Book+List

Book List - European History (AWESOME!!!)

Here is a list of books that have been recommended to me by various European History teachers. This is an eclectic mix of books. Any of them would be appropriate for study in a European History class.

__Nicholas and Alexandria__ – Robert K. Massie __Peter the Great__ – Robert K. Massie __The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller__ – Carlo Ginzberg __A World Lit Only by Fire__ – William Manchester __Dreadnought: Great Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War__ – Robert K. Massie __The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000__ – William H. McNeil __Celestine: Voices from a French Village__ – Gillian Tindall __Galileo’s Daughter__ – David Sobel __Tulipomania__ – Mike Dash – The story behind frantic Dutch tulip speculation craze of the mid 17th century. __The Girl with the Pear Earring__ – Tracy Chevalier – novel __Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire__ – Amanda Foreman – biography of a notorious 18th century aristocrat __Burgermeister’s Daughter__ – Steven Ozment – scandal of a rebellious teenaged girl in 16th century Germany __Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913 – 1914__ – Frederick Morton – fascinating picture of Vienna on the eve of WWI and the people living there, Einstein, Lenin and others __The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict fron 1500 - 2000__ – Paul Kennedy - __The Guns of August__ – Barbara Tuchman __Guns, Germs and Steel: The History of Human Societies__ – Jared Diamond __The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250 – 1600__ – Alfred Crosby – a great example of the intersection of math, science and history. __The Columbian Exchange__ – Alfred Crosby – an ecological study of the consequences of the European presence in the Americas __The Return of Martin Guerre__ – Natalie Zemon Davis __The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century__ – J.L. Price __Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland__ – Paul Zumthor __Plagues and Peoples__ – William H. McNeil __The Wives of Henry VIII__ – Antonia Frazier __Mary, Queen of Scots__ – Antonia Frazier __The Thirty Years’ War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe__ – Robert Asch __The Thirty Years’ War – Langer__ __The History of the Thirty Years’ War__ – Friedrich Schiller __A Passage to India__ – E.M. Forster – a classic novel of British Imperialism in India __Total War__ – Peter Calvocoressi – military history of WWII

__The Second World War__ – Martin Gilbert __Lenin’s Tomb__ – David Remnick – the story of the last years of communism in the Soviet Union by the reporter who covered the events for //The Washington Post// __Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia’s Secret Archives__ – Edvard Radinskii __Catherine the Great__ – Henri Troyat – a great account of the court intrigues surrounding Catherine, ruler of Russia __A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891 – 1924__ – Orlando Figes __Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village__ – Serge Schmemann __Citizens__ – Simon Schama – a complex but often entertaining view of the French Revolution __Germinal__ – Emile Zola – a classic and usually enjoyed by students __Brunelleschi’s Dome__ – Ross King – a study of the science, politics and cultural milieu of the Italian Renaissance __Journey into the Whirlwind__ – Euginia Ginzburg – another view of the Soviet political prison system __Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History__ – Robert D. Kaplan __The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin__ – Richard Lourie __Berlin Diaries__ – William Shirer – reporting by an American journalist stationed in Berlin during the rise of Nazism __Poland__ – James Michener __Monsieur D'Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade__ - Gary Kates __Churchill: A Biography__ – Roy Jenkins __Napoleon__ – Paul Johnson __Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer__ – Anthony Grafton __Strange Defeat__ – Marc Bloch [|Martyred Village: Commemorating the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane] – Sarah Farmer [|The Butcher's Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town] - Helmut Smith __Homage to Catalonia__ – George Orwell - Autobiographical account by George Orwell of his experience as a volunteer for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War [|Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland] __–__ Chris Browning - Browning reconstructs how a German reserve police battalion composed of "ordinary men," middle-aged, working class people, killed tens of thousands of Jews during WW II. [|A Life of Her Own: A Countrywoman in Twentieth-Century France] by [|Emilie Carles] - this is the memoir of a mountain peasant born at the turn of the century who was lucky and persevering enough to finish school, work in Paris, attend the Sorbonne, and become a schoolteacher [|Under Fire] by [|Henri Barbusse] – the story of a squad of soldiers in WWI __Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy__ – Jostein Gaarder __Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World__ – Margaret MacMillan __The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture and the World Economy 1400 to the Present__ – Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik __The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648 – 1815__ – Tim Blanning - traditional political and diplomatic accounts with the newer fields of social, economic and intellectual history __All Quiet on the Western Front__ – Erich Maria Remarque – a story of WWI __Winston Churchill__ – John Keegan __The Second World War__ – John Keegan __The Revolt of the Masses__ – Jose Ortega y Gasset __Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Geatest Scientific Problem of His Time__ – Dava Sobel __We the Living__ – Ayn Rand __A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People__ – Steven Ozment __The Great Cat Massacre and other Episodes in French Cultural History__ – Robert Darnton __The Terrible Year: The Paris Commune, 1871__ – Alistair Horne __The Wives of Henry VIII__ – Antonia Fraser __The Life of Elizabeth I__ – Alison Weir __One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich__ – Alexander Solzhenitsyn – description of one day in a Soviet gulag __Londonistan__ – Melanie Phillips – the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the West __Fortune is a River: Leonardo daVinci and Niccolo Machiavelli’s Magnificant Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History__ – Roger D. Masters __While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within__ – Bruce Bawer __Napoleon in Egypt__ – Paul Strathern __After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe__ – George Huppert __In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World it Made__ – Norman F. Cantor __The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and the Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers__ – Robert L. Heilbroner __Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky__ – Paul Johnson __Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney__ – Paul Johnson __How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It__ – Arthur Herman Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: Or The True Story of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History – Giles Milton __The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some so Poor__ – David S. Landes __Europe and the People Without History__ – Eric R. Wolf