100 books like Joseph Mazzini

By Giuseppe Mazzini,

Here are 100 books that Joseph Mazzini fans have personally recommended if you like Joseph Mazzini. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770-1945)

Dean Kostantaras Author Of Nationalism and Revolution in Europe, 1763-1848

From my list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a pretty poor student in high school and college but did reasonably well in my history classes. Much of the credit goes to a few inspired teachers who, at least in memory, made me feel that I was a witness at every turn to some grand Gibbonesque moment of truth. Perhaps they aroused in my mind the wonderful prospect of a life spent roaming unfettered in the realm of ideas. In reality, much else comes with the territory but it is nevertheless true that we academic historians get to use up a fair number of unpoliced hours doing just that. Mine have largely been expended on problems of collective identity and the formation of national movements.

Dean's book list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world

Dean Kostantaras Why did Dean love this book?

The sources found in Collective Identities illustrate how national ideas were received, fashioned, and conveyed by thinkers in many parts of Europe during the modern era. Each volume also includes a number of opening essays and chapter introductions which provide helpful references to additional foundational texts and matters of historical context. In sum, the volumes perform the very valuable service of introducing readers to some common elements in many ‘discourses’ from the period as well as important local variations in style and content.

By Diana Mishkova (editor), Marius Turda (editor), Balazs Trencsenyi (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770-1945) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This volume represents the first in a series of four books, a daring project by CEU Press, which presents the most important texts that triggered and shaped the processes of nation-building in the many countries of Central and Southeast Europe. The series brings together scholars from Austria, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, the Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. The editors have created a new interpretative synthesis that challenges the self-centered and "isolationist" historical narratives and educational canons prevalent in the region, in the spirit of "coming to terms with…


Book cover of Nationalism

Dean Kostantaras Author Of Nationalism and Revolution in Europe, 1763-1848

From my list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a pretty poor student in high school and college but did reasonably well in my history classes. Much of the credit goes to a few inspired teachers who, at least in memory, made me feel that I was a witness at every turn to some grand Gibbonesque moment of truth. Perhaps they aroused in my mind the wonderful prospect of a life spent roaming unfettered in the realm of ideas. In reality, much else comes with the territory but it is nevertheless true that we academic historians get to use up a fair number of unpoliced hours doing just that. Mine have largely been expended on problems of collective identity and the formation of national movements.

Dean's book list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world

Dean Kostantaras Why did Dean love this book?

Tagore (1861-1941) is generally known as a Nobel Prize-winning poet, but he was also a frequent commentator on contemporary political affairs and the crises of his age. Nationalism, which was composed over the years 1916-17, features long ruminations on imperialism, modernity, and the question of Indian independence, among other subjects of pressing interest to Tagore and his contemporaries. Each chapter affords the reader with an opportunity to experience in full the author’s talents as he strives to put into words his vision for a future shaped neither by "the colourless vagueness of cosmopolitanism, nor the fierce self-idolatry of nation-worship." Instructors may find the work to be an especially valuable resource for stimulating class discussions.

By Rabindranath Tagore,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Nationalism' by Rabindranath Tagore is a compilation of lectures written in lucid, metaphoric, poetic prose during the 'First World War' and the 'Swadeshi movement' in India. It explicates the idea of moral and spiritual growth for the welfare of people, making it even more relevant in today's environment of violence. These lectures bear testimony of its eternity and cannot be wrapped or concealed under the influence of ancient limitations of historical consideration.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a renowned poet, musician, polymath, Ayurveda-researcher and an artist who recast music, Bengali literature and Indian art in the late 19th and early 20th…


Book cover of Nationalism in Asia and Africa

Dean Kostantaras Author Of Nationalism and Revolution in Europe, 1763-1848

From my list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a pretty poor student in high school and college but did reasonably well in my history classes. Much of the credit goes to a few inspired teachers who, at least in memory, made me feel that I was a witness at every turn to some grand Gibbonesque moment of truth. Perhaps they aroused in my mind the wonderful prospect of a life spent roaming unfettered in the realm of ideas. In reality, much else comes with the territory but it is nevertheless true that we academic historians get to use up a fair number of unpoliced hours doing just that. Mine have largely been expended on problems of collective identity and the formation of national movements.

