Here are 100 books that Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions fans have personally recommended if you like
Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions.
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I'm a writer and filmmaker based in Cairo for over a decade. I was inspired to move to Egypt when I visited during the 2011 Revolution and fell in love with the vibrance of the city. Since then Cairo has changed and I have lived through an extraordinary history with some difficult times but always with a sense of curiosity for stories. My book, Cairo’s Ultras, began as a documentary film project in 2012 and I have found many other interesting topics during my time in this enigmatic and fascinating place. I will publish a second book next year, called Decolonising Images, that looks at the photographic heritage and visual culture of Egypt.
As someone who moved to Egypt in 2012 I only experienced the 2011 Revolution in the past tense, in a secondhand way but this book puts this story in a clear, factual way. This is a meticulous work of journalism and passionate study of the time from someone who lived through the street protests and the book has combined on-the-ground reporting with wider investigation of the causes and the revolution’s achievements. The heart of the book is with the struggle of the Egyptian people during 2011 and the author knows Cairo as a city to bring alive this historic narrative for political freedom.
In The Egyptians, journalist Jack Shenker uncovers the roots of the uprising that succeeded in toppling Hosni Mubarak, one of the Middle East's most entrenched dictators, and explores a country now divided between two irreconcilable political orders. Challenging conventional analyses that depict contemporary Egypt as a battle between Islamists and secular forces, The Egyptians illuminates other, equally important fault lines: far-flung communities waging war against transnational corporations, men and women fighting to subvert long-established gender norms, and workers dramatically seizing control of their own factories.
Putting the Egyptian revolution in its proper context as an ongoing popular struggle against state…
I am a researcher and teacher who studies global security. I first thought this meant the study of various forms of violence: wars, terrorism, genocides. And, I still study all of that. But the events of the Arab Spring in particular led me to see the importance of nonviolent protest movements as an important form of global conflict. These movements, often called “civil resistance,” have proved surprisingly capable of toppling dictators and bringing about democratization. But the news is not all good: they also frequently spark mass repression, civil wars, and even wars between countries. Understanding contemporary global conflict requires understanding how nonviolent movements work.
Sharon Nepstad analyzes the success and failure of nonviolent resistance movements across a set of global case studies. Her findings highlight two dimensions that probably don’t get as much attention as they deserve.
First, she reveals the importance of civil-military relations in protest movements: the behavior of the military and other state security forces is often decisive to the fate of unarmed uprisings. And this behavior, in turn, is shaped by the recruitment patterns, training, and organizational structure of those forces. The Tianamen Square massacre, for example, only happened after the Chinese government replaced the local patrolling units with military forces from the country's periphery.
Second, Nepstad shows how international support to nonviolent movements can often be counterproductive, as it allows dictators to wave the flag of nationalism against foreign interference. This is an important caution for policymakers and activists thinking about how they can help nonviolent movements around the…
In the spring of 1989, Chinese workers and students captured global attention as they occupied Tiananmen Square, demanded political change, and then experienced a tragic crackdown at the hands of the Chinese army. Months later, East German civilians rose up nonviolently, bringing down the Berlin Wall and dismantling their regime. Although both movements used the tactics of civil resistance, their outcomes were different.
In Nonviolent Revolutions, Sharon Erickson Nepstad examines these two movements, along with citizen uprisings in Panama, Chile, Kenya, and the Philippines. Through a comparative approach that includes both successful and failed cases, she analyzes the effects of…
Growing up and still today, I read a lot of fantasy, including reading the covers right off my copy of The Lord of the Rings boxed set. I’ve also written two major epic fantasy series each more than a million words in length. So I know a thing or two about what makes compelling epic fantasy stories. And these five books (and the series that follow) go above and beyond any measure. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed, but your REM cycle might suffer!
Melatonin alert! If you start reading this book, you’re going to require a sleep aid to get some shuteye. Sullivan has a way of constructing characters and plotlines that, on their surface, are simple. And yet the more you read, the more complex and three-dimensional they become, until you realize that the characters and their motivations are never what they seem to be until the moment they are revealed, leaving you breathless and satisfied. Losing a little (or a lot) of sleep to read Age of Myth is well worth it!
One of fantasy’s finest next-generation storytellers continues to break new ground.
Michael J. Sullivan’s trailblazing career began with the breakout success of his Riyria series: full-bodied, spellbinding fantasy adventures whose imaginative scope and sympathetic characters won a devoted readership and comparisons to fantasy masters Brandon Sanderson, Scott Lynch, and J.R.R. Tolkien himself. Now Age of Myth inaugurates an original five-book series.
Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between humans…
Monsters and magic have always had a hook on me, ever since I was just a kid going through a stack of Stephen King paperbacks that I was definitely too young for my brother to have given me – not that many would call his work “fantasy” exactly, despite the amount of vampires ghosts and magic that say otherwise. Urban fantasy, blending those elements with the familiar world we know, is a particular favourite of mine. So much so, that I wrote my own! Granted, the urban area in question is 19th-century Paris, but I say that still counts.
This is high-caliber space fantasy in the realm of Star Wars or Dune. It brings together a grizzled holy warrior having doubts about his faith with a naïve and sheltered princess in a brutal world ruled by absolutely vile overlords. The perspective switches between the two of them. The warrior – Drin – grapples with whether the church’s mission to fight evil brings it to use methods too similar to the evil it fights. Meanwhile the princess – Anais – has to come to terms very quickly with the reality of life outside the palace when slavers invade her home and abduct her off-world.
After years of fighting for justice with his deadly nanotech, Templar Drin abandons his post, crash landing on a desert world controlled by a tyrannical alien empire. Its inhabitants are forced into slavery, broken where a once-proud race cultivated its lands.
For the first time in Drin's life, he has no backup, no support, none of his brothers.
He stands alone against evil.
Drin must face overwhelming odds to liberate millions of slaves from their captors and bring faith to a downtrodden world. But in his way stands the most dangerous…
We are historians of U.S. foreign relations who have written extensively on the Cold War and national security. Both of us were interested in whistleblowing yet knew relatively little about its history. Turns out, we were not alone. Despite lots of popular interest in the topic, we soon discovered that, beyond individual biographies, barely anything is known about the broader history of the phenomenon. With funding from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Council, we led a collaborative research project, which involved historians, literary scholars, and political theorists, as well as whistleblowers, journalists, and lawyers. One of the fruits of the project, Whistleblowing Nation, is the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary history of U.S. national security whistleblowing.
At its core, whistleblowing is an act of truth-telling, often in response to official misrepresentation and lies. While not explicitly about whistleblowing, Hannah Arendt’s 1971 essay, “Lying in Politics” is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the subject. Written in the wake of the Pentagon Papers disclosure, it situates the official lies of the Vietnam War within a broader phenomenon of political propaganda. Exploring how propaganda aimed at the public ultimately took hold within senior policymaking circles, it reveals the blurry line between official lies and self-deception. Challenging simple precepts about whistleblowing and public transparency, Arendt explores whether or not and why knowledge of the facts actually makes a difference. Along with the broader collection of essays in Crises of the Republic, this piece offers uncanny insight into post-truth politics and the breakdown of democracy in our day.
A collection of studies in which Arendt, from the standpoint of a political philosopher, views the crises of the 1960s and early 1970s as challenges to the american form of government. Index.
I am a disabled author and podcaster who loves fantasy, but wanted more out of the genre than the Eurocentric Lord of the Rings model. I grew up watching Aladdin, reading Egyptian mythology, and one of my most prized books is an illustrated Shahnameh. There are brilliant stories set in deserts and rainforests, with intense magic and danger, and I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as I do.
Sometimes, you just want to retire and have a nice, quiet cup of tea. And world-ending magical plots keep getting in the way. Adoulla Mahmoud, once the best Ghul hunter alive, is just trying to retire. Unfortunately, the world has other plans for him. Alongside the pious warrior Raseed bas Raseed, and the shapeshifting Zamia Badawi, Adoulla faces the greatest threat yet. One that could destroy not just his favorite teahouse, but the world.
While there is some good-natured humor within this book, Saladin Ahmed establishes right away with a torture-scene prologue that Throne of the Crescent Moon will be dark and gory. I love the magic system and the Arabia-inspired world. The only downside to this book is that Ahmed doesn’t seem to be working on the sequel.
Traditional swords & sorcery fantasy with an authentic middle-eastern spin.
The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, land of djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, Khalifs and killers, is at boiling point. A power struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince is reaching its climax. In the midst of this brewing rebellion, a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. Only a handful of reluctant heroes can learn the truth, and stop the killing.
Doctor Adoulla Makhslood just wants a quiet cup of tea. Three score and more years…
I became passionate about this subject when I was at university and I realised that so many revolutions that were conducted in the name of high ideals ended up involving considerable suffering and death on the part of the ordinary people. And not just the ordinary people, but the revolutionaries as well. Why, I wondered, was this the case, and did it mean, as many in the 1960s and 1970s argued, that revolution was ultimately self-defeating? The quest to answer these questions remains on-going, but the books I have suggested have helped me to make some headway towards a resolution.
