100 books like Neomedievalism, Neoconservatism, and the War on Terror

If you want to understand why everything you think you know about the Middle Ages is (probably) wrong, go pick up a copy of The Devil’s Historians, which chronicles how everyone from the Brothers Grimm and George R. R. Martin to ISIS and Donald Trump have invented a medieval past that reflects their own ideological preoccupations rather than historical reality. With chapters on nationalism, gender, race, and religion, Amy Kaufman and Paul Sturtevant’s book sharply contrasts the one-dimensional Middle Ages found in pop culture and political propaganda with the more complicated, even contradictory, medieval world revealed by contemporary scholarship. 

Whenever I travel across Europe, I make a point to stop by the local museum or history exhibition to see how the Early Middle Ages are presented to the public. It is striking how often the narrative presumes the continuity of people living today and their “ancestors” who have been dead for a thousand years. In The Myth of Nations, Patrick Geary sets out to show that this idea is not only complete nonsense but also incredibly dangerous in the hands of ethno-nationalist politicians. Part withering polemic and part careful scholarly study, Geary harshly rebukes historians and archaeologists who have helped to collapse the temporal distance between the past and present while offering his own account of the complex and nuanced ways in which social identity operated within the late Roman and early medieval worlds.        

When I first read this book as a graduate student, Kathleen Davis’s ability to draw unexpected connections—between political power and temporality, feudalism and imperialism, medieval and postcolonial studies—melted my brain (in a good way). It’s not easy to do justice to her complex argument in a few sentences, but basically she shows how early modern jurists deliberately relegated certain ideas (servility, absolutism, religiosity) both to Europe’s medieval past and the present of the nonwestern world in order to justify imperial expansion, colonial domination, and even chattel slavery. A dense critique of both medieval historiography and postcolonial theory, Periodization and Sovereignty isn’t a breezy read but it’s well worth the effort.     

I often use selections from Whose Middle Ages? in my medieval history courses, but this collection of short, insightful essays is a great resource for anyone interested in understanding what leading scholars think about invocations of the medieval past in contemporary culture. Touching on a wide range of topics, from Viking imagery in heavy metal music and Celtic crosses on white supremacist websites to controversies over Sharia law and papal heresy in the popular press, this volume serves as an ideal introduction to the use and abuse of the Middle Ages.   

True to its title, David Harvey provides a succinct yet rigorous outline of the predominant economic ideology of our age—neoliberalism.

Harvey explains how a consensus was forged in the late-1970s in favour of market-based solutions to all social ills, with political parties across the partisan divide accepting, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, that the state no longer has a role to play in providing for its citizens.

He outlines how the rampant individualism and empty social relations ushered in by neoliberalism pave the way for the authoritarianism embodied by neoconservatism, with its emphasis on upholding a traditional moral order — through force if necessary.  

The author, R. W. Connell, is a fascinating person, originally a man, who became a woman, in the midst of a very successful career as a student of masculinity. Her work was among the earliest I’ve encountered to deal with that subject. And what a fascinating perspective! In this work, she posits four power-related configurations of masculinity: Hegemonic, complicit, subordinated, and marginalized. Although originally among those who emphasized mainly negative and unitary features of manhood – something I categorically reject – her views have broadened over the years, recognizing considerable diversity in values. This work remains a classic in the field and provides readers with some excellent insights into one influential form of masculinity.

A popular author of books on Islam and Christianity, Aslan in this book expounds on the idea of cosmic war that I have discussed in Terror in the Mind of God, and more recently as the central subject of my God at War: A Meditation on Religion and Violence. Aslan correctly asserts that struggles that are animated by visions of cosmic war are not easily defeated through conventional means. He cites the “war on terror” proclaimed by President George W. Bush as an ill-conceived effort to fight one concept of cosmic war with another and concludes that the best way to fight a cosmic war is to refuse to fight like one. 

In his first-person account of US Marines fighting the Global War on Terror in Afghanistan, Frank Biggio writes a stimulating story of American service members improving the conditions and hopes of the Afghan people. There are skirmishes with Taliban forces, and some brave Marines make the ultimate sacrifice. Yet readers also follow Major Biggio and his brother Marines breaking bread with tribal leaders so each respects the other’s needs and dreams. The author’s personal journey as a retired Marine officer turned civilian lawyer who returns to active duty is a powerful tale. His book influenced my military novel on moral courage and dedication to duty.

The world of Special Operations is typically classified and shrouded in secrecy, for good reason. There are many major, society-changing events that people never truly learn the full story behind due to the need for secrecy or participants who remain tight-lipped until their dying days out of force of habit.

In Jawbreaker, author Ralph Pezzullo was given unparalleled access to the men who were first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11, including the man who ran the CIA’s clandestine fight against Al Qaeda and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. 

You don’t know anything about the beginning of what became a twenty-year war until you’ve read this book.

David Keen, as his name would imply, has a tremendously keen eye for mendacity and chicanery in political systems. I sought out Keen when I needed a scholarly voice speaking truth to power and representing the interests of the people against the overwhelming dominance of the interests of states and governments, namely, the United States.

Keen helped me to understand the true, dystopic dimensions of the ongoing U.S. War on Terror and the methods by which it continues to be prosecuted around the world. This nightmare of never-ending U.S. war is much larger and much more intractable than even I anticipated before picking up Keen’s book.

Through reading Endless War? I came to understand the true nature of this state-sanctioned violence committed around the world. It is not a lesson nor a book that I will soon forget.