Dean's book list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world

Dean Kostantaras Why did Dean love this book?

Kedourie (1926-1992) was a scholar of Middle Eastern history who also exerted quite an influence upon the field of nationalism studies. This was achieved through his famous Nationalism and the follow-up project cited here. The diverse sources collected in Nationalism in Asia and Africa are introduced with a lengthy opening essay in which Kedourie attempts to account for the ‘family resemblance’ among the movements in question (mainly of late 19th and early 20th-century vintage). The sources themselves are far from ordinary. See for example document 17, which details the final days of an imprisoned Egyptian political dissident – these spent pouring over a few prized works (Bagehot, Rousseau, a volume of Arabic poetry, and the Koran) and scratching out with his boot lace a plan for the "constitution of a Muslim government." Kedourie can indeed surprise and intrigue the reader with his choices.

By Elie Kedourie (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Nationalism in Asia and Africa as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Published in the year 1974, Nationalism in Asia and Africa is a valuable contribution to the field of Middle Eastern Studies.


Book cover of In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West

Dean Kostantaras Author Of Nationalism and Revolution in Europe, 1763-1848

From my list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a pretty poor student in high school and college but did reasonably well in my history classes. Much of the credit goes to a few inspired teachers who, at least in memory, made me feel that I was a witness at every turn to some grand Gibbonesque moment of truth. Perhaps they aroused in my mind the wonderful prospect of a life spent roaming unfettered in the realm of ideas. In reality, much else comes with the territory but it is nevertheless true that we academic historians get to use up a fair number of unpoliced hours doing just that. Mine have largely been expended on problems of collective identity and the formation of national movements.

Dean's book list on the spread of nationalism in the modern world

Dean Kostantaras Why did Dean love this book?

This book was recommended to me in graduate school and was a natural fit for the kind of comparative research I was then busy with concerning the global dispersion of national ideas among cultural elites in the nineteenth century. That story is contextualized here through an examination of the life and thought of Yen Fu (1854-1921). Shwartz's work was immediately praised as a model for such a study and continues to appear frequently in bibliographies and course reading lists.

By Benjamin I. Schwartz,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In a serious effort to divine the secret of the West's success in achieving wealth and power, Yen Fu, a Chinese thinker, undertook, at the turn of the century, years of laborious translation and commentary on the work of such thinkers as Spencer, Huxley, Adam Smith, Mill, and Montesquieu. In addition to the inevitable difficulties involved in translating modern English into classical Chinese, Yen Fu was faced with the formidable problem of interpreting and making palatable many Western ideas which were to a large extent antithetical to traditional Chinese thought.

In an absorbing study of Yen Fu's translations, essays, and…


Book cover of Politics of the Sword: Dueling, Honor, and Masculinity in Modern Italy

David S. Parker Author Of The Pen, the Sword, and the Law: Dueling and Democracy in Uruguay

From my list on dueling that explain why people fought duels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a social and legal historian of late 19th and early 20th Century Latin America, and the majority of my work is about the emergence of the middle class. I first got interested in researching dueling because I had the idea that the duel probably played a role in creating and enforcing a social dividing line between the upper elite and the middle class. But once I got immersed in the historical documents I realized how wrong my initial hypothesis had been, how little dueling had to do with social class, and how much it was about maintaining—or sometimes gaming for advantage—the norms of decorum in politics and the press.

David's book list on dueling that explain why people fought duels

David S. Parker Why did David love this book?

This study of Italian dueling from 1860s unification to 1930s Fascism makes a convincing case that the duel was not some holdover from an aristocratic past, but a modern phenomenon that arose out of liberal politics and a free press. The book covers Italy’s long and active debate about how to curb a practice that clearly violated the law but was rarely ever punished in practice. When I first read this book I was in the middle of my own research, and Hughes was the first writer who seemed to get everything right, or at least to have discovered for Italy the same things that I was finding for South America. A great window into dueling and an even better window into liberal Italy and its politics.

