100 books like Lithuania Ascending

By S. C. Rowell,

Here are 100 books that Lithuania Ascending fans have personally recommended if you like Lithuania Ascending. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Northern Crusades, the Baltic and the Catholic Frontier, 1100-1525

William L. Urban Author Of Teutonic Knights: A Military History

From my list on medieval Baltic history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became enthusiastic about the history of the Baltics when my dissertation advisor persuaded me to use my language training in German and Russian to test the American Frontier Theory in the Baltic region. None of the various theories were applicable, but I earned a Ph.D. anyway. Later I taught in Italy, Yugoslavia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. I've written a number of books and won a Fulbright Hays grant, the Dr. Arthur Puksow Foundation prize, the Vitols Prize, and others. I retired in 2017 after fifty-one years of university and college teaching, but I would still be teaching if my hearing had not deteriorated to the point that I could not make out what shy students were saying. 

William's book list on medieval Baltic history

William L. Urban Why did William love this book?

This wide-ranging, erudite, and witty account remains the most enjoyable survey of the era. His explanations of complex ideas and events cut through many of the difficulties involved in understanding a very different time and different places than our own. I especiallly liked the way he could  tie the crusades in the Baltic to what was happening elsewhere in Europe and in the Holy Land, and to show how contemporaries wrestled with difficult, even contradictory, ideas.

Book cover of God's Playground: A History of Poland: The Origins to 1795, Vol. 1

William L. Urban Author Of Teutonic Knights: A Military History

From my list on medieval Baltic history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became enthusiastic about the history of the Baltics when my dissertation advisor persuaded me to use my language training in German and Russian to test the American Frontier Theory in the Baltic region. None of the various theories were applicable, but I earned a Ph.D. anyway. Later I taught in Italy, Yugoslavia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. I've written a number of books and won a Fulbright Hays grant, the Dr. Arthur Puksow Foundation prize, the Vitols Prize, and others. I retired in 2017 after fifty-one years of university and college teaching, but I would still be teaching if my hearing had not deteriorated to the point that I could not make out what shy students were saying. 

William's book list on medieval Baltic history

William L. Urban Why did William love this book?

This is a provocative book. Its very title suggests how difficult it is to understand Polish history than other that a divine joke. Yet his scholarship is excellent and his insights enlightening.

This is especially true for the first volume, which deals with the emergence of the Polish kingdom from rude barbarism to a political and cultural force so powerful that, after its union with Lithuania, dominated East Central Europe for generations. The total collapse of the kingdom in the 18th century—largely to defects in the constitution that allowed foreign interference in the election of the king—has blinded us to what Poland achieved in those forgotten centuries.

By Norman Davies,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked God's Playground as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The most comprehensive survey of Polish history available in English, God's Playground demonstrates Poland's importance in European history from medieval times to the present. Abandoning the traditional nationalist approach to Polish history, Norman Davies instead stresses the country's rich multinational heritage and places the development of the Jewish German, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian communities firmly within the Polish context. Davies emphasizes the cultural history of Poland through a presentation of extensive poetical, literary, and documentary texts in English translation. In each volume, chronological chapters of political narrative are interspersed with essays on religious, social, economic, constitutional, philosophical, and diplomatic themes. This…


Book cover of The Rise of the Polish Monarchy: Piast Poland in East Central Europe, 1320-1370

William L. Urban Author Of Teutonic Knights: A Military History

From my list on medieval Baltic history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became enthusiastic about the history of the Baltics when my dissertation advisor persuaded me to use my language training in German and Russian to test the American Frontier Theory in the Baltic region. None of the various theories were applicable, but I earned a Ph.D. anyway. Later I taught in Italy, Yugoslavia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. I've written a number of books and won a Fulbright Hays grant, the Dr. Arthur Puksow Foundation prize, the Vitols Prize, and others. I retired in 2017 after fifty-one years of university and college teaching, but I would still be teaching if my hearing had not deteriorated to the point that I could not make out what shy students were saying. 

William's book list on medieval Baltic history

William L. Urban Why did William love this book?

The history of the Baltic Crusade cannot be understood in isolation from the Polish kingdom. This is the era when Poland recovers from the disasters begun by the Mongol invasions of the 1240s and begins its own eastward expansion.

