The second volume of God's Playground: A History of Poland brilliantly captures the trends of Polish history and the transformations of Polish life, in a readable and passionate account.
A wide-ranging number of different perspectives on the French Revolution that in particular is useful for looking at the social identity of the nobility and transformations in corporate groups.
Arab France examines the experience of the Arab émigrés and refugees who fled to France from Egypt after Napoleon's failed campaign, dealing with a poorly covered subject but at times overly advancing its arguments and not backing them up.
The Future Eaters is a brilliant description of the very different nature of Australia's environment and how it has been altered by humans, and how in turn humans have altered it, one that's a fascinating journey into human adaptation into different societies and very different social structures.
Although there are a lot of interesting individual fragments in Greek Historical Thought and it genuinely is well-translated, it lacks for much cohesive logic and some of the principles it advances are bizarre and nonsensical.
Although The Desacralization of the French Monarchy does show the continued relevance of religious arguments even in the Enlightenment, it feels limited and failing to grasp the subject in greater detail.
An expansive subject meets an expansive book, and although French Theater, Orientalism, and Representations of India could have covered different subjects better, it does do a good job at giving a general understanding of what subjects appeared on the French stage and how India was interpreted.
Military Orientalism helps to present a different perspective on Eastern militaries from Lebanon to Japan, examining them in concrete detail to see how they actually aimed to carry out their objectives and how this was seen by Westerners.
Contact is an ideas-focused book, but it manages to throw in enough characters and a vision of a human future to make it into a warm and inspiring science fiction novel.
Indian Music and the West tracks Indian music's reception in the Western world from "Hindustani airs" through 19th century musical study, the exoticism of the 60s, and today's popular music, providing a valuable resource to understand the relationship.
Although sometimes drawing overly large conclusions and painting with a broad brush, Importing the European Army does an excellent job at linking state modernization and army development in the non-European nations of the world.
A good examination of the era immediately preceding the French Revolution, that incorporates both structural and tactical stories of the decline of France's influence and how this helped lead to the Revolution.
A great examination of the culture of espionage, travel, and adventure in Interwar France, helping to show how it functioned in the French mindset and some aspects of its reality.
A wonderfully atmospheric and well-written book that manages to convey Mexican history through the story of two brothers, while still giving them real humanity and feeling.
A good workmanlike book that covers the development of British educational and cultural policy in Bengal during the period of British consolidation, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance is not spectacular but does help to give more nuanced understanding of this transition.
Anandamath has a lot of promise, but poor writing, mediocre characters, and an unsatisfying, strange story, make it a terrible bore. Perhaps it is better in the native Bengali.
A short polemical book arguing in favor of the French Revolution's positive effects, that it was a necessary bourgeois revolution, and covering the historiography of the Revolution, Hobsbawm's work makes for a strong defense of the Revolution.
A detailed examination of the intellectual architecture behind the counter-revolutionary response to the French Revolution as well as how it worked on the ground in France: a useful book to better understand the complexity of the French Revolution and its resistance.
A fun and engaging introduction in the magical world of Old English, showing both the etymology of words and how animals and humanity was viewed in the early English Middle Ages.
Very detailed in its study of the actions of the right-wing counterrevolutionary youth of the Jeunesse Dorée, The Gilded Youth of Thermidor could have done more to explore the actors behind them and demographics.
A brilliant satire of the Imperial Russian bureaucracy, hilarious, absurd, and a great portrait on the psychology of Emperor Paul: Lieutenant Kijé is a great novella.
There's no doubt that China Miéville comes up with brilliant scenarios and ideas, but his blank and one-dimensional characters prevent it from really gripping the reader.
A multi-author compilation, The Global Ramifications of the French Revolution gives a varied look at how the French Revolution was received in multiple contexts, although sometimes it is not clear about how much was the French Revolution vis-a-vis general modernization.
An all-encompassing account of the French Revolution in the cultural sphere, A Cultural History of the French Revolution does an excellent job at analyzing its developments and showing transformations or effects in different sectors ranging from architecture, to literature, to religion.
A Young Doctor's Notebook is a brilliant, passionate, hilarious, dramatic account of Mikhail Bulgakov's medical service in as mall Russian village, one that's both gripping in its prose and superb in its portrait of life.
Moral Capital delves into one of the most heavily researched topics in history: the slave trade and abolition of slavery, arguing that abolitionism achieved dominance in a specific context fueled by imperial regeneration after the American War of Independence
Last Night at the Telegraph Club is one of those scholastic books that try to hit as many different good subjects as it can but doesn't give any real depth to any of them.
A short book from the 1860s, L’île de la Réunion is an interesting pamphlet that argues the view of the planters and colonial elites of Réunion, and although not very advanced, it does give a good perspective of their interests and mentalities.
Although The Mating Mind has a lot of good points to make, the lack of hard data and quantitative evidence, and a certain naivety when it comes to the human condition, make it a book with many holes.