By Steven C. Hughes,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Following its creation as a country in 1861, Italy experienced a wave of dueling that led commentators to bemoan a national “duellomania” evidenced by the sad spectacle of a duel a day. Pamphlets with titles like “Down with the Duel” and “The Shame of the Duel” all communicated the passion of those who could not believe that a people supposedly just returned to the path of progress and civilization had wholeheartedly embraced such a “barbaric” custom. Yet these critics were consistently countered by sober-minded men of rank and influence who felt that the duel was necessary for the very health…


Book cover of Warlight

Amanda Hale Author Of Mad Hatter, Volume 164

From my list on human relations in the altered reality of wartime.

Why am I passionate about this?

The writing of Mad Hatter (my 7th book), was fueled by curiosity about WW2 and about my absent father. I emigrated to Canada as a young woman and pursued a career in the Arts – theatre, painting, writing. But only when I embarked on this fictionalized family story did I begin to uncover shocking family secrets as I pulled together threads of childhood memory, woven in with research material, trying to make sense of it all. Writing has literally saved my life, and Mad Hatter has liberated me in a manner I could never have predicted. I am an intense, passionate workaholic, writing in many genres, exulting in life's surprises!

Amanda's book list on human relations in the altered reality of wartime

Amanda Hale Why did Amanda love this book?

Since my own novel is set partly in post-war England, I was drawn to Ondaatje’s Warlight, which begins in 1945 London as the city is recovering from brutal bombing. Another hook for me was the youthful characters; my book is also populated with war-confused children. Ondaatje’s narrator, 14-year-old Nathaniel, recalls his youth with the benefit of adult wisdom. He and his sister Rachel are abandoned by their parents to the care of some eccentric and slightly dangerous characters. Their teen years are marked by many mysterious events and experiences, only beginning to clarify in retrospect. Do we ever know what’s really happening?

By Michael Ondaatje,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

**LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018**

An elegiac novel set in post-WW2 London about memory, family secrets and lies, from the internationally acclaimed author of The English Patient

It is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women all who seem determined to protect Rachel and Nathaniel.…


Book cover of Domenico Mancini: De Occupatione Regni Anglie

Philippa Langley Author Of The Lost King: The Search for Richard III

From my list on Richard III by the writer who discovered his grave.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a British writer/producer with a 30-year interest in Richard III (1452-1485). A visit to Bosworth Field, the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses changed my life irrevocably. This haunting place captured my imagination and with it the story of the last Plantagenet monarch who died fighting in this small corner of Leicestershire for crown and country.

Philippa's book list on Richard III by the writer who discovered his grave

Philippa Langley Why did Philippa love this book?

Domenico Mancini was an Italian visitor to London in 1483 who witnessed Richard III’s rise from Protector to King, and wrote the only genuinely contemporary account. His short narrative, less than 7,000 words, is so important that it’s used and quoted by every commentator who has anything to say about Richard III. This translation renders Mancini up-to-date and accessible for today’s readers. 

By D. Mancini, Annette Carson (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Annette Carson, a member of the team that found Richard III s grave, has produced this new edition of Mancini s important eyewitness report. Domenico Mancini was an Italian visitor to London in 1483 who witnessed Richard III s rise from Protector to King, and wrote the only genuinely contemporary account.
His short narrative, less than 7,000 words, was originally published in the 1930s in an edition that, for modern historians, leaves much to be desired. The title and a number of key passages were mistranslated. In addition, Mancini s misunderstanding of England s laws and governance, and his omission…


Book cover of If I Never Met You

Clodagh Murphy Author Of For Love or Money

From my list on fake relationship romcoms.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an Irish author of romantic comedy and I’m passionate about the genre. I love smart, intelligent romcoms that are full of fun, with witty dialogue, sharp observations, and a great spark between the main characters. One of my favourite romance tropes is the fake relationship, because I’m not a fan of instalove and pretending to be in a relationship gives the characters a reason to spend a lot of time together until they gradually realise they’re perfect for each other. It also offers so much scope for comedy, with seemingly mismatched characters thrown together in awkward situations. Fun times guaranteed! 

Clodagh's book list on fake relationship romcoms

Clodagh Murphy Why did Clodagh love this book?

Mhairi McFarlane is a go-to author for me. I love her witty turn of phrase, and her characters and settings are always so real and relatable. Laurie is a great female protagonist, with a meaningful career and a loyal circle of friends, and I like that she’s shown to have a full, rounded life outside of her romantic relationships. There’s sparky dialogue, emotional depth, a very hot leading man, and fantastic chemistry between the two leads that fizzes off the page. 

