Why am I passionate about this?

My expertise comes through my work and degrees as an undergraduate, Master’s, and Phd student, in history and comparative historical sociology. It is demonstrated mainly in my two books, one on the Spanish, Yugoslav, and Greek Civil Wars, the other on Anti-Leftist Politics, listed above. It also comes through my teaching, which includes the entire world history sequence, in addition to numerous specialized courses and seminars. My passion could be described as a love for the world and its peoples, and a loathing for systems and politics of inequality and injustice.


I wrote

Anti-Leftist Politics in Modern World History: Avoiding 'Socialism' at All Costs

By Philip B. Minehan,

Book cover of Anti-Leftist Politics in Modern World History: Avoiding 'Socialism' at All Costs

What is my book about?

This book presents an analysis of political hostility against the left in modern world history. 

It argues that the combination…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Lineages of the Absolutist State

Philip B. Minehan Why did I love this book?

This book is both a soaring and substantive comparative analysis of early modern social classes and state formation in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, China, and Japan. 

For me and many others, it has been indispensable for understanding world power politics and history from the early modern era to the present. Methodologically, it is a genuine tour de force. Anderson’s scholarly output generally is in a class by itself.

By Perry Anderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lineages of the Absolutist State as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Forty years after its original publication, Lineages of the Absolutist State remains an exemplary achievement in comparative history. Picking up from where its companion volume, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, left off, Lineages traces the development of Absolutist states in the early modern period from their roots in European feudalism, and assesses their various trajectories. Why didn't Italy develop into an Absolutist state in the same, indigenous way as the other dominant Western countries, namely Spain, France and England? On the other hand, how did Eastern European countries develop into Absolutist states similar to those of the West, when their…


Book cover of The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe

Philip B. Minehan Why did I love this book?

This book centers on historian Robert Brenner’s argument that the origins of capitalist production are to be found in changes that occurred in property relations in early modern English agriculture. 

What led me to Brenner and his argument were my unanswered questions in the sociology of Third World development. His work then led me to more systematic and comprehensive insights about the problem of capitalism’s uneven development worldwide. 

Brenner’s argument and its broad implications remain most persuasive and vital for a clear understanding of political economy and history from the early modern era to the present.  

By T. H. Aston (editor), C. H. E. Philpin (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Brenner Debate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Few historical issues have occasioned such discussion since at least the time of Marx as the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Western Europe. The Brenner Debate, which reprints from Past and Present various article in 1976, is a scholarly presentation of a variety of points of view, covering a very wide range in time, place and type of approach. Weighty theoretical responses to Brenner's first formulation followed from the late Sir Michael Postan, John Hatcher, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Guy Bois; more particular contributions came from Patricia Croot, David Parker, Arnost Klima and Heide Wunder on England, France,…


Book cover of The Age of Empire: 1875-1914

Philip B. Minehan Why did I love this book?

The Age of Empire is a momentous history of Europe and the world in the era that contained the immediate origins and dynamics that led into World War One, but was also crucial in shaping world history to this day. 

At the beginning of the book, Hobsbawm offers a grand-scale perspective on the ‘contradictions of liberal bourgeois society in the age of empire’, which, for me, is among the most helpful and insightful big – and dialectical – ideas about modern history. 

In the form of ‘the contradictions of neoliberal bourgeois society’, I went so far as to update and apply his original idea to world history since WWI and right up to our own times.

By Eric Hobsbawm,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Age of Empire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Erica Hobsbawm discusses the evolution of European economics, politics, arts, sciences, and cultural life from the height of the industrial revolution to the First World War.  Hobsbawm combines vast erudition with a graceful prose style to re-create the epoch that laid the basis for the twentieth century.


Book cover of The Kapetanios: Partisans and Civil War in Greece, 1943-1949

Philip B. Minehan Why did I love this book?

The Kapetanios put me on a course that I have expanded upon since 1980. 

