100 books like Holy Russia and Christian Europe

The separation of Christianity into a Roman Catholic and an Orthodox branch is a topic that conventionally has not received extensive treatment in Western scholarship.

The history of the relationship between these two branches of Christianity is also conventionally narrated from within Western lenses.

In this regard, this book is an invaluable corrective: It describes four critical and formative centuries of religious history from within the viewpoint of Orthodox Christianity.

It is an authoritative, indispensable study for understanding historical events (such as the Crusades and the Great Schism) from a perspective quite different from conventional Western histories of Christianity.

Although the faith has a history of nearly two centuries in the New World, to this day, there are only a handful of books about Orthodox Christianity in North America.

Among them, this is an easy-to-read monograph that offers a narrative of the faith’s history in the New World, going all the way back to the first Alaskan communities and later on to the institution of ethnic churches in the 19th and 20th century US.

The author offers a succinct overview of the important developments within various US-based ethnic communities and of 21st-century challenges. It is highly recommended because of the depth and breadth of its coverage.

John Meyendorff’s works are indispensable for understanding the theology and history of Orthodox Christianity. 

While several of his contributions belong to the must-read list for students of Orthodox Christianity, this book in particular offers a lucid account and an indispensable introduction to the broader and enduring problematic regarding the deep-seated connections between Byzantium and the historical development of the Orthodox Church.

The book addresses a series of historical events rarely researched and studied and it is a pioneer work highly suited for scholars of religious history.

This is perhaps the most informative and lucid account of a major historical event in Russia’s religious history.

Patriarch Nikon’s reforms caused a major split in Russia and the formation of Old Believers. Needless to say, Nikon’s reforms remain a hot topic in Russia’s religious history up to the present.

In this careful and quite detailed study, the author reconstructs the entire process of the two successive councils that led to the schism and addresses the complex relations among the Court, the Patriarch, and other religious and non-religious actors.

It is written in a detailed and very careful manner that allows the reader to grasp the author’s rationale.

The book offers newfound insights onto the dynamics that propelled the reforms and the reasons that led to their rejection, leading to the formation of the Old Believers.

This engaging graphic novel follows twelve-year-old Dasha as she is forced to separate from her mom who leaves for America to make a better life for the two of them. The spare yet touching text brings us into Dasha’s world in Russia and her fears and hopes for a new life. Based on Tolstikova’s own experiences, the book draws the reader into Dasha’s fears and joys.

So often, the ‘strong woman’ character is in fact just a really rude, self-centered person, but not here. In Julia Ash’s The ELI Chronicles series, Ruby is a kind-hearted, brilliant scientist trying to do what’s right for her family and for the world. She’s also a great mother and is in a healthy, wholesome marriage with a supportive husband. That’s wonderfully refreshing amidst the plethora of toxic relationships we see in movies and books.

Suspicious of biography, Malcolm dissects various myths about Chekhov’s death in this engaging book that mixes travel writing with acute readings of Chekhov’s stories and plays. As Malcolm visits some of the places crucial to Chekhov’s life and work (the scenes in Ukraine are of course poignant), she moves seamlessly between her own everyday experiences and the predicaments of Chekhov’s characters. In amongst the despair, disappointment, and absurdity she discovers beauty, humor, and occasional visions of hope.

As a child of the eighties I grew up in the Cold War, where the Soviet Union was the enemy…but most Americans didn’t know anything about it. 

Gorky Park peeled back the curtain on the day-to-day lives of a few not-so-average Russians. The hugely successful novel features Moscow policeman Arkady Renko investigating a murder that has international repercussions. This novel opened a window into a foreign world that few people in the West had ever seen—in addition to being very smartly written. 

Even today this novel is fascinating, and it spawned half a dozen more sequels starring Renko.

Walter Benjamin was a Jewish German philosopher who escaped Nazi Germany only to commit suicide upon arrival in Spain.

This book captures an earlier time in his life, when he was still hopeful, an idealist in search of intellectual adventures and political transformation. He went to Moscow to define his political vision and found a city both seductive and elusive. The intense winter scenes in the deep Muscovite cold are unforgettable, even though he mentions them almost in passing.

Benjamin had another reason to go to Moscow: he was in love. But the woman he wished to pursue was also elusive, unavailable both in practical and emotional terms. The book speaks to the fascination Western leftist intellectuals have had with Russian culture and politics, turning to Russia as an alternative to a corrupt West.

Benjamin’s reflections about philosophy, history, and the Moscow of the 1920s makes me fantasize about our… show more.