71 books like After Tamerlane

This book is part of a new genre of global history and provides enough of a historical sweep to acquaint the non-historian with a view that is not dominated by the nation state as its unit of analysis and Europe as the apex of world historical change. 

It’s an accessible work that fills in a lot of gaps in world historical knowledge that often exist because our myths of historical change (like modernization or development) keep us focused on ‘the west’ and ‘the state’.

From my point of view, it’s no longer politically acceptable to be ignorant of history in India, Africa, or the Middle East, by way of example, before European colonization. Viewed through the lens of empire, world history looks very different, and this book shows how doing so is a myth-busting exercise.

Taking us away from cities, this book will set your eyes on how these cities and their trades fit within a global framework. Kenneth Pomeranz argues that the key was the Americas which allowed Europe to engage in further specialization, and the fortunate location of coal in Britain, the country that started the industrial revolution. This industrial revolution was the key difference that led to the dominance of the West in global affairs.

I love Anderson’s narrative about the formation of nations in the 19th Century and what he calls print capitalism, promoted through books and newspapers. A market organised around the same language fosters both the economy and the very much-needed feeling of community required to organise the state and foster industrial capitalism.

More than four decades after its publication, the book remains thought-provoking as it makes me ask whether a single language suffices to hold nations and markets together.

So, what, exactly is this ‘world’ or ‘global history’? Authors slap the two words on their books, universities offer new courses in it, and government officials across the planet now speak of ‘global this’ and ‘global that’. One could be forgiven for throwing up one’s hands in exasperation for failing to understand what exactly these two words mean. That is until Sebastian Conrad published this gem of a book aptly entitled: What is Global History? Yes, it’s a bit academic, but it’s also clearly written, logically organized, and succeeds brilliantly in explaining what global history is and is not without losing the reader in theoretical jargon. If you want to try something beyond the ‘nation’ and ‘empire’, Conrad’s global history is a great place to start.

I learned, to my great surprise, that instead of being isolated from the world Russian ideas, thinkers, artists, revolutionaries, and political movements changed the world in many ways.

I found interesting stories about Russian anarchists in Japan, Russian ballet dancers in France, Bolsheviks in Mexico, and antisemitic thinkers in Europe in this book. And I was completely engrossed by the movements of Russians and Russian ideas across the globe.

The result is a book that you cannot put down because it challenges everything that you thought you knew about Russia and Russian history. After reading the book, I felt more informed and better educated.  

Reading Kate Brown’s book scared me silly, but it was so gripping and so well-written that I couldn’t put it down no matter how hard I tried.

Who knew that the executives and the scientists in the nuclear power industry in the United States and the Soviet Union were so similarly ruthless in their approach to the environment and so careless about the lives of workers? And, who knew that in our quest for the good life or plutopia, we could be so indifferent to the looming ecological dangers that surround us?

Kate Brown’s’ vivid descriptions, details of travels to inaccessible and exotic locales, first-person interviews, and emotional analysis of survivor stories make an enormously complicated subject come alive.

Ilf and Petrov were Soviet-era funny men, comedians, and satirists who dared to tell a few truths about the horrors of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. They also wrote a delightful travel book (One Storied America) about the United States in the 1930s.

Lisa Kirschenbaum takes us behind Ilf and Petrov’s 10,000-mile American road trip. Kirschenbaum introduces us to the many people that Ilf and Petrov met in Depression-era America: immigrant workers, famous filmmakers, poets, and revolutionaries, and analyzes their experiences in the country of their dreams.

Kirschenbaum’s insightful observations about the Soviet Union and the United States during this seminal decade are worth considering today.

Did young communists fall in love, conduct passionate affairs under the noses of disapproving commissars, and break every revolutionary rule in the book?

The topic seemed so fascinating that I read Elizabeth McGuire’s book in one sitting. She took me on an exciting journey with a generation of young Chinese revolutionaries who were swept up in the maelstrom of the Russian revolution. I learned how they were seduced by the Russian language, how they devoured great works of Russian literature, and the writings of revolutionaries, terrorists, and anarchists.

The stories of Chinese students as translators, educators, and aspiring revolutionaries, as well as their experiences, love affairs, and adventures in the Soviet Union, really gripped my imagination. This was a novel way of understanding Russia's special friendship and enmity with China.

This book epitomizes what I want in a book! The worldbuilding has a degree of depth, breadth, and imagination that has kept me coming back for multiple rereads. While the world is fascinating, and the magic system is evocative and intriguing, they are not what put this story at the top of my reading list. 

Character. I love it when there is a full cast of complex characters to get lost in, and Sanderson can (and does) teach a master class on how to write unforgettable characters. The character motivations, the “Why” behind what they are doing, is so profoundly believable if not relatable. Every single character has a past that is drip-fed throughout the story, gradually delivering the formative wounds that made the characters who they are. That so many are written well in one book is just a bonus.

And this by no means detracts from the plot.… show more.

My sister has always teased me about my love of men in dark capes (Darth Vader and the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera especially). Combine that—shall we say—preference with my fascination with the tarot, courtly intrigue, and a young woman’s quest to embrace her inner darkness while determining her own destiny and bam! You have Rachel Gillig’s One Dark Window.

One of my favorite things about this novel is that it surprised me, which doesn’t happen easily. From the first embedded fairy tale rhyme, Gillig sweeps her readers away into a mist-cloaked kingdom struggling for its very survival, both desperate for and hidden by the magic of the forest that looms beyond its misty borders.