I found this comparative study of England, France and Russia an elegant and theoretically sophisticated analysis of three of what are considered to be the “great revolutions”.
It is a 2014 reworking of the 1938 classic by Crane Brinton and, like its predecessor, its great strength is in its comparative historical analysis. I loved the depth of historical analysis of each of the case studies, with sufficient detail to enable me at times to reach different conclusions from the author.
It was also able to go beyond Brinton’s original, in terms both of its historical detail and theoretical sweep. Its ambition, grounded in the case studies, was exhilarating.
After a relatively short career in research science, Helen Azar switched gears and returned to graduate school to fulfill a dream of becoming a reference librarian. She worked at the Free Library of Philadelphia for ten years, during which time she became a published author. While researching for her first book, The Diary of Olga Romanov, Helen visited Russia several times, and worked in the Rare Book Fund at the Museum at Tsarskoe Selo, which holds the imperial book collection. Today, Helen lives on the beautiful far south coast of New South Wales, Australia; she continues writing about Russia's last imperial family and leads Romanov history tours. She also administers The Romanov Family website and is the content creator for a YouTube channel In the Steps of the Romanovs.
It is generally not easy to find quality historical fiction, and this goes tenfold for fiction about the last Russian imperial family. This book is a definite exception to the rule. Historically accurate down to minute details, and at the same time very well written, the story in The Lost Crown starts just before the revolution and covers the events that lead up to the assassination of the Russian imperial family.
Seen through the eyes of the four historically neglected daughters of the last Tsar - Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia (OTMA), who are usually treated as a collective whole (unless you count trashy novels like Tsarina's Daughter or Anastasia-"survivor"-pseudo-non-fiction, which of course you shouldn't). In this novel, the sisters are portrayed sensitively and realistically, and most importantly as individuals. They are depicted as neither saints, nor as brats, but as normal girls/young women, as they most certainly were.…
Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. Like the fingers on a hand--first headstrong Olga; thenTatiana, the tallest; Maria the most hopeful for a ring; and Anastasia, the smallest. These are the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, grand duchesses living a life steeped in tradition abd priviledge. They are each on the brink of starting their own lives, at the mercy of royal matchmakers. The summer of 1914 is that precious last wink of time when they can still be sisters together--sisters that link arms and laugh, sisters that share their dreams and worries, and flirt with the officers of their imperial…
Found family changed my life, allowing me to find acceptance for the real, messy, complicated me. I believe everyone should have that experience. I’ve struggled with anxiety and panic disorder for my entire life, something that was never understood by my family growing up. As I worked to understand my own mental health struggles, it was the people who came into my life with love and compassion who helped me accept that I was never broken. I want every reader to feel that when they read one of my books. Chasing Eleanor was inspired by all five of these book recommendations, with adventure and found family at its heart.
Sepetys never disappoints, but I Must Betray You grabbed hold of me and didn’t let go. I read this book in twenty-four hours.
Sepetys has a way of character development that never underestimates her readers. This story is raw and haunting, with a hard punch of constant action. I Must Betray You takes us behind the Iron Curtain to 1989 Communist Romania, where high schooler Cristian must become an informer to save his family. What unfolds is a story of bravery, sacrifice, and love.
A gut-wrenching, startling historical thriller about communist Romania and the citizen spy network that devastated a nation, from the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Gray.
Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force.
Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s…
To an Atlantic historian like me, the era of revolutions is one of the most dramatic historical periods, which erased many of the structures on which the Atlantic world had been built for centuries. It raised many hopes, which were often defeated, but lasting advances were made nonetheless.
An important and original work that privileges the vantage point of blacks and indigenous people. Historians have often portrayed the royalist side in the Spanish American wars as conservative and backward, but by analyzing the political strategies of nonwhites, this book shows convincingly that their affiliation with the Spanish Crown was a sensible one.
Royalist Indians and slaves in the northern Andes engaged with the ideas of the Age of Revolution (1780-1825), such as citizenship and freedom. Although generally ignored in recent revolution-centered versions of the Latin American independence processes, their story is an essential part of the history of the period. In Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution, Marcela Echeverri draws a picture of the royalist region of Popayan (modern-day Colombia) that reveals deep chronological layers and multiple social and spatial textures. She uses royalism as a lens to rethink the temporal, spatial, and conceptual boundaries that conventionally structure historical…
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