiments associated with the Francophonie, but its lack of definition and engagement with opposing perspectives on it removes much of its positives.
Economic Development in Early Modern France helps give a better appreciation of Bourbon France's economic management and rehabilitates the degree of rationality and efficiency in France's economic development.
The Politics of Transport in 20th Century France does an excellent job of integrating together the structural developments of French transportation, the events of the 20th century, and the French political tradition and context around transport.
Knit or Dye Trying is a perfectly fine murder mystery, with some cute characters, a decent plot, and good setting, although hardly remarkable.
Candide was a great classic of French 18th century literature, and is interesting to read both for a view on the period and what remains influential from it.
An extremely lengthy and detailed book on tennis and its evolution over time, A Cultural History of Tennis is an impressive collection, if sometimes less directly cultural work than one would think.
The Christian century in Japan is an excellent look at the surge of Christianity in Japan during its time of Portuguese proselytization, the Portuguese influence, and the harsh persecutions that put an end to it.
An excellent description of the atmosphere and a thrilling depiction of the 4th century Hellenistic world, animated with heroes and kings, and illuminated by the light of Greek theater, The Mask of Apollo is a fascinating piece of historical fiction.
An excellent structural history of Gaul's economic development, Romanization, the historiography of Gaul, and pre-Roman Gallic civilization's material achievements, Histoire de la Gaule does very much lack for a cultural examination of Gaul.
Despite its rather dry title, French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy is a fascinating look at the way in which transformations in world economic structures have interacted with the unique structure of French unions to influence France's economic development.
The California Naturalist Handbook is a decent overview of California's biological diversity, but is genreally rather too limited for anything beyond a basic introduction.
Managing the Franc Poincaré is an excellent discussion of French internal responses to the Great Depression and the attempts to control the French franc and to reinvigorate the French economy
The City and the City has a brilliant subject and a central driving idea, excellent atmosphere, and comes up with a truly original concept, but it does lack for fully-fledged characters.
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a brilliant investigation of the Victorian era and its mentality, one with a deep humanizing sympathy, superb characters, and makes excellent usage of abstraction and deconstruction of its plot.
One of the best depictions of aliens for managing to produce sentient beings who are both incredibly different from humans and yet also completely believable, with truly different ways of thinking, The Mote in God's Eye is a fascinating examination of the potential differences of alien civilization.
Salt: A World History gives an intriguing history of how different cultures have related to salt with fascinating variations of taste, culture, and economic developments, showing the material changes that have occurred with it over the millennia.
A superb history of airships that discusses the relations between countries, different airships programs, technical development of airships, and internal politcs.
A wonderfully hilarious book of early 19th century Japanese comedy with excellently believable comedic characters and a fascinating look at Japanese life under the shogunate.
An extremely rich, detailed, and exhaustive book that takes advantage of contemporary understanding of the Klamath's both natural and human history to write an engaging naturalist account of it, one that is well accompanied by an excellent range of photos.
Much of the Nine-Cloud Dream appears rather shallow to us today, but it does show an interesting vision of Korean-Chinese society and has a great piece de theatre.
A short book as part of the Epic of Flight Series, Douglas Botting's The Giant Airships gives a good sense of the romance and the adventure of the era of lighter-than-air giant airships, but is fundamentally rather short, serving mostly as an introduction.
A collection of medieval literature from the low countries, this is a good selection of stories although it could have more detail and anlaysis, but the stories it presents are very engaging and well-translated.
The Stars Beneath our Feet is a sweet little book about coming of age in the Bronx, but a bit shallow and sometimes contrived.
A brilliant, moving, clever, hilarious, and potent book that challenges to look past the exterior onto the real character of people and that reminds us of our need for humanity, A Man Called Ove is a real masterpiece
A Thousand Splendid Suns has a beautifully engaging list of characters set in the full tragedy of Afghanistan's wars, showing the pain and suffering that they experience and how human decency can still live on regardless.
Damnation Spring is a brilliant portrait of the timber wars of the 1970s in Northern California, managing to paint a story of wonderfully believable characters and provide moral depth to the conflict between two equally committed sides, written with a beautiful and polished prose.
Although interesting to see concerns for the future of the US from a 1990s perspective, An Empire Wilderness is overly marked by an incongruous perspective on the US and an excessive belief in the withering away of the state that has aged very poorly.
A great collection of Russian literature from the Middle Ages, widely varied, well translated, with excellent discussion of context and general history to accompany each piece.
This history of the early development of the Russian internet and various communication technologies or pseudoscience is interesting but fails to discuss many of the critical features of the modern Russian internet and focuses too much on obscure subjects.
A decent action thriller, May in the Valley of the Rainbow introduces some interesting characters, a great setting, and a commentary on the Philippines, but also appears disjointed and doesn't use its full potential.
A good structural overview of the development of Latvian nationhood, A Description of our Homeland fails however to connect this to the emotional meaning of this for contemporary Latvians.
An excellent synthesis that gives a good vision of the changes that have happened in the style and focus of French literature over time, as well as a great description of the various authors and intellectual movements.