A good look at political positions and thoughts of Condorcet, Condorcet : Un intellectuel en politique doesn't do as much to look at his scientific achievements and focuses heavily on his personal life rather than intellectual biography.
The Crisis of the European Mind covers an impressive amount of sources, books, and letters of the beginning of the European Enlightenment and shows the transformation of principles that completely overturned established European philosophy and thought.
War and Empire might not be terribly original, but it's a decent look at Mauritius in the Second World War that looks into some broader aspects of the war in terms of social relationships to the war effort and how military contributions were organized.
Introduction to Vietnamese Literature gives a very readable and engaging look at Vietnamese writing and culture over the past several thousand years, helping to understand both aspects of Vietnamese culture and transformations in its writing.
A brief but good overview of the Directory and which presents a more positive account of what is otherwise the most forgettable and least dramatic of the French revolutionary governments.
Empire of the Sands suffers from a bit of schizophrenia and a nagging feel of it being biased against the Arab side of the story, but does present very valuable information on the diplomatic front of the Arab Revolt.
A well argued book that shows that the Cult of the Supreme Being had genuine popular appeal in the French Revolution and that examines its organizational and structural features in society.
Although by now submerged by a huge host of books written since then, Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together must have been quite the cutting edge book in the 1990s: it is still surprisingly humanistic and is intriguing to see how racial studies have developed since.
God's Playground is a tremendous homage to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and an excellent history of the development of Polish history and its themes and importance.
If you want a fast paced thriller with questionable dialogue, perhaps a few plot holes, a couple classical allusions, and a somewhat predictable story, then Inferno's a great book to pass the time on an airplane. Not great literature, but a fun enough read.
Crossroads of Civilization has some interesting notes about architecture in Persia and does a good job of giving a basic introduction, but lacks heavily for content about regular Persian life and Persian culture.
Mishima's sword helps to look at a fascinating writer and Japanese culture, but fails to capture his power and spirit and often delves into unrelated material without the necessary connection.
Much ink has been spilled about women in Afghanistan, and The Bookseller of Kabul is both a moving account in this genre and a human tale of an Afghan family with their flaws and virtues.
Was Hinduism Invented looks at the way that the British colonization of India, particularly Bengal, led to debates and new formulations of Hinduism at the beginning of the 19th century, in a well-rounded and carefully balanced book.
The Reconstruction of Nations superbly examines how the elitist, noble, multi-national idea of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth transformed into the populist nationalisms of the successor states, and the process of national formation in central/eastern Europe.
The Kite Runner might use brute force at times to get its point across, but it's a deeply powerful and moving book that explores both the universal human experience and Afghanistan's culture and history.
An excellent piece of comparative history, the Plantation Machine looks at the similarities and differences between Saint-Domingue and Jamaica in the 18th century and sheds valuable light on their social and economic development.
A great look at the development of institutions in the French sister republics and their historiography and representation.
A fun and passionate book, a bit light on full scholarly details, but with a good collection of Scottish poetry and some legends and myths.
Although dealing with a fascinating topic, Muslim Ethics essentially seems to have been an attempt to cash in on the furor about Islam following the 9/11 attacks, and is a painfully inadequate, incomplete, and one-sided work which does nothing to actually engage with Islamic ethical concepts.
The History of Fashion in France: or, The Dress of Women From the Gallo-Roman Period to the Present Time is an 1882 book that while clearly dated, still offers some pretty pictures and a feel for the thoughts of the era when it was written.
A brilliant exploration of the first French abolition of slavery, the policy of controlled citizenship instituted in Guadeloupe, governance and policy, and the discourse of slavery and freedom promulgated by French reformers, A Colony of Citizens is a superb holistic book on a crucial period.
The Burning Light of Two Stars is a beautiful depiction of a relationship between mother and daughter, its challenges, and a human look at the imperfections of light.
The passage of years has only made the detail and scope of The Black Jacobins of Saint-Domingue more important, and despite its Marxist ideology being somewhat démodé today, it remains very engaging and brilliantly written.
Destroyer of Worlds is an incredibly original science fiction space opera, with highly original and convincing aliens that have truly unique intelligences. Definitely an engaging science fiction thriller!
Final Passages does an excellent job of exploring an oft-forgotten, and what seems like it would be inconsequential part of, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and showing the actual effect and influence it had.
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, is both an enjoyable story and a fascinating exploration of the ideas of first contact from the great science fiction writer Heinlein.
Although it's a perfectly decent book, In A Sea of Empires also is rather conventional and unexciting, functioning more as a recap of current research on the Caribbean rather than being that decisively original. It's still useful and good to see contemporary historiographic understanding.
An excellent coverage of slave society, dynamics, the plantation system, and the development of the ideologies of resistance among slaves, Testing the Chains is an invaluable source on slavery in the British Caribbean.
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.