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Anthony’s NotesA personal field guide
From the notebook

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Prehistory

  • The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
  • War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage

Ancient (to 500 CE)

  • Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire
  • The First Great Powers: Babylon and Assyria
  • Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West
  • Pontius Pilate
  • 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed
  • After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations
  • A War Like No Other: How the Athenians & Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War
  • History of the Peloponnesian War

Medieval (500–1500)

  • The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan, His Heirs and the Founding of Modern China
  • Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
  • Genghis Khan and the Quest for God: How the World’s Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom
  • The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
  • Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King
  • The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350
  • A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
  • In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
  • The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason

Early Modern (1500–1789)

  • The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648–1815
  • The Thirty Years War
  • The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
  • Rembrandt’s Eyes
  • Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600–1900
  • Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies
  • Ben & Me: In Search of a Founder’s Formula for a Long and Useful Life
  • An Infinity of Nations: How the Native New World Shaped Early North America
  • The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870
  • Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

19th Century (1789–1914)

  • The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815–1830
  • The House of Rothschild, Vol 1: Money’s Prophets, 1798–1848
  • Bolívar: American Liberator
  • Microbe Hunters
  • The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
  • By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners
  • Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
  • Britain’s War Against the Slave Trade: The Operations of the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron 1807–1867
  • Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production
  • Liberty’s Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America
  • The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781–1997
  • Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World
  • The Civil War Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (historical fiction)
  • The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories (historical fiction)
  • Middlemarch (historical fiction)
  • How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It
  • By Author The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (1st)

WWI & Interwar (1914–1939)

  • The Guns of August
  • Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
  • Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
  • The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
  • American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
  • 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in History—and How It Shattered a Nation
  • One Summer: America, 1927
  • The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia’s Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom
  • The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End
  • The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931
  • How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Destruction of the Syrian Arab Kingdom in 1920
  • A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
  • A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
  • The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
  • 1000 Years of Annoying the French (cross-period humor/history; heavy modern focus)

WWII (1939–1945)

  • Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany
  • Bodyguard of Lies: The Extraordinary True Story Behind D-Day
  • Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939–44
  • Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway
  • The Longest Siege: Tobruk – The Battle That Saved North Africa
  • Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
  • The Making of the Atomic Bomb
  • The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #1) (historical fiction)
  • A War of Empires: Japan, India, Burma and Britain: 1941–45

Cold War (1945–1991)

  • The Abyss: Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962
  • Witness
  • A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
  • Gulag: A History
  • Hunting Eichmann
  • Biko
  • Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base
  • The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government
  • The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner
  • The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics
  • The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World
  • Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai
  • Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991
  • Stalin
  • Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
  • Eisenhower: Soldier and President
  • Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
  • Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam
  • Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West
  • The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War
  • Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume 1: From Grantham to the Falklands
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (historical fiction)
  • Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

Contemporary (1991–present)

  • Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001–2016
  • Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
  • Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq
  • The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq
  • The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State
  • The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump
  • Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command
  • Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History Of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, And Assassins
  • The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq
  • Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West
  • The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the Age of Fake News
  • The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America
  • Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare
  • Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
  • The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East
  • Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East
  • The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East
  • Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
  • Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore
  • Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service
  • The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House
  • First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton
  • Obama’s Wars
  • Bush at War
  • So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
  • How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement
  • Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
  • The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
  • The Woodward Trilogy: Fear, Rage, and Peril
  • LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority
  • The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
  • Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
  • Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service
  • Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
  • Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt
  • Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire
  • Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  • Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires
  • Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
  • Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion With Radical Islam
  • The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
  • The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World
  • The Post-American World
  • Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy
  • The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency
  • The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
  • Our Bodies, Their Battlefields: War Through the Lives of Women
  • Razor 03: A Night Stalker’s Wars
  • The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces
  • One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein

Regional – Africa (Survey / Interpretation)

  • Africa: A Biography of the Continent
  • The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor
  • How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
  • White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa
  • A Sword Over the Nile
  • River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile

Regional – Middle East (Modern & Contemporary)

  • Slave States: The Practice of Kafala in the Gulf Arab Region
  • The End of Modern History in the Middle East (Hoover Institution Press Publication)
  • The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
  • From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East
  • Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present
  • The Arabs: A History
  • The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years
  • The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace
  • The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq
  • The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924
  • The Emergence of Modern Turkey

South Asia

  • The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
  • Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
  • The Night Diary (historical fiction)
  • Midnight’s Children (historical fiction)
  • Indian Givers: How Native Americans Transformed the World (Americas-focused; cross-listed for colonial exchange)

Survey / General (Global, Cross-period, Thematic)

  • A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
  • The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
  • Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
  • Salt: A World History
  • The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
  • The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
  • Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics (Politics of Place, #1)
  • The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World
  • The Revenge Of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate
  • The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
  • Visions of Empire: How Five Imperial Regimes Shaped the World
  • America, América: A New History of the New World
  • How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History
  • The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today
  • The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
  • How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going
  • Debt: The First 5,000 Years
  • Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
  • Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  • The Lessons of History
  • Summary: The Lessons of History (Will and Ariel Durant)
  • The Complete Story of Civilization
  • The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
  • The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease
  • Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History
  • Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
  • Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver
  • The Gene: An Intimate History
  • The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
  • Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
  • The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
  • Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power
  • Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare
  • History’s Great Military Blunders and the Lessons They Teach
  • Leadership in War: Essential Lessons from Those Who Made History
  • The 33 Strategies of War
  • The Causes of War
  • The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation
  • The Rest is History: The Official Book from the Makers of the Hit Podcast
  • The German Myth of the East: 1800 to the Present
  • The English and Their History
  • The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization
  • The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe
  • Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century
  • The Lost History of Western Civilization
  • The Rise & Fall of the Plantation Complex
  • The Ruin of Kasch
  • Modern Times
  • Modern Times (Part 1)
  • America, regional/civic surveys: Great Plains; American Gospel; The House: The History of the House of Representatives; Leadership: In Turbulent Times

Exploration / Travel History

  • River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
  • The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

U.S. Civil Rights (20th c.) (for quick filtering; also placed by era above)

  • Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., And The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
  • Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech That Transformed a Nation
  • You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America
  • The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act
  • The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

Historical Fiction (for quick filtering; also placed by era above)

  • Middlemarch
  • The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories
  • The Night Diary
  • The Yellow Wife
  • The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #1)
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
  • Kindred

Couldn’t confidently place (title ambiguous)

  • A Gracious Enemy
  • Api’s Berlin Diaries
  • Disturbance