Five Favorite History Books

[Florestan]

My list

Theodor Mommsen - Roman History* (easily the best history book I ever read, eminently readable --- the 1902 Nobel Prize for Literature --- with lessons to be learned and warnings to be heeded even today)
Cornelius Ryan - A Bridge Too Far* (as exciting and page-turning as a good thriller)
Joseph Pérez - History of Spain* (fair and unbiased)
Steven Runciman - The Eastern Schism** (balanced and eminently readable presentation of the subject)
A. A. Vasiliev - History of the Byzantine Empire* (erudite and scholarly, yet eminently readable)

* read in Romanian translation

** read in Original English

Your turn.

[vers la flamme]

I have read far, far too few. But some I read recently and liked were:

Eric H. Cline's 1177 B.C. (about the Late Bronze Age Collapse, a super fascinating period of ancient history for me)
James MacPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom about the American Civil War
Andrew Roberts' Napoleon

Florestan, you have piqued my interest about that Momsen book on Rome. I've been meaning to read up more on the Roman Empire. I also really want to read some of the "primary" ancient historians like Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy etc.

[Florestan]

Florestan, you have piqued my interest about that Momsen book on Rome.

It covers the history of Rome from the earliest times to Octavian, so technically speaking it's mostly the history of the Roman Republic. It shows in a vivid and convincing manner how and why Rome evolved from a tiny agrarian city-state to an imperialist republic and eventually to an empire proper; and the most interesting thing is that they did all that rather reluctantly. It was not by design, but by snowball effect: once the first, small step was taken (whose immediate goal was explicitly not any expansionist ambition but simply domestic security, economic and military), a chain reaction was triggered which engendered an ineluctable series of further steps and events, each leading by necessity into the next. There are not a few parallels with some present-day states and political-economical or political-military organizations and alliances.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

[JBS]

William Manchester Alone--the second volume of his projected Churchill trilogy
Alan Guelzo Gettysburg The Last Invasion
John Julian Norwich--History of Venice

[Cato]

My list

Theodor Mommsen - Roman History* (easily the best history book I ever read, eminently readable --- the 1902 Nobel Prize for Literature --- with lessons to be learned and warnings to be heeded even today)

Steven Runciman - The Eastern Schism** (balanced and eminently readable presentation of the subject)

A. A. Vasiliev - History of the Byzantine Empire* (erudite and scholarly, yet eminently readable)

The Mommsen is a classic indeed!

The books by Runciman and Vasiliev were required for my History degree in Ancient Greek/Roman/Western Medieval/Byzantine History.

I heard a lecture in Cincinnati by Runciman on Byzantine History ( I do not recall the exact topic, but it seems like it was about an obscure point of contention on a minor topic).

He was a classic Classics professor!    i.e. Rather distracted at times, talking to the ceiling rather than the audience at times, perhaps very shy (or even evincing Asperger's, hard to say though from just one lecture), and full of details and anecdotes and footnotes!  😇


Anyway, here are some recommendations:

David McCullough: The Wright Brothers

Excellent biography of the brothers!

Victor Hansen: The Soul of Battle and Carnage and Culture

Comparative military history, from ancient to modern times: of great interest are the connections across thousands of years, e.g. how the victories of Epaminondas of Thebes influenced Generals U.S. Grant and William Sherman in the American Civil War.

Arthur Herman: The Idea of Decline in Western History

Note the title: the "idea" of decline, not "decline" itself!

Sheila Fitzpatrick: Everyday Stalinism

Fascinating stories from those who lived through the mass murders, the mass deportations, and the overarching terror.

[Karl Henning]

Great thread!

[JBS]

William Manchester Alone--the second volume of his projected Churchill trilogy
Alan Guelzo Gettysburg The Last Invasion
John Julian Norwich--History of Venice

Decided on the remaining two of my five books

Simon Schama--Citizens [the subject is the French Revolution]

John Maxtone-Graham--The Only Way To Cross [depending on your view, either niche or a light diversion]

[San Antone]

Shelby Foote - The Civil War: a Narrative History (3 vols.)
Richard Taruskin - The Oxford History of Western Music (5 vols.)

[Karl Henning]

Simon Schama--Citizens

yes, great stuff.

I remember also enjoying a couple of Barbara Tuchman titles: The Guns of August and The March of Folly (From Troy to Vietnam) I don't know how well it holds up, but I remember being engrossed by The Arms of Krupp, basically the saga of the military-industrial complex from Bismarck's Prussia to the Third Reich.

[Karl Henning]

Shelby Foote - The Civil War: a Narrative History (3 vols.)

Loved his substantial contribution to Burns' film!

[Jo498]

I am not sure I completed 5 "real" general history books. Two I remember are Tuchman's "A distant mirror" (not liked by more recent real medievalists, I think, but I found it fascinating) and "The guns of august". I started but didn't get far (still stuck in the Balkan "prelude") of "The sleepwalkers". I have a bunch of Tom Holland's more popular ones, so far I only finished "In the shadow of the sword" and most of "Millenium". I read more popular stuff decades ago as a teenager but don't remember specific titles.

The Mommsen is a classic, I would not have thought that it was that readable but I should try. Another German language 19th century classic (and I think I have this on the shelves but not read) is Jacob Burckhardt's on the Culture of Renaissance Italy

Herodotus is quite readable. My Greek teacher would say "it reads like a tabloid" (but he said that also about Homer, IIRC, where it certainly is not true); the real Classical tabloid is rather Suetonius on the Roman Emperors. In any case, I don't really count the stuff we read in extracts at school for rudiments of Classical education as it's too long ago and with the possible exception of Herodotus I never read them complete in translation.

[ultralinear]

Most of the history I read tends to have rather a narrow focus and wouldn't really be recommendable to a general readership - except maybe something like this:


 

[SimonNZ]

I can't even begin to think what my five favorite history books might be.

Instead of doing that I'll pick five books I've posted about on GMG and quite possibly thought were the best books I read that year.

Frank Dikotter - Mao's Great Famine
David Halbersram - The Coldest Winter
Richard Evans - The Third Reich In Power
David Halberstam - The Fifties
Robert Caro - (any volume from his Lyndon Johnson series, but I'm going to pick volume 2, even knowing that it's volume.3 "Master Of The Senate"  that's had all the praise)

Yup, two by David Halberstam. Two even better than his The Best And The Brightest, which was also brilliant.

[SimonNZ]

My list

Theodor Mommsen - Roman History

I've been on the lookout for that since you mentioned it some time back, but with no luck.

But I just discovered that Audible has it available to me as an audio...at something close to 100 hours.

[drogulus]

[SimonNZ]

Just remembered another recent best-history-reads-of-the-year:

Richard Shirer's mammoth book on the fall of France, Collapse Of The Third Republic

imo even more impressive than his much more famous volume on the Third Reich

[Florestan]

The Mommsen is a classic, I would not have thought that it was that readable but I should try.

There are some rather dry and technical chapters, for instance those about Roman coins and Latin linguistics, but as a whole Mommsen's writing is stylish and has real literary merit and skills. 

[Florestan]

Richard Taruskin - The Oxford History of Western Music (5 vols.)

Oh yes, a big + 1 to this.