100 books like Recollections

By Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur Goldhammer (translator), Olivier Zunz (editor)

Here are 100 books that Recollections fans have personally recommended if you like Recollections. 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 Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune

Jonathan Beecher Author Of Writers and Revolution: Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848

From my list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the failed revolutions of the 19th century and by the romantic socialists, democrats, and nationalists who made these revolutions. I think I have a better understanding of their world and the forces that brought them down than I have of the world I live in. But I do find in their writings remarkable echoes of my own fears and hopes about the future of democracy today.

Jonathan's book list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune

Jonathan Beecher Why did Jonathan love this book?

This book is both an attempt to reclaim the legacy of the Paris Commune for our time and a rich and stimulating investigation of the Commune as “a working laboratory of political invention.” The focus is not on the traditional narrative culminating with the slaughter of Bloody Week. It is on the efforts of individuals—some far removed from the Communards’ Paris—to imagine a world marked by the inversion of longstanding hierarchies and divisions.

What makes the book especially compelling is Ross’s ability to “think with” both Communards like Elisabeth Dmitrieff and Elisée Reclus and outsiders like Kropotkin and Marx as they “open up the field of the possible” in reflecting on the Commune.

By Kristin Ross,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Kristin Ross's new work on the thought and culture of the Communard uprising of 1871 resonates with the motivations and actions of contemporary protest, which has found its most powerful expression in the reclamation of public space. Today's concerns-internationalism, education, the future of labor, the status of art, and ecological theory and practice-frame and inform her carefully researched restaging of the words and actions of individual Communards. This original analysis of an event and its centrifugal effects brings to life the workers in Paris who became revolutionaries, the significance they attributed to their struggle, and the elaboration and continuation of…


Book cover of Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849

Jonathan Beecher Author Of Writers and Revolution: Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848

From my list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the failed revolutions of the 19th century and by the romantic socialists, democrats, and nationalists who made these revolutions. I think I have a better understanding of their world and the forces that brought them down than I have of the world I live in. But I do find in their writings remarkable echoes of my own fears and hopes about the future of democracy today.

Jonathan's book list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune

Jonathan Beecher Why did Jonathan love this book?

This magnificent study of the revolutions 1848 surpasses all the others in its sheer breadth. It makes 1848 a European and, in some respects, a global event. But what I find most appealing about the book is its vividness. The complex narrative is repeatedly punctuated by details and vignettes that bring the past to life.

If you listen to the wonderful audiobook, you will even hear Christopher Clark singing a song on the death of the great German 1848er, Robert Blum.

By Christopher Clark,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A Telegraph, Sunday Times, Economist and TLS Book of the Year

'One of the best history books you will read this decade' History Today

An exhilarating reappraisal of one of the most dramatic years in European history, from the acclaimed author of The Sleepwalkers

There can be few more exciting or frightening moments in European history than the spring of 1848. Almost as if by magic, in city after city, from Palermo to Paris to Venice, huge crowds gathered, sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent, and the political order that had held sway since the defeat of Napoleon simply collapsed.

Christopher…


Book cover of The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848-1851

Jonathan Beecher Author Of Writers and Revolution: Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848

From my list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the failed revolutions of the 19th century and by the romantic socialists, democrats, and nationalists who made these revolutions. I think I have a better understanding of their world and the forces that brought them down than I have of the world I live in. But I do find in their writings remarkable echoes of my own fears and hopes about the future of democracy today.

Jonathan's book list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune

Jonathan Beecher Why did Jonathan love this book?

T.J. Clark treats 1848 as a time when “art and politics could not escape each other,” and he offers a brilliant discussion of the efforts of artists to confront that situation. There are wonderful chapters on Delacroix’s anguished retreat into a private world, Millet’s portrait of the peasantry as a class in dissolution, and Baudelaire as a poet of post-revolutionary despair.

But for me, the most arresting portions of the book focus on Daumier, who was unique in his ability to depict the life of the Paris streets and create the great image of the Bonapartist con-man in the figure of Ratapoil. What I find most telling in these portraits, and the book as a whole, is T.J. Clark’s ability to “put back the doubt into revolution”—to recapture the confusion, the uncertainty, and the sense that everything was at risk.

By T. J. Clark,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

When this book and its companion volume, Image of the People, appeared in 1973, they were taken as a challenge to the way art was usually written about. "This book," said the Times, "is a product of that school of art history whose history is as well read as its art, and whilst it covers only a small area of time and place, Clark's approach and style are such that it throws up enough ideas and pleasures to illuminate far beyond its rather special circumstances. It is suffused with wit and pathetic irony."

T. J. Clark's subject is painting and…


Book cover of Sentimental Education: The Story of a Young Man

Jonathan Beecher Author Of Writers and Revolution: Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848

From my list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the failed revolutions of the 19th century and by the romantic socialists, democrats, and nationalists who made these revolutions. I think I have a better understanding of their world and the forces that brought them down than I have of the world I live in. But I do find in their writings remarkable echoes of my own fears and hopes about the future of democracy today.

Jonathan's book list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune

Jonathan Beecher Why did Jonathan love this book?

