I have a strong, if contrarian, interest in modern history, Asian history in particular. I have published more than a dozen articles and book reviews on the subject, and I have taught courses on modern Asian history (China, Japan, Vietnam, India) at New York University, where I have been a professor since 1968. A brief history of my somewhat unusual academic career may be found in a 50-page memoir published via Amazon in 2020 together with an appendix containing a sampling of my short writings. It is titled Moss Roberts: A Journey to the East. The memoir but not the appendix is free via Researchgate. In addition, I have studied (and taught) the Chinese language for more than half a century, and published translations of classical works of literature and philosophy.
This eloquent autobiography was written in the mid-1930s while the author was jailed by the British. It offers a detailed and convincing account of the experience of India’s people under the regime of British imperialism, and is relevant to other countries under foreign occupation, but also to US society because of its emphasis on religious conflict.
I started reading sci-fi in 1962 with 1957's Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars and have loved it ever since. I became a sci-fi writer with my first three books in utopian speculative fiction, The Spanner Series. Unfortunately, I stalled out due to a TBI, a cross-country move, and other distractions, but I do plan to continue with the other 7 volumes in my utopian speculative fiction series some day. The writers in my “best of” list are some of my lifelong inspirations, so I hope newer readers can enjoy and learn from their works as much as I have.
Wilhelm is credited with having the best writing that inhabits “speculative fiction” (Robert Heinlein's coined term in 1947). I agree with that wholeheartedly, even though many others have contributed. She has dozens of novels, including mystery, suspense, and speculative sci-fi, but start with this book. Each story is unique and they don't actually connect in any way except that she put them all into this book, so I can't summarize them. Please read them all: every single one is a gem and an amazing example of great sci-fi writing.
Contents: Unbirthday Party (1968) Baby, You Were Great (1967) When the Moon Was Red (1960) Sirloin and White Wine (1968) Perchance to Dream (1968) How Many Miles to Babylon? (1968) The Downstairs Room (1968) Countdown (1968) The Plausible Improbable (1968) The Feel of Desperation (1964) A Time to Keep (1962) The Most Beautiful Woman in the World (1968) The Planners (1968) Windsong (1968) The stories range from speculative fiction, to science fiction, to fantasy. “The Planners” (1968) was a Nebula winner, for example.
My writing life is a mixture. I have written novels of crime fiction, many featuring Sherlock Holmes, as well as a variety of sleuths of my own creation. I was editor of the monthly journal of the Crime Writers’ Association for twenty years and have written several plays, non-fiction books as well introductions to numerous literary collections. While I admit that my writings veer towards the serious and dramatic, in my social life I think of myself as a light-hearted fellow and as an antidote to my own dark fiction I enjoy having my spirits lifted by witty and amusing tales that help to raise the spirits.
If you know of Gyles Brandreth, the writer, broadcaster, and polymath you will know what to expect from any work of his. Subtitled The Diary of a Lifetime it contains extracts from his diaries from 1959 to the year 2000. It is a wonderful book to dip into, one that is full of enthusiasm and positivity. It is quite amazing the number of famous people that Brandreth has encountered over the years—not just names from showbusiness but artists, writers, politicians, sportspeople, and royalty. The book is stuffed with anecdotes most of which are highly amusing and are often presented in a self-deprecating manner.
This is a diary packed with famous names and extraordinary stories. It is also rich in incidental detail and wonderful observation, providing both a compelling record of five remarkable decades and a revealing, often hilarious and sometimes moving account of Gyles Brandreth's unusual life -- as a child living in London in the 'swinging' sixties, as a jumper-wearing TV presenter, as an MP and government whip, and as a royal biographer who has enjoyed unique access to the Queen and her family. Something Sensational to Read on the Train takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride from the era of…
It’s kind of depressing that I’m so fascinated with these big “God and death and war” themes that are always banging around in my head. I think it’s because I like the gravity of even the smallest decisions in heightened crisis situations. It makes things so prominent and visceral. This gravity also makes the beauty in these moments of crisis more beautiful and love that much stronger. Ultimately, I’ve spent the last thirteen years trying to square with my time overseas and chase some version of that heightened meaning in civilian life. The contrast between being a school teacher and soldier really makes all of that clear.
