NONFICTION HISTORY BOOKS FOR CHRIS' LIST
LIST OF NONFICTION HISTORY BOOKS
Dear Chris. Feel free to ignore any books that don't fit on your list.
ANCIENT WORLD
Philip Norrie - A History of Disease in Ancient Times: More Lethal Than War
Eric C. Cline - 1177 B.C. : The Year Civilization Collapsed
David W. Anthony - The Horse, The Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World.
Christopher I. Beckwith - Empires of the Silk Road: A History of central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present
Barry Cunliffe - The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek [this is a really neat little book]
J.P. Mallory - The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West [interesting book full of diagrams/photgraphs/maps]
Tom Holland - Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West
Adrienne Mayor - The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warroior Women Across the Ancient World
Adrienne Mayor - Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World
Adrienne Mayor - The Poison King - The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy
Richard Miles - Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization
Douglas T. Price - Europe Before Rome: A Site-by-Site Tour of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages
Robin Waterfield - Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire
Justin Pollard - Wonders of the Ancient World: Antiquity's Greatest Feats of Design and Engineering
Ian Wilson - Before the Flood: The Biblical Flood as a Real Event and How It Changed the Course of Civilization [NOTE: NOT a religious book, title does not accurately reflect the contents of the book]
BYZANTIUM
Lars Brownworth - Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Resued Western Civilization [cronological introduction to the Byzantium Empire]
Judith Herrin - Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire [thematically organised introduction to the Byzantium Empire, with slightly more information than the Brownworth book]
Roger Crowley - Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 [fast paced book that looks at the history of Constantinople and its demise]
SPECIFIC SUBJECTS / TIME PERIODS/ EVENTS
Roger Crowley - Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean, 1521-1580
Christopher Clark - Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
Norman Davies: Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
Geoffrey Hindley - The Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons
Alice Roberts - The Celts
John Kelly - The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of hte Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time.
Frances & Joseph Gies - Catherdral, Forge and Waterwheel: Technology and the Invention in the Middle Ages
Margaret MacMillan - The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
Margaret MacMillan - Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World
Alexander Watson - Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918
John Man - The Gutenberg Revolution: How Printing Changed the Course of History
Giles Milton: White Gold: The extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves
Joseph F. O'Callaghan - A History of Medieval Spain.
Peter Heather - Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe
Peter Heather - The Fall of the Roman Empire
Peter Heather - The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes & Imperial Pretenders
Heather Pringle - The Mummuy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead
Howare Reid - In Search of The Immortals: Discovering the World's Mummy Cultures
Thomas Hager - TenDrugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine.
John Gaudet - The Pharaoh's Treasure: The Origin of Paper and the Rise of Western Civilization
Toby Faber - Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centrueis of Enduring Perfection.
Stephen R. Wilk - Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon
Alexander Jones - A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World [technical]
David P. Clark - Germs, Genes, and Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today.
Barry Cunliffe - Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC - AD 1000*
Barry Cunliffe - By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia*
Barry Cunliffe - On the Ocean: The Mediterranean and the Atlantic from Prehistory to AD 1500*
*I think these books are meant to function as text books. The are large, fat and have numerous maps and colour photographs/illustrations.
HISTORY OF COMMODITIES
Dan Keoppel - Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World
Mark Kurlansky - Salt: A World History
John Reader - The Untold History of the Potato
Reay Tannahill - Food in History
BIOGRAPHY
Radu Florescu & Raymond McNally - Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and Times
John B. Freed - Frederick Barbarossa: A Prince and the Myth
Derek Wilson - Charlemagne
Andrea Wulf - Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt
Jane Glover - Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music
Peter Green - Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 BC: A Historical Biography
Brigitte Hamann - The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria
Bettany Hughes - Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World
Hannah Pakula - An Uncommon Woman: The Life of Princess Vicky: THe Empress Frederick
Jan Swafford - Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph