100 books like A Short History of Brexit

By Kevin O'Rourke,

Here are 100 books that A Short History of Brexit fans have personally recommended if you like A Short History of Brexit. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union

Jonathan Charteris-Black Author Of Metaphors of Brexit: No Cherries on the Cake?

From my list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

If there was ever one word that seems to have changed the foundations of modern Britain it is the word 'Brexit': something that had seemed so antediluvian shifted from being impossible to becoming reality. I could not believe this was happening and I wanted to explore the influence of language in creating this reality. I decided to apply the approach I had originally authored known as Critical Metaphor Analysis to unravel the metaphors through which the arguments of Leavers and Remainers were articulated. In doing so I tried to tell the story of Brexit through its metaphors because the role of language itself is often overlooked in accounts of persuasion.

Jonathan's book list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit

Jonathan Charteris-Black Why did Jonathan love this book?

I enjoyed reading this comprehensive and convincing account of how people voted in the Brexit referendum. It has an approach rooted in political science and makes effective use of surveys and election results to provide an understanding of the identity of people living in what later became referred to as the ‘Red Wall’ seats – former Labour areas that switched to Conservative often over Brexit. It gave insights into the attitudes and beliefs of those who really had felt left behind.

By Harold D. Clarke, Matthew Goodwin, Paul Whiteley

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In June 2016, the United Kingdom shocked the world by voting to leave the European Union. As this book reveals, the historic vote for Brexit marked the culmination of trends in domestic politics and in the UK's relationship with the EU that have been building over many years. Drawing on a wealth of survey evidence collected over more than ten years, this book explains why most people decided to ignore much of the national and international community and vote for Brexit. Drawing on past research on voting in major referendums in Europe and elsewhere, a team of leading academic experts…


Book cover of Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain

Jonathan Charteris-Black Author Of Metaphors of Brexit: No Cherries on the Cake?

From my list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

If there was ever one word that seems to have changed the foundations of modern Britain it is the word 'Brexit': something that had seemed so antediluvian shifted from being impossible to becoming reality. I could not believe this was happening and I wanted to explore the influence of language in creating this reality. I decided to apply the approach I had originally authored known as Critical Metaphor Analysis to unravel the metaphors through which the arguments of Leavers and Remainers were articulated. In doing so I tried to tell the story of Brexit through its metaphors because the role of language itself is often overlooked in accounts of persuasion.

Jonathan's book list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit

Jonathan Charteris-Black Why did Jonathan love this book?

Written from a standpoint outside of Britain yet offering such great insight, this book offers a highly convincing account of the stupidity of Brexit. The author pours his wrath onto Brexit and Brexiteers and is a brilliant polemicist. It’s well-written and entertaining.

What I like about this book is that, unlike a lot of academic writing, it doesn't pull any punches and the author is rhetorically committed to a single perspective that he adheres to with great consistency.

By Fintan O'Toole,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'There will not be much political writing in this or any other year that is carried off with such style' The Times.

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR.

'A quite brilliant dissection of the cultural roots of the Brexit narrative' David Miliband.
'Hugely entertaining and engrossing' Roddy Doyle.
'Best book about the English that I've read for ages' Billy Bragg.
'A wildly entertaining but uncomfortable read... Pitilessly brilliant' Jonathan Coe.

In exploring the answers to the question: 'why did Britain vote leave?', Fintan O'Toole finds himself discovering how trivial journalistic lies became far from trivial national obsessions; how the pose…


Book cover of Crowds and Power

Jonathan Charteris-Black Author Of Metaphors of Brexit: No Cherries on the Cake?

From my list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

If there was ever one word that seems to have changed the foundations of modern Britain it is the word 'Brexit': something that had seemed so antediluvian shifted from being impossible to becoming reality. I could not believe this was happening and I wanted to explore the influence of language in creating this reality. I decided to apply the approach I had originally authored known as Critical Metaphor Analysis to unravel the metaphors through which the arguments of Leavers and Remainers were articulated. In doing so I tried to tell the story of Brexit through its metaphors because the role of language itself is often overlooked in accounts of persuasion.

Jonathan's book list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit

Jonathan Charteris-Black Why did Jonathan love this book?

