100 books like By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean

Bloodlands is a story about the dead. Using archives made available after the break-up of the Soviet Union, Mr. Snyder sheds light on both Stalin’s and Hitler’s brutality.

In a confined area that includes just eastern Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic countries, 14 million civilians died from the 1930s to the end of the war. Most were either starved or shot. Even more startling were the plans to kill millions more.

Stalin said, “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.” Mr. Snyder reminds us of the tragedy.

In his exploration of East Prussia in its final stages, author Max Egremont noted, “This is a part of Europe where boundaries are vague, where names deceive.” (2011; Pg. 220)

It is true across all of Europe but more so in Eastern Europe that ethnic and cultural boundaries often overlap – though nationalists try to claim exclusive domain.

This is a book about one city, today known as Wrocław (in southwestern Poland) which has a rich Polish history – but whose background includes strong German (“Breslau”), Czech (“Vratislav”), Jewish (ברעסלוי /Bresloi), Romany, and even more layers. Often these cultures coexisted, and mixed.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the ethnic complexity of Eastern Europe, and how today’s political borders can give the false impression of simple, clear ethnic boundaries.   

Again, this may be a bit dense reading but Wolff tackles the very notion of “Eastern Europe.”

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that began in the mid-17th century and lasted until about 1800, and it focused on remaking politics. Enlightenment thinkers believed in change and progress, that Europeans were not doomed to suffer under the tyranny of feudal kings.

Wolff explores how these Enlightenment thinkers celebrated an Age of Progress in Western Europe – but were less impressed with the Eastern half. For thinkers like Voltaire, “Eastern Europe” came to mean backward, under-developed, superstitious, and violent Europe.

These thinkers began using this term, “Eastern Europe” in the 1770s to mean “the Other Europe,” like an embarrassing, unwanted sibling. Wolff describes how these attitudes shaped Western policies towards Eastern Europe. 

Look, Eastern European history is messy and complicated, and involves an almost non-stop parade of border changes.

Countries emerge and even dominate, only to disappear two centuries later. (Ever hear of the Avar Khanate, or medieval Halych?)

British historian Eric Hobsbawm noted once how a person born in 1900 in what is today Mukachevo, Ukraine who lived to be 91 years old would have collected over their lifetime the passports of 5 different countries – without ever moving from the house they were born in.

The Magocsi atlas is a wonderful and well-organized introduction to Eastern Europe’s political, ethnic, economic, and etc. borders, laid out in colorful maps that are easily understood. This is a must-have for anyone delving into the region. 

Dennis Stanford one of the Clovis first police, changed his mind about the Clovis first hypothesis after carrying out excavations along the mid-Atlantic coast of North America. This book provides an informed view of pre-Clovis sites, paleo climates, and the possibilities for human migrations between the eastern and western hemispheres via the Atlantic. Evidence for human migrations between the eastern hemisphere known today as Southern France and the Western Hemisphere known today as the Americas during the Pleistocene are supported through rigorous research and possible linkages between stone tools known as Solutrean technologies found in both areas.

In 256 pages Manning tells you about what he calls the “human system.” Nearly half the book is dedicated to the Paleolithic, before farming, cities, and writing, a very unusual feature. Manning is trained as a historian of Africa, and that shines through at many points. He pays lots of attention to migration, languages, and labor history. Unlike most historians, he considers evidence from archeology, linguistics, and genetics as well as written sources. The only drawback to this one is that it is not written in the most accessible or entertaining prose.

Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow is a thought-provoking and insightful book that takes a deep dive into the future of humanity.

Harari's approach to the subject matter is engaging and his arguments are presented with clarity and precision, making it a valuable read for anyone interested in exploring the potential paths of human evolution. The book provides a compelling analysis of how science, technology, and human progress intersect, while also offering ideas and predictions about the future.

The author challenges readers to think about the state of current trends and how we can better shape our future touching on a wide range of topics, from artificial life to overcoming death, and raising important questions about the future of humanity.

I highly recommend this book for its ability to inspire readers to think critically and imaginatively about the future of humanity. Harari's engaging style and accessible language make the book… show more.

Most books about the future are real bummers. Climate change, war, inequality... the problems seem insurmountable. This book helped me get past those feelings. Yes, we’ve royally screwed things up, but in lyrical prose Ackerman shows us that while it was our ingenuity that led us to screw up the environment, it’s also our ingenuity that can fix it, if we accept the challenge and responsibility. “We can become Earth-restorers,” she claims, “and Earth-guardians.” I like that. 

This is the now classic work on why “advanced” civilization developed in some places and not others in human history. It remains a controversial issue.

A psychologist, ecologist, and geographer with a background in field study in New Guinea, Diamond makes a strong argument that there are environmental reasons for these differences. Ranging across all the continents and thousands of years of human history, I found it hard to put down and even harder to understand how Diamond can work in so many fields at once!

Some do not like this daring book. But nobody has surpassed it yet. 

I'm not sure when I have learned more about humanity than with the books of Yuval Harari.

I recommend this book as it is the first of the series, and I could read it over and over and still not have captured everything that Yuval Harari explores and teaches us.

A great historian who uses history to explore our future, Yuval Harari is one whose books I read every chance I have.