Orwell captures the dilemma of empire so well that every time I read it, my nerves get raw. It’s a trap. Everyone is dehumanized, the oppressors and the oppressed. The sneering townspeople, the trips on the football pitch, the clear-sighted way the crowd intuits the relationship between themselves and the young policeman all ring true. The villagers can control him because they understand the expectations he has as an official of the crown. They use his strength against him to get what they want. He doesn’t want to kill the elephant, but it’s expected of him, so he gruesomely shoots into the elephant's mouth till, like the British empire, it finally dies. The villagers pillage the carcass for meat. For Orwell, empire itself is brutal suicide.
'Shooting an Elephant' is Orwell's searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd 'solely to avoid looking a fool'. The other masterly essays in this collection include classics such as 'My Country Right or Left', 'How the Poor Die' and 'Such, Such were the Joys', his memoir of the horrors of public school, as well as discussions of Shakespeare, sleeping rough, boys' weeklies and a spirited defence of English cooking. Opinionated, uncompromising, provocative and hugely entertaining, all show Orwell's unique ability to get to…
I was in my 40s before I began exploring the topic of the British Empire. It came after I realised it explained so much about me (my Sikh identity, the emigration of my parents, my education) and so much about my country (its politics, psychology, wealth…) and yet I knew very little. It turned out that millions of people feel the same way… and I hope I provide an accessible introduction and summary of the massive topic.
In peerless prose, Winder proffers a simple thesis: that Britain is a nation of immigrants.
Despite our German royal family, and all those businesses created by Jews and Indians, we have long been a nation in denial about the immigrant blood flowing through our veins. To such a degree in the Windrush Scandal we have seen actual British citizens being threatened with deportation to countries they barely know.
This important book also challenges the dominant political narrative of my lifetime: that immigrants come here uninvited to take advantage of British hospitality.
If there was one book I could wish onto the National Curriculum, it would be this.
Immigration is one of the most important stories of modern British life, yet it has been happening since Caesar first landed in 53 BC. Ever since the first Roman, Saxon, Jute and Dane leaped off a boat we have been a mongrel nation. Our roots are a tangled web. From Huguenot weavers fleeing French Catholic persecution in the 18th century to South African dentists to Indian shopkeepers; from Jews in York in the 12th century (who had to wear a yellow star to distinguish them and who were shamefully expelled by Edward I in 1272) to the Jamaican who came…
After a relatively short career in research science, Helen Azar switched gears and returned to graduate school to fulfill a dream of becoming a reference librarian. She worked at the Free Library of Philadelphia for ten years, during which time she became a published author. While researching for her first book, The Diary of Olga Romanov, Helen visited Russia several times, and worked in the Rare Book Fund at the Museum at Tsarskoe Selo, which holds the imperial book collection. Today, Helen lives on the beautiful far south coast of New South Wales, Australia; she continues writing about Russia's last imperial family and leads Romanov history tours. She also administers The Romanov Family website and is the content creator for a YouTube channel In the Steps of the Romanovs.
I am surprised that I never came across this book until now. I rarely read Young Adult books, but of course make exceptions for Romanov fiction. There simply is not enough decent Romanov fiction out there, period. IMO this one is a gem. Although of course it is not based on the diaries of real Anastasia (who unfortunately burnt them all when the revolution broke out), the author clearly did a lot of research and seemingly read the diaries of the other sisters. Not sure why this book got so many 3 star ratings, even though the reviews say it is a very good book, but I would definitely recommend it to Romanov fiction and non-fiction history fans.