This novel is both the story of an unconsummated love affair and an account of the experience and imaginative life of the generation of young people who came to maturity around 1840 and whose lives were either broken or redirected by the revolution of 1848.

Flaubert takes great care to establish a counterpoint between the collapse of political ideals in 1848 and the collapse of the dreams of the individual characters. But Sentimental Education can also be considered as a work of history that brings the past to life and, in the end, offers a deep and, in some ways, sympathetic picture of the inability of individuals to shape history or their own lives, in a world ruled by elemental forces that elude understanding.


By Gustave Flaubert, Raymond N. MacKenzie (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A fresh and vivid translation of Flaubert's influential bildungsroman


Gustave Flaubert conceived Sentimental Education, his final complete novel, as the history of his own generation, one that failed to fulfill the promise of the Revolution of 1848. Published a few months before the start of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, it offers both a sweeping panorama of French society over three decades and an intimate bildungsroman of a young man from a small town who arrives in Paris when protests against the monarchy are increasing.

The novel's protagonist, Frederic Moreau, alternates between aimlessness and ambition as he searches for a meaningful…


Book cover of The World of Orderic Vitalis

Charity L. Urbanski Author Of Writing History for the King: Henry II and the Politics of Vernacular Historiography

From my list on medieval historians and history writing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian of medieval Europe who specializes in twelfth-century England and France. I’ve been fascinated with history since childhood and distinctly remember being obsessed with a book on English monarchs in my mom’s bookcase when I was young. In college, I took a class on Medieval England with a professor whose enthusiasm for the subject, along with the sheer strangeness of the medieval world, hooked me. I’ve been exploring medieval Europe ever since, and deepening my understanding of how our own world came into being in the process. 

Charity's book list on medieval historians and history writing

Charity L. Urbanski Why did Charity love this book?

Chibnall was a fantastic writer, and she was the authority on Orderic Vitalis, one of the most important historians of the early twelfth century.

I love this book because Chibnall uses Orderic’s history to explore the world he wrote in, a world in which monks mingled with knights and kings, and she examines the rapid social changes taking place in the early twelfth century. This book is at once an examination of Orderic’s work, a biography of a famous chronicler, and an exploration of Anglo-Norman society in the early twelfth century.

It’s a fantastic place to start if you’ve never read anything on Anglo-Norman England, and it’s a great way to deepen your knowledge if you’re already familiar with this corner of the past.

By Marjorie Chibnall,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Monastic life, the royal courts and Norman nobility as depicted by Orderic's medieval chronicle.


Book cover of Timeline

Travis Stecher Author Of Dilation: A 10,000-Year Sci-Fi Epic

From my list on immersive stories centered around time travel.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer and musician with a background in mathematics, which is what originally led to my intrigue in cosmology. For writing speculative fiction, I’ve dug into a range of topics from quantum mechanics to cognitive theory, but spacetime had the opposite causality: my interest later spawned my writing. When I first learned about special relativity, many aspects seemed counterintuitive but were mathematically sound, leading me to obsessively read books, watch videos, and perform hours of calculations to get a feel for it. And what draws my adoration most to the cosmos is the quality it shares with dinosaurs—the more I learn, the more majestic it becomes.

Travis' book list on immersive stories centered around time travel

Travis Stecher Why did Travis love this book?

Crichton is, without question, my favorite author, and what I love most about his books is the singular word that defines them all: immersive. As one of the later Crichton books I read, I actually saw the movie adaptation of this book first, and I cannot stress enough how much better the book is.

The details involved build both a compelling representation of 14th century France, complete with indecipherable language, and a believable mechanism for that time travel based on quantum mechanics, more than a decade before the boom of multiverse fiction.

By Michael Crichton,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In this thriller from the author of Jurassic Park, Sphere, and Congo, a group of young scientists travel back in time to medieval France on a daring rescue mission that becomes a struggle to stay alive.
 
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
“Compulsive reading . . . brilliantly imagined.”—Los Angeles Times
 
In an Arizona desert, a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to…


Book cover of Reflections on the Revolution in France

Sylvana Tomaselli Author Of Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion, and Politics

From my list on the eighteenth-century you should read for yourself.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have had the privilege to teach the history of political theory from Plato to today for decades and to discuss texts such as the five I mentioned with very gifted students. No matter how often I return to such works, I always find something new in them and it is a pleasure to see how students learn to love reading for themselves what can be daunting works, once they overcome the fear of opening the great works and the initial challenge of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century prose.

Sylvana's book list on the eighteenth-century you should read for yourself

Sylvana Tomaselli Why did Sylvana love this book?

Allegedly the father of conservatism, Burke could as easily be deemed the father of liberalism, though neither label is appropriate. Easy to read, and a bit of a rant in sections, Burke’s Reflections is a good source if you want to pick up rhetorical skills. Besides the prose, it's interesting to see how someone who was known to have supported the American pleas for political representation and sympathetic to their grievance as well as those of the Irish people tried to explain how what was happening in France in the early years of the revolution was something profoundly different to anything that had ever happened hitherto, and on no account to be compared to the Glorious Revolution. Very few of his immediate readers could see what he was getting at.  