I am attracted to books that take a broad theme and examine this across space and time –without being confined to a single academic discipline. Another requirement is that they are written in an elegant and accessible style that commands the reader’s attention. This book originally published in Germany in 1960 satisfies both criteria. It defies ready classification but includes social psychology, social anthropology, and ideas related to myth, ritual, and religion. His concept of ‘the pack’ builds on the abstract notion of ‘the crowd’ and leads to ideas such as ‘transformation.’ As the Brexit vote was a form of crowd behaviour, reading this book helped me understand more about it.

By Elias Canetti,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Crowds and Power is a revolutionary work in which Elias Canetti finds a new way of looking at human history and psychology.

Breathtaking in its range and erudition, it explores Shiite festivals and the English Civil war, the finger exercises of monkeys and the effects of inflation in Weimar Germany. In this study of the interplay of crowds, Canetti offers one of the most profound and startling portraits of the human condition.


Book cover of The Wake

Jonathan Charteris-Black Author Of Metaphors of Brexit: No Cherries on the Cake?

From my list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

If there was ever one word that seems to have changed the foundations of modern Britain it is the word 'Brexit': something that had seemed so antediluvian shifted from being impossible to becoming reality. I could not believe this was happening and I wanted to explore the influence of language in creating this reality. I decided to apply the approach I had originally authored known as Critical Metaphor Analysis to unravel the metaphors through which the arguments of Leavers and Remainers were articulated. In doing so I tried to tell the story of Brexit through its metaphors because the role of language itself is often overlooked in accounts of persuasion.

Jonathan's book list on the truth of the origins, issues, passions of Brexit

Jonathan Charteris-Black Why did Jonathan love this book?

This is a book written in its own language: one that is derived from Old English. It is written from the viewpoint of a Saxon native, a freeman, whose liberty is threatened by the outside world, invaders who respect no moral laws. Through this method, we enter the minds of the protagonist – Buccmaster of Hollandand a worldview is constructed in which the local is in a shifting balance with external sources of power. The book demonstrates how our thoughts and worldviews are realised by, and dependent upon, the language through which they are articulated. Without explicitly intending to do so, it also provides insight into much of the psychology behind Brexit.

By Paul Kingsnorth,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2014 and The Bookseller Industry Book of the Year Award 2015. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Folio Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.

A post-apocalyptic novel set a thousand years ago, The Wake tells the story of Buccmaster of Holland, a free farmer of Lincolnshire, owner of three oxgangs, a man clinging to the Old Gods as the world changes drastically around him. After losing his sons at the Battle of Hastings and his wife and home to the invading Normans, Buccmaster begins to gather together…


Book cover of Brexitland

Peter Foster Author Of What Went Wrong With Brexit: And What We Can Do About It

From my list on Britain after Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist who spent 15 years reporting from all over the world – Kabul, Baghdad, New Delhi, Beijing, Washington D.C. – returning to London in 2015 to report on the UK’s relations with Europe. Then Brexit happened. As a reporter, I’d chronicled the rise of China and India after 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, but I’d failed to understand how far Britain had been consumed by the forces of populism that have roiled all Western democracies. I’ve spent the last eight years reporting on the fallout, from both sides of the English Channel; trying to unpack what went wrong, and see what we can do about it.

Peter's book list on Britain after Brexit

Peter Foster Why did Peter love this book?

This book by Maria Sobolewska and Rob Ford – two political scientists at Manchester University – is superlative at unpacking the underlying political currents that fuelled the Brexit vote of 2016.

Of course there were lots of immediate factors that led to the vote to leave, but this book puts the underlying Brexit culture war in its historical context, mixing data and polling insights with forensic analysis.

What you start to see is that the decision of both Tory and Labour politicians to weaponise both EU membership and immigration slowly laid the foundations for Brexit to become the lightning rod issue that has set UK politics on fire these last seven years.

