100 books like A Study of History

This book (actually, this series of volumes) is of course an epic and a classic. And deservedly so—even though most scholars no longer find Gibbon’s account of the causes of Rome’s fall persuasive. 

Right or wrong, the book is a model of a study that is both immersed (sometimes admiringly and sometimes caustically) in individual characters and episodes and yet also intensely interested in the big picture. And the elegant, witty prose makes the book a pleasure to read. 

Analyses of modern Western decline often look for parallels in ancient Rome, and Gibbon’s study is almost a mandatory point of departure.

Barzun, who lived to be 104, was in his lifetime possibly the most erudite human being on the planet. 

And this book, published when he was much younger (as a spry 93-year-old) is an almost perfect history of the modern age: a superb, readable sort-of survey that is not surveyish but rather earnestly engaged with themes that were important in the 16th-century beginnings of our modern civilization and are important still. 

Barzun doesn’t seem to be a gloomy naysayer, and he admires and appreciates the achievements of Western civilization; but as his title suggests, he came to believe that the culture is exhausted and unraveling. An informative and provocative read!

I don’t read many novels – my work doesn’t leave me much time – but I’ve had to make time for Percy.

His novels are full of intriguing characters, vivid and natural dialogue, and masterfully controlled plots; and in both his fiction and his essays and interviews he offers a trenchant diagnosis of the ills of modern life. Love in the Ruins is borderline sci-fi and quasi-apocalyptic.

Its protagonist, Tom More (a proud if decadent descendant of Sir and Saint Thomas More) lives in an American society much like our own, which is on the verge of collapse even though most of its residents don’t perceive the problem. The book is at the same time compelling, profoundly insightful, and hilarious.

This book, which I read in my first year as an academic, has powerfully influenced my thinking ever since – more than any other scholarly book, probably.

It is the best treatment I know of that not only diagnoses and explains the futility of modern moral thinking – an ailment that is as apparent in public political debates as in academy philosophy – but also explains how we got here.

In addition, the book offers cogent insights into much else that is wrong with modern culture and politics. And although After Virtue is not exactly light reading, it is succinct, occasionally eloquent, and sometimes wickedly funny.

If you love Italy—and if you don't love it now, you definitely will—after reading this engaging, vibrant tribute to Italy! Knighted by the President of Italy for her writing about Italy, author Dianne Hales describes the native, inherent passion of Italians—la passione italiana— as the source and nurturer of our civilization's love for art, music, architecture, cars, ceramics, sculpture, design, literature, film, food, and wine. Bursting with talent and passion, the legacy of Italian passion for life in our culture is ubiquitous and all-encompassing. Italy and its passion itself have taken hold of our imaginations, and your imagination will take you directly to la bella Italia, as it did for me, while reading this engaging book.

History isn’t just “what happened.” Trillions of things happened. History is about the patterns to be found among those trillions of facts. Getting at such patterns means following deep themes, and what could be deeper than ideas? Watson explores when, where, how, and why significant ideas emerged in history, how ideas led to more ideas, to inventions, to cultural changes…we witness the emergence of a soul as a concept, we’re there to see Freud construct his tripartite model of the human psyche… Every idea is part of a thread and this book is woven of many threads. 

This book is the symbol of intellectual brilliance and honesty and one which argues that if we are to preserve western civilization, we must restore historical truth as the center of historical inquiry.

I will advertise this magnificent book with a quote: “Looking into the most fearsome abysses of modern times, the historian sees not beasts but faceless bureaucrats, not corpses but statistics, not willful acts of brutality and murder but the banal routine of everyday life, not gas chambers and gulags but military-industrial-geopolitical complexes.” The reader also will learn why. 

The reader also will learn why footnotes disappeared from history books. A book to be enjoyed and savored when in a contemplative mood.

Much of what we do and think comes from imagination, generated by our minds rather than by the physical world. This includes art, literature, music, religion, even science. Our dreams are spontaneous acts of creativity, and even memory itself can be distorted by the restless mind.  Fernandez-Armesto argues that many animals have better memories than we do, because the human system produces spontaneously creative thoughts at the expense of fidelity. That’s why memories are often false. The author is a historian with an interest in how the mind works, and his book is an amazingly comprehensive history of the human imagination.

Shortly after it was first published, I picked this book up in the bookstore at Heathrow on my way home from a business trip. I spent the entire flight glued to it and laughing out loud.

This was Bryson’s first travel book and one that changed my perception of what travel writing could be. It is perceptive, irreverent, and focuses on the small, often quirky, details that make travel so interesting. I am now a huge fan of all of Bryson’s books, but this was the one that got me hooked.

Eric does a fantastic job of connecting Nordic and Scandinavian cultures with the Minnesotan and American cultures within my state. Living in Minnesota, I’m always interested in books that discuss cultural or societal norms like the ones I interact with on a daily basis.

I truly enjoyed broadening my knowledge on this search!