By Edmund Burke,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reflections on the Revolution in France as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reflections on the Revolution in France offers provocative political commentary from the British statesman Edmund Burke, that examines the early stages of the French Revolution. It's a searing criticism of those in and outside formal government who support the movement's unconventional methods.



The French Revolution was a decade-long social and political conflict that changed the landscape of modern France. Irish philosopher and politician Edmund Burke of the Whig Party wrote a pamphlet explaining fundamental errors within the revolution's approach. He believed the fight for freedom was too abstract and needed more sustainable and proven direction. Burke warned that without proper…


Book cover of The Life of Louis XVI

Munro Price Author Of Napoleon: The End of Glory

From my list on the French Revolution and Napoleon.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian who has been researching and writing on the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars for thirty-five years now. Since the age of ten I have been fascinated by these years, partly through childhood holidays in France, but also because of their sheer drama. British history in the same period has nothing to compare with the storming of the Bastille or Napoleon’s meteoric career. Specializing in this turbulent era has made me particularly interested in how regimes fall, and whether under different circumstances they could have survived.

Munro's book list on the French Revolution and Napoleon

Munro Price Why did Munro love this book?

The great strength of this book is that as well as offering a major reinterpretation of Louis, XVI, it is also a pleasure to read. John Hardman has pioneered the reappraisal of Louis that has been underway over the last twenty years. The unfortunate king has traditionally been portrayed as either reactionary or incompetent (or both). In place of this caricature, Hardman convincingly presents the monarch as a man of high intelligence who was prepared to make many more compromises with the Revolution than historians have allowed. In his view, Louis’ real weakness was not intellectual but psychological: crises of depression that paralysed him at crucial moments after 1789.

By John Hardman,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A thought-provoking, authoritative biography of one of history's most maligned rulers: France's Louis XVI

"The definitive contribution to our understanding of Louis XVI as a man and a monarch."-P.M. Jones, English Historical Review

"Monumental. . . . Scholars probing the mysteries of the late Old Regime and French Revolution will be working in its shadow for many years to come."-Thomas E. Kaiser, Journal of Modern History

Louis XVI of France, who was guillotined in 1793 during the Revolution and Reign of Terror, is commonly portrayed in fiction and film either as a weak and stupid despot in thrall to his…


Book cover of Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution

Michelle Cameron Author Of Beyond the Ghetto Gates

From my list on historical fiction books on the French Revolution and Napoleon that portray real life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been fascinated by Napoleon and the French Revolution since I was a teenager. Novels that capture the essence of the struggles of the French people – and especially those that feature Napoleon as a highly layered character – have always called to me. As a Jewish author, I am particularly drawn to a fair representation of Jewish characters in these tales – which frankly, Georgette Heyer does not, as she adheres to stereotypes in describing any Jewish characters. (I only forgive her because her books are so brilliant.)

Michelle's book list on historical fiction books on the French Revolution and Napoleon that portray real life

Michelle Cameron Why did Michelle love this book?

A thrilling and fully immersive description of the French Revolution; I loved this book in particular for its moving description of how the Jews of Paris were affected.

I found Madame Tussand’s story to be a wonderful frame for the upheaval in France at the time – especially as a highly layered, wonderful character whose strong personality helped her to survive troubling times.

It’s definitely my favorite Michelle Moran book – and that’s tough, considering how many amazing historical novels she’s written.

By Michelle Moran,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

Peter McPhee Author Of Liberty or Death: The French Revolution

From my list on understanding the French Revolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have spent much of my adult life studying the French Revolution with students who, like me, are engrossed by the drama, successes and tragedies of the Revolution, and the scale of the attempts to arrest or reverse it. Why and how did an apparently stable regime collapse in 1789? Why did it prove to be so difficult to stabilize a new order? How could claims to “liberty” and “equality” be balanced? And why was there a period of “terror” in 1793-94? When the Revolution was finally over, how had France and other parts of the world been changed? The answers to those questions remain open and continue to fascinate. 

Peter's book list on understanding the French Revolution

Peter McPhee Why did Peter love this book?

Ever since 1789 people have asked how to explain such a massive upheaval in an apparently stable kingdom. Why did the Revolution follow its particular course after 1789? Why did it result in a civil war and international warfare? When was it “over”? And how “revolutionary” was the Revolution? Was France fundamentally changed as a result of it? What were the international repercussions?

An eminent historian of the eighteenth century here manages to condense decades of research and writing into a pocket-sized paperback. It is a superb, lucid, and up-to-date summary of the origins, course, and outcomes of the Revolution and of the ongoing debates about its meaning and significance, some of which involve Doyle’s own interpretations. 

By William Doyle,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The French Revolution is a time of history made familiar from Dickens, Baroness Orczy, and Tolstoy, as well as the legends of let them eat cake, and tricolours. Beginning in 1789, this period of extreme political and social unrest saw the end of the French monarchy, the death of an extraordinary number of people beneath the guillotine's blade during the Terror, and the rise of Napoleon, as well as far reaching consequences still with us today, such as the
enduring ideology of human rights, and decimalization.

In this Very Short Introduction, William Doyle introduces the French old regime and considers…


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