By Maria Sobolewska, Robert Ford,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Brexitland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarisation and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity and diversity. They argue that choices made by political parties from the New Labour era onwards have mobilised these divisions into politics, first through conflicts over immigration, then through conflicts over the European Union, culminating in the…


Book cover of The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History

John Tilston Author Of Meanjin to Brisvegas: Snapshots of Brisbane's Journey from Colonial Backwater to New World City

From my list on British history beyond cliche, ideology, and spin.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a former journalist. I’m nosey. I like to know what’s going on around me. I like to know how the place I live in has evolved. I was born in the UK, but was taken to southern Africa as a child, so grew up with English parents in a colony of the former British empire. I moved to another former colony - Australia. I worked and lived in London for several years. In all of these places I have been fascinated by the history that shaped them. The books I have recommended and the research I did on my own have all helped me understand my place in the universe.

John's book list on British history beyond cliche, ideology, and spin

John Tilston Why did John love this book?

The Brexit debate in Britain became bogged down in sentiment and myths.

All sorts of people brought up features of imagined history and former glories. Much of it was baloney, but it was not always possible to detect. This scholarly, evidence-based book guided me to a new understanding and appreciation of how my homeland developed over the 20th Century; it overturned some long-held assumptions.

I don’t believe anyone who wishes to understand those times can ignore this book.

By David Edgerton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Rise and Fall of the British Nation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Forget almost everything you thought you knew about Britain ... You will not find a better informed history' David Goodhart, Evening Standard

'A striking new perspective on our past' Piers Brendon, Literary Review

From the acclaimed author of Britain's War Machine and The Shock of the Old, a bold reassessment of Britain's twentieth century.

It is usual to see the United Kingdom as an island of continuity in an otherwise convulsed and unstable Europe; its political history a smooth sequence of administrations, from building a welfare state to coping with decline. Nobody would dream of writing the history of Germany,…


Book cover of What Do We Know and What Should We Do About the Irish Border?

Peter Foster Author Of What Went Wrong With Brexit: And What We Can Do About It

From my list on Britain after Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist who spent 15 years reporting from all over the world – Kabul, Baghdad, New Delhi, Beijing, Washington D.C. – returning to London in 2015 to report on the UK’s relations with Europe. Then Brexit happened. As a reporter, I’d chronicled the rise of China and India after 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, but I’d failed to understand how far Britain had been consumed by the forces of populism that have roiled all Western democracies. I’ve spent the last eight years reporting on the fallout, from both sides of the English Channel; trying to unpack what went wrong, and see what we can do about it.

Peter's book list on Britain after Brexit

Peter Foster Why did Peter love this book?

As a young reporter in the mid-1990s, I cut my teeth reporting the end of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ and the eventual signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement peace deal. That deal was based around a constitutional ambiguity that was rocked by the Brexit vote.

This pithy volume by Queen's University Belfast politics professor Katy Hayward manages to blend absolute concision and with ambition, tracing the history of the Irish border that found itself at the heart of the UK’s often bitter Brexit negotiations with Europe.

Amid so much rhetoric, Hayward trades only in the facts while carefully framing the future choices that Brexit might bring to Northern Ireland.

By Katy Hayward,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Do We Know and What Should We Do About the Irish Border? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Irish border is a manifestation of the relationship between Britain and Ireland. When that relationship has been tense, we have seen the worst effects at the Irish border in the form of violence, controls and barriers. When the relationship has been good, the Irish border has become - to all intents and purposes - open, invisible and criss-crossed with connections. Throughout its short existence, the symbolism of the border has remained just as important as its practical impact.

With the UK's exit from the European Union, the challenge of managing the Irish border as a source and a symbol…


Book cover of Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Winston Churchill's Famous Speeches

Robert Schmuhl Author Of Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents

From my list on Winston Churchill’s life and affection for the US.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since my high school days, I’ve considered Winston Churchill the most intriguing figure in world history. He told someone who admired his paintings, “Genius has many outlets.” In his case, he was not only a talented artist but also a politician, statesman, author, and orator. While doing research for my last book, I came across references to Churchill’s visits to the White House to meet with Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. No one had ever closely investigated these sojourns at critical times of WW II and the Cold War. A book was born.

Robert's book list on Winston Churchill’s life and affection for the US

Robert Schmuhl Why did Robert love this book?

At a time when public figures invariably delegate speechwriting to anonymous wordsmiths, Churchill is a throwback to an earlier era when a speaker’s oratory was the original work of the speaker. In Churchill’s case, he knew what he composed would project his voice (and thinking) more compellingly than any “ghosted” text.

