This is inspired by a (real!) request on Instagram, where the fabulously named @triestobeclassy asked me about my favourite history books. And as I have been thinking about this very topic recently, it presented the perfect excuse to put together a list. Please be mindful that this is not trying to be an objective ’best of’ list, there are many universally acclaimed history books I have not read and my interests can be niche. Among my picks, you’ll find little on American history, the Roman Empire or WWII, while ancient and meta-history are rather well represented.

I also realised half-way during writing this that I must divide the post in two, otherwise it’ll take you hours to read it. This means there are some spoilers on the picture for part 2, but not everything is revealed, as I didn’t have all the books physically at hand for the cover photo. Some books here I am more critical about now than when reading them, but they have been so important for me that I’ve included them regardless. And there are others that I know are flawed, but have something to offer and can be deeply enjoyed, as long as one is aware of the limitations.

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland. This is an emblematic book for me, marking the start of my obsession with the Persians and teaching me more about Athens than most books that focus on Greece. It is about the Achaemenid Empire and the Persian Wars against Greece in the 5th Century BC, and what it meant for the development of the ’West’. I have read a lot about the period since and would probably no longer adore the book as much as I did over 10 years ago, but I still recommend it. Holland is very beginner-friendly, engaging and exciting. If Persians are not your thing (I don’t understand how this can be possible, but OK), his Rubicon – about the end of the Roman republic – could be another place to start.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. This is the TYPE of book about history that I like best – describing big patterns of development and the structural forces that influence history. Unfortunately, these kinds of books are very difficult to write without oversimplification and lack of nuance. Diamond certainly has issues, he is deterministic, his view of the agricultural revolution is less complex than it should be and he would certainly benefit from recent scholarship on decolonisation. So I can recommend him only with caveats, but I do still include him, as there is a reason why this has been a bestseller for almost three decades. It is so interesting and engaging and makes you think about global history in more structural, system terms, which I think is a good thing. Many of his points still stand, although often need and asterisk or two. If you do decide to read it, please also try to read things that go more in depth or have a different point of view (more on that shortly) – or even just familiarise yourself with the criticism online, this will ultimately allow you to take more with you from the experience of reading it.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. This is the book I debated the longest and ultimately decided to include, because I DID enjoy reading it very much. It probably does not need an introduction, this is the Guns, Germs and Steel of the millennial generation and has the popularity to match. But Diamond and Harari are also similar in other ways – they use a very broad brush and as you zoom in closer, you often discover that things aren’t quite as straightforward as presented. With Harari, I also sense a certain intellectual arrogance, which I do not enjoy – and which I think is less present in Diamond’s work. At my most critical moments, I call Sapiens techbro history. So why include it? Because it IS interesting and has gotten a very wide audience excited about the past. Overarching explorations on the history of the world are rare, exactly because serious historians are afraid of oversimplification and overstatement and usually do not write anything like this. So perhaps some arrogance is a necessary precondition for even making an attempt… If you read this, read it as a starting point to learn more about the things that you find interesting. Also, out of the three books by Harari, this is in my view by far the best (Homo Deus offers little new to anyone who has ever read any science fiction and I consider 21 Lessons for the 21 Century a cash-grab put together in a rush, although I concede it’s more interesting than your average cash-grab).

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The two Davids provide an immediate antidote to Sapiens, in case you are looking for one. In some ways, The Dawn of Everything has similar problems, as this, too, is drawn by a broad brush – as you can tell by the humble title. But the Davids are no fans of Harari and where the latter is deterministic and linear, Graeber and Wengrow offer up a different – and fresher – look at things. Their overarching point is, that there is nothing inevitable about where we have ended up, that the way we organise our societies now is not the only possible way and there used to be much more flexibility and diversity in the past – which we have (sadly, in their view) lost on the way… The book focuses on early history and the authors are in my view especially good on the agricultural revolution – which they posit is not a revolution at all, considering it took about 3000 years. I also appreciate very much their defence of Marija Gimbutas, who seems to be experiencing a bit of a renaissance*. They pay a lot of attention to women and indigenous people, which is always a plus for me. Some will probably find it too ‘progressive’, but you do not have to agree with everything in The Dawn of Everything to benefit from its very well-informed disruptiveness. And while it’s over 500 pages (almost 700 with notes), it’s very compellingly written and more accessible than some other books on this list.