As the title indicates, this is really the story of Casimir III, whose father arranged a Lithuanian marriage that brought peace on the eastern frontiers and later allowed him to expand toward Rus’ (especially Ukraine) when the minor states there collapsed. Casimir succeeded in everything except siring a legitimate male heir, even though that was the one task expected of every monarch in this era. He did leave behind a flourishing state, a powerful church, and a national goal of driving back those Germans (especially the Teutonic Knights) who had made great inroads into areas claimed as the national patrimony.

Book cover of The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade: Holy War and Colonisation

William L. Urban Author Of Teutonic Knights: A Military History

From my list on medieval Baltic history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became enthusiastic about the history of the Baltics when my dissertation advisor persuaded me to use my language training in German and Russian to test the American Frontier Theory in the Baltic region. None of the various theories were applicable, but I earned a Ph.D. anyway. Later I taught in Italy, Yugoslavia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. I've written a number of books and won a Fulbright Hays grant, the Dr. Arthur Puksow Foundation prize, the Vitols Prize, and others. I retired in 2017 after fifty-one years of university and college teaching, but I would still be teaching if my hearing had not deteriorated to the point that I could not make out what shy students were saying. 

William's book list on medieval Baltic history

William L. Urban Why did William love this book?

The Germans and Poles moved into a land inhabited by flourishing native tribes that have previously been understood only through the observations of German and Polish chroniclers.

Pluskowski shows that the native peoples had a sophisticated local economy that was hardly changed by the German conquerors. That is, wherever the Teutonic Order and its associated bishops and abbots brought in German or Dutch colonists, the farming practices reflected those of the immigrants’ homelands; however, the three-field system required farmers to work together, while the original inhabitants preferred to retain individual farms worked on the two-field system. The three-field system produced more food, but the Native Prussians valued their freedom more.

This is a very detailed study, with abundant information on what people ate, how they lived, and how they were buried.

By Aleksander Pluskowski,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade explores the archaeology and material culture of the crusade against the Prussian tribes in the 13th century, and the subsequent society created by the Teutonic Order which lasted into the 16th century. It provides the first synthesis of the material culture of a unique crusading society created in the south-eastern Baltic region over the course of the 13th century. It encompasses the full range of archaeological data, from standing buildings through to artefacts and ecofacts, integrated with written and artistic sources. The work is sub-divided into broadly chronological themes, beginning with a historical outline,…


Book cover of Studies into the Balts' Sacred Places

Aleksander Pluskowski Author Of The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade: Holy War and Colonisation

From my list on the cultural impact of the crusades.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born in London, but growing up in a Polish family ensured that I was well aware of the history of the Teutonic Order. As a post-doctoral researcher in Cambridge, I was fortunate enough to gain access to archaeological material from the magnificent castle at Malbork in north Poland, the Order’s medieval headquarters. That moment really spurred my interest in the Northern Crusades, after which I spent a decade working across the eastern Baltic. I’ve also had the opportunity to excavate medieval frontier sites at both ends of the Mediterranean. As an archaeologist, I always found the lived experiences of these societies far more interesting than the traditional military histories written about them.

Aleksander's book list on the cultural impact of the crusades

Aleksander Pluskowski Why did Aleksander love this book?

Despite its somewhat unassuming title and cover, this book remains one of the most accessible and interesting studies of native spirituality in the eastern Baltic written in English. Before the crusades that forged Catholic Livonia and Prussia, the natural world was imbued with religious meanings, and trees, rocks, hills, rivers, and lakes were foci of cult activity. Once Christianity was introduced, many of these sacred natural places endured and were recorded in later sources, echoing down the centuries. Vykintas Vaitkevičius, an archaeologist and one of the foremost Lithuanian scholars of Baltic ‘paganism,’ pulls together an incredible compendium of information drawn from historical documents, cartography, archaeology, and folklore, and paints a regionally varied picture of native sacrality across the historical territories of the Balts. 

By Vykintas Vaitkevičius,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Studies into the Balts' Sacred Places as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The sacred places of the Balts of Lithuania take the form of sites and monuments that are shrouded in myths and legends. This study is based on an analysis of 1200 examples and, although very few have been investigated archaeologically, Vykintas Vaitkevicius looks at the historical, linguistic, ethnological and folklore data associated with them. The places are classified according to type, whether sacred hills, islands, hillforts/temples, fields, forests and groves, oak trees, stones, sacred waters or caves, and studied for the information they contain about Balts religion and society. With much of the evidence dating from the mid-1st millennium to…


Book cover of We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust

Ettie Zilber Author Of A Holocaust Memoir of Love & Resilience: Mama's Survival from Lithuania to America

From my list on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

Why am I passionate about this?