I was in my 40s before I began exploring the topic of the British Empire. It came after I realised it explained so much about me (my Sikh identity, the emigration of my parents, my education) and so much about my country (its politics, psychology, wealth…) and yet I knew very little. It turned out that millions of people feel the same way… and I hope I provide an accessible introduction and summary of the massive topic.
By her own admission, Morris was nostalgic about British Empire, and while I disagree with some of her conclusions, and she herself remarked that she was “ashamed” of the work before she died, there is no doubt that she penned the single best narrative of Britain’s imperial adventures.
No other writer has written so accessibly and elegantly about a complicated history that extended across five centuries.
For me, proof that you don’t always need to agree with a writer to admire them.
For 23 years I was lucky enough to work in the 18th century. Well, as close as is possible for someone born in the 20th century. That happened because I was a staff historian at the Fortress of Louisbourg, where I passed many hours studying a million pages of documentation and over 500 maps and plans of the long-ago society. That research allowed me to write many books and articles—for both academics and the general public—about the onetime French stronghold and bustling seaport. I found the work fascinating, and I credit my time at the Fortress of Louisbourg for making me the historian and writer I became.
Not many history books remain in print — and highly useful — more than a century after publication. Yet this book by John Stewart McLennan, first published in 1918, is one. His narrative of the rise and fall of Louisbourg remains a compelling and fact-based history that continues to satisfy many readers, especially those primarily interested in Louisbourg as a pawn in the game of imperial struggle between France and Great Britain. To be sure, McLennan’s book is light on the social, cultural, and religious history of Louisbourg, but there are lots of other authors who have explored those themes in more recent decades.
Louisbourg, From Its Foundation To Its Fall, 1713-1758 has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.
I studied the history of sub-Saharan Africa at the University of Cambridge. Study revealed to me how complicated was the region and how contested the history of a place and people could be. I'm a white man with a love for southern African history. There are white Africans. The history of the continent is their history too. But the preponderance of records were created by white writers, until relatively recently, and this always threatened to obscure the Black experience, Black actions, Black history. In Shaka Zulu, I found a character who wasn't reacting, on the whole, to external actions, but forging a Black empire, a Zulu empire, as the result of internal forces and experiences.
This is a big book, thoroughly researched but accessibly written. Morris has a military background and sees things from a strategic perspective. He wrote this book at almost the same time as Ritter’s biography of Shaka but his focus was subtly different. He seeks to evaluate not just Shaka’s nation-building but what followed, most especially the Anglo-Zulu war that culminated in the destruction of the Zulu military at Isandhlwana. As such, this book serves as a perfect companion piece to Ritter’s work. I enjoyed the immersive nature of Morris’s account as it spanned most of the nineteenth century. It gives telling insights into the British Empire’s strengths and weaknesses and does the same for the Zulu state that built on Shaka’s innovations. This book helped me set Shaka’s story in a wider context and for that alone it deserves a place on this list.
Filled with colourful characters, dramatic battles like Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift, and an inexorable narrative momentum, this unsurpassed history details the sixty-year existence of the world's mightiest African empire,from its brutal formation and zenith under the military genius Shaka (1787-1828), through its inevitable collision with white expansionism, to its dissolution under Cetshwayo in the Zulu War of 1879.
All my life, I have had a passion for history and, the moment I came upon Queen Victoria while browsing the history section in the local library, I was hooked! Far from being the dour Widow of Windsor, it was clear that she was a highly-intelligent, forward-thinking, often amusing, and often amused woman, with fascinating relatives and connections across the whole world. Her family life mirrored that of any ordinary family, with its ups and downs, its petty squabbles, and a myriad of contrasting characters, each with a unique and interesting story to tell. With so many avenues yet to explore, this is a passion that could last a lifetime!
This is a charming book, filled with amusing and touching anecdotes by Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Marie Louise, whose lovely character shines through every page. The simple style and lack of chronological order create the impression that the reader is sitting with the author as she simply recounts her remarkable memories of the people and places of another era. Just beautiful!
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