The Earth Transformed: An Untold History by Peter Frankopan. And by “some other books” I mostly mean Frankopan’s latest. If you know my interest in Central Asia and the ‘Greater Middle East’, as Kaplan calls it, you may be surprised not to see Frankopan’s more famous The Silk Roads included here. But while I liked and enjoyed it, I felt it was too shallow and while it promised to be about the ‘Middle World’, it still centered Europe and the West too much for my taste. In The Earth Transformed, Frankopan fixes all the issues that I had with The Silk Road and delivers an impressive, serious look at the world history and how it has been affected by climate and environment. It is detailed, deeply researched and sometimes ridiculously jargony, especially in the beginning – perhaps because he is not a climate scientist and wants to be correct to a fault. He also goes out of his way to cover the globe as a whole and offer examples from all continents, despite the fact that there is much less research available for some parts of the world (Tallinn is mentioned twice, in relation to the harbour register that shows when the sea became ice-free). The reach and the level of synthesis in this book is exhilarating, but it is not a book for everyone. It’s more than 650 pages of dense text and 200 pages of notes that are published separately online, which means you need a serious interest in history to enjoy this. An interest in environment and climate is also helpful, but I feel less essential – while this is the angle Frankopan is writing from, it is ultimately a history book and many of the most interesting sections have little to do with environment in any strict sense. It is no doubt a commitment, but a rewarding one and one of my favourite reading experiences this year. It is also, unexpectedly, one of the most beautiful books I own.

Arabs: A 300-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires by Tim Macintosh-Smith. I have talked about this comprehensive look at Arab history before – it’s another weighty tome that is well worth the investment if you are interested in this part of the world. I particularly appreciate that the book starts much earlier than the birth of Islam, as Arab and Muslim are not synonyms. Another strength is the emphasis on Arab language, as is the author’s empathy for the people he writes about. Macintosh-Smith has lived in Yemen for more than 30 years, making him almost a native, and the larger-than-usual share dedicated to Southern Arabia in the book is another thing I like about it. With the current events in Palestine, it is a good moment to learn more about the region, where the past is not dead or even past, as Faulkner famously put it. If Arabs seems too daunting (and it can be challenging, although it’s beautifully written), I also recommend Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted as a much shorter and more accessible alternative. This has a narrower scope and focuses on Islam rather than Arabs, but it’s a good starting point if you have read nothing on the topic before.

Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler. Between the Middle East, Asia and Europe, there was the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople – the New Rome, the Queen of Cities. It has traditionally not been among my favourite periods in history, but Fidler does an amazing job bringing the empire and the city alive – and also revealing how much of how we think of Byzantium is based on early European slander and prejudice. Once it’s pointed out to you, it’s easy to see how people who had never seen a fork and were suspicious of bathing would find an empire with hundreds of years of history, complex governance and unimaginable luxury dangerous and incomprehensible. Anyway, Fidler’s book combines a travelogue and a linear history of the place and is so vividly written that I almost didn’t finish it – his account of the final siege of Constantinople is so realistic and tense that I couldn’t bear it. Otherwise it’s a much easier read than many other books on this list, although it can be a challenge to keep all the Constantines and Michaels straight.

Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran by Michael Axworthy. Ah, Persia. Have I mentioned that I find it interesting? To be honest, I have not read THAT many books on Iran/Persia, but from the ones I have read and that focus exclusively on it, Empire of the Mind is my favourite. It is a challenge to cover all the history of the country in one relatively small volume (about 350 pages), as there is just so much history there to explore, but Axworthy manages admirably and finds room to include poetry and culture more broadly. Considering how central poetry in particular is for Persians and how rich their cultural heritage in general, I think this is a great choice. It is not a brand new book, so you will not find the last decade covered, but otherwise it holds up well and is a great introduction to the history and influence of Iran.

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk. This is one of those ‘flawed’ books I mentioned in the introduction, but it is such a fun, adventurous read that I didn’t want to leave it out. If you are fascinated by geopolitics and spying and the messy rivalry between the Brits and the Russians in the 19^th century Central Asia, this is the classic to read. I read it years ago and would probably find it more irritating now, although I was already back then rolling my eyes at the ‘savage’ nature of the Afghans and how the Russians were always ‘lurking in the steppes’. I’m not feeling especially enamoured with Russians at the moment, but surely some of them were just riding and walking. So the book is a product of its time and very Brit-centric, but if you can live with that, it’s a fascinating read. (Attentive readers my have noticed that on the picture, I have in fact included another Hopkirk book as a stand-in, as I do not have The Great Game with me in Brussels – Foreign Devils on the Silk Road is a more niche product, but if you are interested in how the treasures of the world ended up in the Western museums, it’s a good one to put on your reading list).

Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan by William Dalrymple. Again, I am going to provide you with a solution to the problem I just created with my previous recommendation. Return of a King covers much of the same ground as The Great Game, but if the latter left you with the impression that hanging around in 19th century Central Asia was a wonderful adventure, Dalrymple will quickly disabuse you of any such notions. It is a much newer book, taking advantage of local sources and written with the knowledge of the horrific consequences of British (and Russian and later American) meddling in the region. The disaster of the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1838-1842 is revealed in excruciating detail and it will make you want to strangle any Brits in your vicinity. It is a very difficult read in places, but it is also excellent and will help you understand current troubles in/with Afghanistan much better.

So this is a selection of books covering world history and West/Central Asia. As you can see, I haven’t managed to cover Europe, Asia proper or the Americas, so I will be returning with part 2. Which may take me another two months to write… Meanwhile, I am – as always – interested in your favourites and recommendations, so please drop them in the comments!

*She was prominently featured also in Angela Saini’s The Patriarchs, which was otherwise unfortunately not as good a book as her previous ones.