By Mhairi McFarlane,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked If I Never Met You as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

If faking love is this easy... how do you know when it's real?

The brand new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Mhairi McFarlane

Laurie and Jamie have the perfect office romance
(They set the rules via email)

Everyone can see they're head over heels
(They staged the photos)

This must be true love
(They're faking it)

When Laurie is dumped by her partner of eighteen years, she's blindsided. Not only does she feel humiliated, they still have to work together.

So when she gets stuck in the lift with handsome colleague Jamie, they hatch a plan to stage the…


Book cover of The Embarrassment of Slavery: Controversies Over Bondage and Nationalism in the American Colonial Philippines

Ulbe Bosma Author Of The Making of a Periphery: How Island Southeast Asia Became a Mass Exporter of Labor

From my list on slavery in Asia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I find it crucially important that we acknowledge that slavery is a global phenomenon that still exists this very day. Dutch historians like me have an obligation to show that the Dutch East India Company, called the world’s first multinational, was a major slave trader and employer of slavery. I am also personally involved in this endeavour as I am one of the leaders of the “Exploring the Slave Trade in Asia” project, an international consortium that brings together knowledge on this subject, and is currently a slave trade in Asia database.

Ulbe's book list on slavery in Asia

Ulbe Bosma Why did Ulbe love this book?

Salman shows how the anti-slavery discourse became part of American imperialism and how contentious this issue became during US colonial administration over the Philippines. While the American administration acted with growing determination and harshness against slave-holding societies particularly in the Muslim southern part of the Philippines, it also adopted abolitionism as a legitimation for colonial rule over the entire Philippines. Salman exposes the paradoxes of imperialist rhetoric in which people were subjugated to free them from slavery. 

By Michael Salman,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A series of controversies over the existence and meaning of slavery shaped American colonialism and nationalist resistance in the Philippines. While American officials claimed colonialism would free Filipinos from various forms of slavery and American anti-imperialists countered that colonialism itself would constitute new kinds of bondage, the first generation of Filipino nationalists had already appropriated anti-slavery rhetoric in their struggles with Spanish colonialism in the late nineteenth century. From these contentions about slavery as a political metaphor, new disputes erupted when American officials 'discovered' the practice of slavery among minority groups, such as the Moro (Muslim) societies of the southern…


Book cover of National History and New Nationalism in the Twenty-First Century: A Global Comparison

Stefan Berger Author Of History and Identity: How Historical Theory Shapes Historical Practice

From my list on why identity issues are so hot in history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been working on questions of identity and history for more than thirty years. It's a very personal topic for me, as I come from a working-class background – something that I was acutely aware of throughout my school and university education, where people of my background were comparatively rare. History in my view has the power to construct essentialist identities that exclude and are potentially deadly. But history also has the power to critically question this essentialism and contribute to a more tolerant, open-minded, and self-reflective society. Hence, as a historian, I've been trying to support and strengthen an engaged and enlightened historiography that bolsters a range of progressive identifications without leading to essentialist constructions of collective identities.

Stefan's book list on why identity issues are so hot in history

Stefan Berger Why did Stefan love this book?

We are living in a world in which right-wing populisms thrive from North America to India and from Latin America to Europe. Everywhere they promote nationalism, xenophobia, homophobia, and religious fundamentalism. This is a book that analyzes the new nationalism in different parts of the world and dissects to what extent essentialist national identities are constructed with often devastating results in terms of violent conflict in a range of societies.

By Niels F. May (editor), Thomas Maissen (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked National History and New Nationalism in the Twenty-First Century as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

National history has once again become a battlefield. In internal political conflicts, which are fought on the terrain of popular culture, museums, schoolbooks, and memorial politics, it has taken on a newly important and contested role. Irrespective of national specifics, the narratives of new nationalism are quite similar everywhere. National history is said to stretch back many centuries, expressesing the historical continuity of a homogeneous people and its timeless character. This people struggles for independence, guided by towering leaders and inspired by the sacrifice of martyrs. Unlike earlier forms of nationalism, the main enemies are no longer neighbouring states, but…


Book cover of Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770-1945)
Book cover of Nationalism
Book cover of Nationalism in Asia and Africa

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