Born in a displaced persons camp in Germany after World War 2, Ettie immigrated with her parents to the USA. She grew up and was educated in New York City and Pennsylvania and immigrated to Israel after completing graduate school. After retiring from a career in international schools in 6 countries, she currently resides in Arizona with her husband. She is a Board member for the Phoenix Holocaust Association and devotes much time to giving presentations to youth and adults worldwide. 

Ettie's book list on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe

Ettie Zilber Why did Ettie love this book?

The author and I have somewhat similar backgrounds, with ancestry back in Lithuania. We both made the commitment to travel to Lithuania, but for different reasons. Her quest to improve her knowledge and fluency of the Yiddish language, (my native language) brought her to Vilnius, Lithuania to study with a master teacher.  While she was there, she was determined to learn as much as she could about the long history of the Jews of Lithuania, the fate of her ancestors, and why (and how) almost 96% of the Lithuanian Jewish population was murdered- the highest percentage of any European country. Through research, interviews, songs, and Yiddish expressions, the author weaves together a nostalgic, literary, and academic odyssey into the past- and discovers the answer to the percentage question – the Nazis had willing collaborators.

I am passionate about the book because both my parents were survivors of the Lithuanian version…

By Ellen Cassedy,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Ellen Cassedy's longing to recover the Yiddish she'd lost with her mother's death eventually led her to Lithuania, once the "Jerusalem of the North." As she prepared for her journey, her uncle, sixty years after he'd left Lithuania in a boxcar, made a shocking disclosure about his wartime experience, and an elderly man from her ancestral town made an unsettling request. Gradually, what had begun as a personal journey broadened into a larger exploration of how the people of this country, Jews and non-Jews alike, are confronting their past in order to move forward into the future. How does a…


Book cover of The One-In-A-Million Boy

Roisin Meaney Author Of Life Before Us

From my list on the messiness of life and love.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m Irish, writing since 2001. I’m fascinated by the impulses that propel us towards or away from another person, the ways we are hurt or charmed or offended or beguiled by another, and how we react to all of the above. I’m not married or in a relationship myself; somewhere along the way I realised that I’m happier alone, and I think it puts me in a good position to observe the behaviours of friends and family, and sometimes strangers (yes, I’m that person sitting nearby on the train or at the airport or in the cafe, tapping furiously into her laptop as you converse with your partner).

Roisin's book list on the messiness of life and love

Roisin Meaney Why did Roisin love this book?

I’m recommending this because it will break your heart, and everyone needs that experience now and again with a book. It tells the story of a unique and unlikely love that blossoms slowly between a 104-year-old woman (whom you will learn to adore) and a young boy scout who calls to her house to fulfill one of his tasks. There’s a tragic twist early on that introduces us to the boy’s parents, and there are some lovely subsequent turns in this most magical tale. It’s the first Monica Wood book that I read, but I must hunt her down and read more. 

By Monica Wood,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The One-In-A-Million Boy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

She may be 104 years old, but Ona Vitkus is on a mission and it's all because of THE ONE-IN-A-MILLION-BOY...

Monica Wood's unforgettable novel about a boy in a million and the 104-year-old woman who saves his family is not to be missed by readers who loved THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY, ELIZABETH IS MISSING or THE SHOCK OF THE FALL.

'A lovely, quirky novel about misfits across generations' Daily Mail

'A bittersweet story about finding friendship in the most unlikely of places' Good Housekeeping.

The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don't they teach you…


Book cover of The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union 1385-1569: Volume I

Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski Author Of The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1733-1795: Light and Flame

From my list on Central and Eastern European history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by Central and Eastern Europe all of my adult life. Many cruises along the Danube and around the Baltic Sea have allowed me to see the stunning best of the region. Since the early 1990s, I’ve taught the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Russian Empire to a generation of students. Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History at University College London since 2013, my next challenge is to promote the history of Poland to allcomers via the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, the wonderful city which is my home.

Richard's book list on Central and Eastern European history

Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski Why did Richard love this book?

