100 books like The Malaspina Expedition

Alexander von Humboldt’s name is synonymous with scientific discovery today–the Humboldt Current, the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, and countless species named for him. Humboldt revolutionized our modern understanding of the natural sciences–geology, biology, meteorology, and much else–with his epic five-year voyage that set off in 1799 and brought him through the Amazon, the Caribbean, and North and South America. 

Like Malaspina before him, Humboldt studied not only the flora and fauna of these regions but also their peoples and the political turmoil that was building towards revolution. He met with the leaders of the time–Thomas Jefferson and Simón Bolívar among them–and opened their eyes to the richness of their lands. Unlike Malaspina, Humboldt’s works were published to wide acclaim and established the idea that all nature, including human nature, is interconnected. 

Dava Sobel’s made-for-the-public story about a David-versus-Goliath contest to solve a centuries-old problem was the first scientific blockbuster when it came out in 1998. It was the model that future science historians like me strove to replicate–addressing important but arcane scientific controversies in a clear, accessible way.

Sobel made this story relatable to a broad audience by focusing on the travails of one underdog, a rural carpenter named John Harrison, who went up against the British astronomy establishment to discover how to plot longitude at sea by inventing a precise marine chronometer.

The 1761 voyage of HMS Deptford established the accuracy of Harrison’s “sea watch” and solved the problem of navigating across the vast oceans.   

When British scientist and novelist CP Snow lamented that society had become divided between scientific and literary cultures, he sought a way to bridge that gap. He needed to look no further than Mary Terrall’s hero, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, who was the very model of a modern scientist-artist.

Maupertuis achieved early scientific fame by leading a geodesic voyage to Lapland (modern-day Sweden and Finland) in 1736, where, after a year of fighting extreme cold and summer plagues of mosquitoes, he proved Newton’s theory that the Earth was flattened at the poles. Maupertuis became a regular fixture in the cafes and literary salons of 18th-century Paris and Berlin and helped transform European society in the Age of Enlightenment.  

In the late 18th century, European scientists claimed that “the sciences were never at war,” using as an example the international Transit of Venus voyages that took place during the height of the Seven Years’ War.

Even though the two opposing sides–France and Britain–were engaged in one of the bloodiest conflicts of that century, scientists from those two nations, as well as many allied nations on both sides, traveled vast distances across the globe (including Tahiti, South Africa, and Siberia) to witness the two Transits of Venus, 1761 and 1769.

Facing not just war but also fierce cold, disease, and the perils of ocean navigation (see Longitude above), the astronomers combined their observations to give mankind its first glimpse of the enormous scale of our solar system.      

The Visigothic kingdom of Spain was long dismissed in older books as a barbaric backwater, the darkest point of the so-called Dark Ages. Yet it was, in truth, a vibrant cultural centre for more than two centuries, until falling to the forces of Islam in 711. Hillgarth’s fascinating book gives an excellent short survey of Visigothic history, and then explores how the legends surrounding the Goths were developed and exploited by later Spanish generations, from the Christian Reconquista and the sixteenth-century Golden Age to modern times. This creation of an idealized Gothic past provided inspiration and a sense of identity in Spain, in sharp contrast to Italy where the Goths were depicted during the Renaissance as the savage destroyers of classical civilization.

Who hasn’t learnt useful stuff from one of the “For Dummies” books? Our command of the Spanish language was lamentable when we first moved to Spain and we had to learn super-fast. The step-by-step approach in this book made learning the language a little less daunting and the accompanying CD was great for hearing how words should be pronounced. Although not hugely enthusiastic about following the course, the Spanish girl’s husky voice held Joe’s attention...

I have used this collection of translated primary sources for over a decade to teach students. It covers the whole period of medieval Spain, from the arrival of Muslim conquerors in 711 to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, and allows one to confront for themselves the paradoxes of coexistence, collaboration, and violence that characterized this place and period. A thoughtful introduction precedes each document.

If you are moving to Spain, you’ll appreciate David Hampshire’s guides for deciding which region might suit you, how to choose a home and settling into your new way of life. Hampshire includes vital advice like making a Spanish will, driving and finance. He even provides checklists of things to do before the move, and after arrival. We’d have appreciated advice on what to do if one's removal van knocks over the village fountain, or how to stop our cockerel attacking visitors, but I guess we were just unlucky.

This is a book that made me think again about the ‘Moorishness’ of Spain.

How to square the repression and ultimate expulsion of people of Muslim origin in the early sixteen hundreds with the obvious delight taken in aspects of their material culture such as architecture, fashion, and horsemanship, not to mention the sympathetic portrayal of Moorish characters in sixteenth-century Spanish literature?

It’s a well-argued book full of fascinating examples which examine and enlighten this paradox. 

This is Andalusia at its most picturesque, with its castles and craggy mountains and a story with all the colour and brio of a medieval costume drama. It’s actually seriously researched history but written in the style of a romantic novel.

It was written in the mid-nineteenth century out of a fascination, which I share, for the story of the demise of the last Muslim kingdom in medieval Iberia. It’s full of heroic deeds, foolhardy escapades, chivalric episodes, and emotional scenes, all based on documentary evidence.

But what I especially like is the ironic stance the author achieves on the bigotry and intolerance characteristic of the victors in the conflict through the conceit of pretending his tale is written by a Spanish monk. It made me think about how history is written, who writes it, and how often we take for granted narratives that first emerged from political propaganda.