It’s a close-up and dramatic account of the civil war that took place in Greece, beginning in the period of the Axis occupation, but continuing off and on in the post-WWII period to 1949. In 1980, I had wanted to travel to Greece but could not. The best I could do was find a good book on its modern history. 

I found The Kapetanios at People’s Books (now sadly defunct) in Milwaukee, WI. There are reasons to question its historical accuracy – normal for any history – but the book and its subject matter grabbed me and never let me go. I’d still recommend the book to anyone interested in that tragic, important, and avoidable conflict.

By Dominique Eudes,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Kapetanios as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Greek Civil War was one of the bloodiest of modern times: it cost the lives of more than 600,000 people out of a population of 7 million. It was one of the founding moments of the Cold War and a pilot experience, in Europe itself, of the Western imperialist intervention practised in South-East Asia and elsewhere today. This book is the first blow-by-blow account of the process of the Greek Revolution and its background in the Resistance against Nazi occupation and fascist collaboration in the Second World War. The 'kapetanios' were the guerilla chiefs in the mountains in Greece…


Book cover of British Policy towards Greece during the Second World War 1941-1944

Philip B. Minehan Why did I love this book?

After forty years, this remains the outstanding work on its crucial subject matter. 

For me it sets the standard for expert treatment of great power archival materials that pertain to extremely controversial questions. In this case, what was the role of the British foreign policy operatives, from top to bottom, in the making of the Greek Civil War? 

The book’s author, along with his wife and colleague, helped me come to terms with British role in Greece, but also with the more general problem of the raw power maneuvers of great power states against weaker ones.

By Procopis Papastratis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked British Policy towards Greece during the Second World War 1941-1944 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book examines in detail how British policy towards Greece was formulated and implemented from 1941 to 1944. The defeat of Greece and the fall of the dictatorial regime of General Metaxas confronted the British with new problems, the most important being the reconciliation of military and political objectives. The main political objective was to ensure the continuation of Britain's political influence in Greece after the war. This policy would be greatly facilitated by the restoration of King George, a firm advocate of the British connection, though the King's popularity in Greece had been seriously eroded by his close association…


Explore my book 😀

Anti-Leftist Politics in Modern World History: Avoiding 'Socialism' at All Costs

By Philip B. Minehan,

Book cover of Anti-Leftist Politics in Modern World History: Avoiding 'Socialism' at All Costs

What is my book about?

This book presents an analysis of political hostility against the left in modern world history. 

It argues that the combination of capitalist production and market liberalization constantly creates working class and allied oppositions for purposes of broadly justified self-protection. If those oppositions appear to seriously threaten the practical and ideological terms of the power structure, they face rhetorical and physical attack. Yet labor must survive because it is necessary for capital. Over the past two hundred years, this dynamic expanded worldwide. But it shows self-destructive tendencies, for example, in the two world wars, in the Cold War, neoliberalism, neofascism, and in events such as the January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C. The problem is evident with a vengeance through climate change denial and inaction.

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Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

By Kalvin Thane,

Book cover of Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

Kalvin Thane Author Of Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Artist Reader Gamer Father Coder

Kalvin's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

Unlike the typical tales of a flawless fighting unit, this story follows Commander Kami Trenn and her ragtag squad of mixed-race space marines.

Dog Squad fights a mysterious adversary whose presence remains shrouded in secrecy. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, but will they be able to make enough of a difference?

Can they hope to uncover the enemy’s plans for galactic dominance before the Alliance falls? Maybe. If they can stop fighting each other.

Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

By Kalvin Thane,

What is this book about?

Across the void formed by two galactic spiral arms, vast forces face each other.

The tenuous Alliance, sixty civilizations united only by fear of invasion, prepare to resist the encroachment of their as-yet unseen enemy, known only as the Creeps.

The Void has become a battleground. Three thousand light years across, and populated by a scattering of ten thousand ‘dark’ worlds, it is the Alliance’s last chance to protect their way of life. Self-destructive, robotic drones pour across the Void in ever-increasing numbers, testing the Alliance fleets to breaking point.

In the midst of the surging tides of war, a…


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