The first volume of Robert Frost’s trilogy is a superbly researched account and explanation of how two very different realmsthe Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuaniacame together to forge a shared Commonwealth that covered most of east-central Europe. While it supports republican ideas of liberty serving the common good, it steers an impartial course between rival nationalist narratives and offers important lessons for the making and maintenance of unions between states and communities.

By Robert I. Frost,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union 1385-1569 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The history of eastern European is dominated by the story of the rise of the Russian empire, yet Russia only emerged as a major power after 1700. For 300 years the greatest power in Eastern Europe was the union between the kingdom of Poland and the grand duchy of Lithuania, one of the longest-lasting political unions in European history. Yet because it ended in the late-eighteenth century in what are misleadingly termed the Partitions of Poland, it barely features in
standard accounts of European history.

The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union 1385-1569 tells the story of the formation of a…


Book cover of Our People: Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust

Ettie Zilber Author Of A Holocaust Memoir of Love & Resilience: Mama's Survival from Lithuania to America

From my list on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

Why am I passionate about this?

Born in a displaced persons camp in Germany after World War 2, Ettie immigrated with her parents to the USA. She grew up and was educated in New York City and Pennsylvania and immigrated to Israel after completing graduate school. After retiring from a career in international schools in 6 countries, she currently resides in Arizona with her husband. She is a Board member for the Phoenix Holocaust Association and devotes much time to giving presentations to youth and adults worldwide. 

Ettie's book list on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe

Ettie Zilber Why did Ettie love this book?

The partnership of these two authors, one, a Lithuanian national and prominent figure and the other, a Jewish/Israeli Nazi hunter, even surprised them both. While they come from the polar opposite ends of the cultural spectrum, their ultimate research collaboration offers the reader a view into the reason why 96% of Lithuanian Jews were murdered during – and after – the Holocaust – many, before the Nazis fully occupied the country. Travelling together throughout Lithuania, they interviewed non-Jewish eyewitnesses, who told them (on the record) what they saw and what they remembered of those horrible days when the Jews were murdered …by bullets… and who collaborated, assisted, and who pulled the trigger. 

I am passionate about the book because both my parents were survivors of the Lithuanian version of the Holocaust. There were very few survivors from Lithuania, and the Vanagaite-Zuroff book helps me understand why. I started learning about…

By Efraim Zuroff, Rūta Vanagaite,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This remarkable book traces the quest for the truth about the Holocaust in Lithuania by two ostensible enemies: Ruta a descendant of the perpetrators, Efraim a descendant of the victims. Ruta Vanagaite, a best-selling Lithuanian writer, was motivated by her recent discoveries that some of her relatives had played a role in the mass murder of Jews and that Lithuanian officials had tried to hide the complicity of local collaborators. Efraim Zuroff, a noted Israeli Nazi-hunter, had both professional and personal motivations. He had worked for years to bring Lithuanian war criminals to justice and to compel local authorities to…


Book cover of Words on Fire

J. Kasper Kramer Author Of The Story That Cannot Be Told

From my list on middle grade for starting a revolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a part-time professor of English and a full-time admirer of history, fairy tales, and people who fight oppression. I’ve loved stories my whole life, and I believe that the right words can have the power to change the world. That’s certainly an important message in my debut novel, The Story That Cannot Be Told, which is set during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. I primarily write historical fiction for middle grade readers, in large part because I love researching history, but my work also often includes folklore, fairy tales, or the supernatural—and of course, there’s always an adventure on the horizon.

J. Kasper's book list on middle grade for starting a revolution

J. Kasper Kramer Why did J. Kasper love this book?

In late 1800s Lithuania, young Audra gets caught up in an underground network of book smugglers while fleeing from Russian Cossack soldiers and attempting to save her family. Many of Nielsen’s novels would fit well on this list, but I particularly adore the message in this book about the power of words and storytelling when fighting oppression. 

By Jennifer A. Nielsen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Words on Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Audra lives on a quiet farm in Lithuania, but she understands that danger is never far away. Her parents warn her to stay close to home and avoid the patrolling Russian Cossack soldiers. The Russians, who occupy Lithuania, insist that everyone there must become Russian-they have banned Lithuanian books, religion, culture, and even the language. When Cossacks arrive abruptly at their door, Audra's parents insist that she flee, taking with her an important package and instructions for where to deliver it. In hopes of rescuing her parents, she becomes caught up in a growing resistance movement, Lithuanians intent on preserving…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Lithuania, the Catholic Church, and paganism?

Lithuania 20 books
Paganism 29 books