Although with some excellent flashes of inspiration and a second half that much more cogently presents its subject, Theory/Theatre lacks a central organizing theme and structure which provides a way to synthesize and contextualize its discussion of theory.
Babel has an excellent central mechanism but is let down by an inability to truly embrace the magic at its heart and a presentism which prevents any real engagement with the past and produces a stilted and arrogant story.
Monumental, engagingly written, and with massive amounts of political information, A History of Venice unfortunately has shortcomings in economic and social developments of Venice.
Despite its age, The Waning of the Middle Ages is still genuinely fascinating to examine the spirit of an era and the period of transition between Medieval and Renaissance thought, focusing on Medieval thought reaching the end of its vitality rather than simply being supplanted.
The Rise and Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy is really a political history and a historiographical argument for the common interests and shared existence of the Danubian basin peoples under the aegis of the Habsburgs, an interesting and well written, if ill-titled, monumental history.
The Persian Boy is a combination of an adventure story, an analysis of sexual mores in the ancient world, a romance, and above all the story of a poor boy who has to struggle to survive in a harsh time and place, which manages a great work of historical fiction.
A superb adventure book, an ironic quest towards the forever-to-be-unknown, social commentary, and study of humanity, Un aller simple is a wonderful, if short, French novel.
Wondrously atmospheric, with incredible turns of imagination, humorous, tragic, and triumphant, Bons Baisers du Baikal is an awe-inspiring homage to Baikal and its people.
The New Nobility gives an engagingly and concise portrait of the return of authoritarian security control to Russia, one which gives an interesting perspective given its 2010 writing date.
Even allowing that historical books are written for different objectives and ideas than our own, A history of Persia under Qajar Rule is so mind-numbingly boring, full of irrelevant detail, and completely uninterested in linking any of it together that it's almost farcical.
Wondrously psychological, fascinatingly positioned as both an American and also Vietnamese book, unsettling in its commentary, and thrilling in its action, all beautifully written, The Sympathizer is a joy to read.
An excellent description of the historiography, the evolution, nature, relevance, politics, and music of tamburitza from the Balkans to the New World.
Penguin Island by the famous Anatole France is an amusing parody of French history and casts interesting light on contemporary beliefs and perspectives in France, but it feels like it lacks something that could elevate it to a truly great piece of literature.
Despite its age and of course having various inaccuracies it is impressive how modern and contemporary standing Babylonian Life and History continues to be, giving a very wide-ranging and social history of ancient Mesopotamia.
A short but engaging book, Hungary: A Brief History manages to adopt a reasonably objective view of Hungarian history while still having the emotional connection to its subject to explain how it is viewed by Hungarians.
In the Land of the Grasshopper song is an excellent diary of life amongst the northern Californian Indians in the beginning of the 1900s, but its style does much to remove the excitement and drama of the story.
Hillaire Belloc was a Franco-British Catholic writer and his books such as Miniatures of French History show a fascinating Catholic perspective on French history, although sometimes clearly one-sided and lacking in the view from below.
There's almost nothing positive to say about A Literary History of India, which fails to concentrate on the subject of Indian literature and whose views are not only comically politicized and biased but are ill expressed as well.
Adam Gopnik's five year suspension in Paris gives interesting perspectives on French society, its differences with America, his own vantage point as a writer, and the transformations gripping France: sometimes done with journalistic fillips, it's still a great read.
Written much like a book of Dumas, Richelieu and the Affair of Cinq-Mars doesn't lack for intrigue, action, and plots, written in a readable and engaging style, but with a certain degree of creduility and reliance on untrustworthy sources.
Short but with a good coverage of various steps, dances, history, and regalia of Ukrainian folk dance, Shatulsky's book is an excellent look at the subject.
City Folk covers the sociographic profile of folk dancing, its origins, some of its intellectual or political connections, and the way it transformed over the 20th century, in a good historical volume, although one that could easily have had more flair.
Short and by necessity not able to cover the whole panoply of tourism, A History of Modern Tourism nevertheless manages to hit most crucial elements of the development of the tourism industry and reflect critically on its societal role and context.
Despite its age, Medieval People is an excellent collection of vignettes of the Middle Ages, showing life for people from common to high and their daily thoughts, an astonishingly modern social history.
Over a century old, Myths and Legends of Japan is still an engaging collection of Japanese folk tales with very nice illustrations, although it doubtless suffers from some of the biases of its time in its writing.
Foul Means isn't a particularly shattering book but it is well constructed, argued, and researched, solidly showing the ways that Colonial Virginian society was shaped into a slave regime.
Where the Crawdads Sing has many shortcomings, but for me at least the elegance of the story and a beautiful writing style help make up for it.
In some regards startlingly outdated and in other regards startlingly outdated, The Golden Bough might not be the cutting edge of anthropology anymore but it is a fascinating collection of myths and legends that shows cultural thinking at a unique junction
A great classic book, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy has some aspects which have aged poorly with the passage of time and some oddities, but still is an incredible portrait into Renaissance Italian intellectual, cultural, and political life
Although certain covering a vast span of time and with some occasional flashes of insight, the tedious nature of the Sphere History of Literature: The Middle Ages, problems in its translation, and its style, make it far from enjoyable to read.