The noted American broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once observed that Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” The speeches he dictated and then carefully revised were the principal reasons he was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature.

By Winston Churchill,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The most eloquent and expressive statesman of his time - phrases such as 'iron curtain', 'business as usual', 'the few', and 'summit meeting' passed quickly into everyday use - Winston Churchill used language as his most powerful weapon at a time when his most frequent complaint was that the armoury was otherwise empty.

In this volume, David Cannadine selects thirty-three orations ranging over fifty years, demonstrating how Churchill gradually hones his rhetoric until the day when, with spectacular effect, 'he mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle' (Edward R. Murrow).


Book cover of Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War and Tyranny

Martin Hutchinson Author Of Britain's Greatest Prime Minister: Lord Liverpool

From my list on Regency politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

More than 40 years ago, I first started writing a book on great ‘Tory’ leaders throughout history, several of whom were inexorably tied to this Regency period. Having never lost interest in the topic I continued to study the period and its political life and found a way to parlay experience from my career in finance and international business into a biography of the most economically proficient Prime Minister Britain has ever had. Research for that biography as well as for future Industrial Revolution-related books on which I am currently working has resulted in a broad and fruitful list of books on the period's politics.

Martin's book list on Regency politics

Martin Hutchinson Why did Martin love this book?

John Bew’s biography of Clement Attlee is superb, this biography of Castlereagh, “perhaps the greatest of all Britain’s foreign secretaries” (Andrew Roberts) is even better. Castlereagh is a Regency politician’s Regency politician; he fought a duel against the devious Canning and when informed he was popular, replied that unpopularity was “more convenient and gentlemanlike.” He also, with Liverpool’s help and support, designed a peace settlement that lasted in essentials for 100 years, based on principles of legitimacy and lack of vengefulness that his successors at the 1919 Congress of Versailles would have done well to follow. Bew writes beautifully; this is a great biography of a very great man.

By John Bew,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

No British statesman of the nineteenth century reached the same level of international fame as Lord Castlereagh, or won as much respect from the great powers of Europe or America. Yet no British statesman has been so maligned by his contemporaries or hated by the public. His career took him from the brutal suppression of a bloody rebellion in Ireland to the splendour of Vienna and Paris. He imprisoned his former friends, abolished the Irish parliament, created the biggest British army in history, and redrew the map of Europe. At a time when the West turns from idealism to realism…


Book cover of The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers

David P. Oakley Author Of Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post-Cold War Relationship

From my list on history, personalities, activities of intelligence.

Why am I passionate about this?

My fascination with intelligence studies is tied to my previous experience as a practitioner. While serving as a military officer and CIA officer, I became curious about how two organizations with a shared history could be so different. Exploring the “why” of the CIA/DoD differences led me to the broader interplay of organizational cultures, individuals, and missions in influencing the evolution of intelligence, its purpose, and its role. These five books will provide the reader a broader appreciation of how intelligence was used to help policymakers understand reality and how intelligence organizations have been used to try to change reality. You will not merely learn something about intelligence but will be entertained and engaged while doing so. 

David's book list on history, personalities, activities of intelligence

David P. Oakley Why did David love this book?

I am fascinated by how different countries approach intelligence, both from how they organize intelligence activities and how intelligence informs policymaking. These various approaches highlight there is not a common approach to intelligence and help explain why simple definitions of intelligence are insufficient at capturing various intelligence activities and organizations. The Black Door looks at how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence and their relationships with intelligence organizations over the past century. A well-written account by two thoughtful and prolific scholars, the reader will appreciate how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence to not only understand the world but to also act.  

By Richard J. Aldrich, Rory Cormac,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith's Secret Service Bureau to Cameron's National Security Council.

Intelligence can do a prime minister's dirty work. For more than a century, secret wars have been waged directly from Number 10. They have staved off conflict, defeats and British decline through fancy footwork, often deceiving friend and foe alike. Yet as the birth of the modern British secret service in 1909, prime ministers were strangers to the secret world - sometimes with disastrous consequences. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill oversaw a…


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