Elentarri's Book Blog

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