Although its age has left La Compagnie Française des Indes (The French East India Company) with some oddities, in a field with relatively few books it is a great resource which provides a huge amount of detail.
All Creatures Great and Small is the famous story of the charming, simple, but heart-felt and often complex story of a veterinarian doctor in 1930s rural England, a beloved book that fully deserves its reputation.
Although it has a fascinating setting and great promise in a dramatic era, the Witches of St. Petersburg ultimately devolves into crude pornography, with indifferent characters, mediocre writing and atmosphere, and errors and disjointedness.
Gravel Heart is a book which eschews a traditional hero for a drifting, melancholy, often grey, passive world, a style which suits the zeitgeist of our era and yet also removes its elan and panache.
A brief polemical, l'Esprit des Lumières presents an argument for the continued importance and validity of the Enlightenment project, although some of its concerns and analysis of its faults appear out of date.
The Red Badge of Courage has had so much written about it that it's long since entered the canon of American great literature, but it is interesting to read still and see how it reflects late 19th century American culture
Although still a charming and fun book, easy to read and with some good characters, Earth's Magic feels more confused, less decisive, and more staged than the previous books of the New Magic trilogy.
More than just a story of desegregation, The Help manages to capture an entire vista of life in a society in rapid change, through the eyes of a wonderfully memorable and brilliantly depicted cast of characters.
A good selection of different perspectives and genres of cultural, political, and social writing on the United States, The American 1890s: A Cultural Reader
A simple young adult fantasy story, Yesterday's Magic is a fun read, with amusing characters and an imagineatively constructed world.
A short but intense French novel about the human drama of a foreigner working in a Japanese company, and the steady descent to humiliation on her relationships with her colleagues and connection to the culture around her.
Looking Backwards is a famous book of utopian science fiction. What is it like to read it in 2022, and what does it say of our world and our relationship to the idea of perfectionism?
An extremely old book by now, from 1868, The Seven Week's War has stood the test of time surprisingly well and provides for a good tactical overview of the Austro-Prussian War.
A thoroughly titanic book, The Fatal Environment presents a massive analysis of the themes of violence and renewal associated with American frontier expansion.
Although overflowing with details about the philosophical and historical arguments in the 18th century Dutch Republic, The Intellectual Origins of the Batavian Revolution often becomes very difficult to follow and dreadfully dry.
A riveting tour of the life, discoveries, and ideas of Alexander von Humboldt that brings the mostly forgotten German scientist and naturalist to light and shows the impact he had upon shaping our modern conception of science.
An engaging look and heartfelt into the medical ethics of the usage of cells from patients in medical research, and the story of how this impacted the life of the family of the most important donor, Henrietta Lacks
Icehenge is an intriguing exploration of a mystery, a look into the psychological changes of a society of immortality, and inhabits a brilliantly painted and constructed universe, but also feelings incomplete and ultimately unfocused.
Some interesting articles, some dreadfully stifling and boring articles, and The French East India Company and the Trade of the Indian Ocean presents an example of how dolorous collections of essays tends to be.
Although a relatively short book the combination of readability, directness, and incisive exploration of a simple but surprisingly monumental development, the imposition of discriminatory taxes on French wines after 1689 makes War, Wine, and Taxes an excellent political economic history.
A balanced, wide-ranging, understandable, and exhaustive book, India, Modernity, and the Great Divergence helps to give a look at two diverse early modern Indian regions and their potential for the transition to modernity.
Snow Crash is a tremendously famous novel, but it's hard not to feel some disappointment reading it about the lack of refinement of a great premise and ideal.
A hefty tome about the transformation of France into a modern consumer society, La Révolution matérielle provides a piercing detailed look at this change while being able to concisely sum up eras.
A heart-rending testimony of a young girl cloistered away as a woman in the male-dominated world of Algiers, La voyeuse interdite is wrenchingly powerful but also terribly difficult to understand and unconventional.
Le Docker Noir is a fascinating beginning from the Senegalese writer, thinker, and producer Ousmane Sembène which shows the struggle of a black man in a white man's world, but which also is still unfinished and less subtle than Sembènes later works.
Soviet Air Force Theory 1918-1945 manages in a relatively brief span to examine the key focuses of Soviet aviation doctrine, establish its independence and internal sources, and look at its interaction with Soviet wars, providing for a short but informative book.
An intensely atmospheric novel, South of the Border, West of the Sun examines the way relationships spill across the decades, the hurt we can inflict on other people, and what love is.
Kim Stanley Robinson has such a feeling of passion and hope that he makes even a utopian novel inspire and convince you that a better world could one day be born from the scorching ashes of the old.
A fun and quick travel through Central Asia that reflects upon the changes gripping countries there since the end of the Soviet Union, Erika Fatland provides an engaging account of what this generally unknown region looks like.
A game that the fate of empires hinges upon, a devious plot to manipulate the manipulator, and the