history

Book Reviews

Abbas Amanat: Iran: A Modern History*
- from the Safavids to the Islamic Revolution
Paul Arblaster: A History of the Low Countries
- from Caesar to the modern Netherlands, Belgium + Luxembourg
Ralph A. Austen: Trans-Saharan Africa in World History
- Maghreb, Sudan and Sahara; Islam, empires and trade
Thomas Barfield: Afghanistan*
A Cultural and Political History
Thomas Bartlett: Ireland: A History
- a lucid and engaging narrative account
Christopher I. Beckwith: Empires of the Silk Road
A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present
James Belich: A History of the New Zealanders*
Making Peoples; Paradise Reforged
Judith Binney: The Shaping of History*
Essays from The New Zealand Journal of History
J. Edward Chamberlin: Horse
How the Horse has Changed Civilisations
Robert Cribb, Audrey Kahin: Historical Dictionary of Indonesia
- a broadly useful reference work
John Davies: A History of Wales
- a dense but rewarding narrative
Patricia Buckley Ebrey: The Cambridge Illustrated History of China*
- an attractive, accessible, and scholarly general history
J.H. Elliott: Scots & Catalans
- a history of two nations within states
John L. Esposito: Islam*
The Straight Path
David Gilmour: The Pursuit of Italy
A History of a Land, Its Regions and Their Peoples
Mikiso Hane: Premodern Japan
A Historical Survey
R.A. Houston, W.W.J. Knox: The New Penguin History of Scotland
From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
J. Hussain: A History of the Peoples of Pakistan
Towards Independence
Gunnar Karlsson: The History of Iceland*
- from settlement to the present
Terry G. Lacy: Ring of Seasons
Iceland - Its Culture and History
James W. Laine: Shivaji
Hindu King in Islamic India
Mark Mazower: The Balkans*
- beyond stereotypes: a short but insightful history
Colin McEvedy: Penguin Atlas of African History
Robert McGhee: The Last Imaginary Place*
A Human History of the Arctic World
Elaine McKay: Studies in Indonesian History
Kenneth McNaught: The Penguin History of Canada
- politicians, parties, wars, constitutional changes, ...
James A. Millward: Eurasian Crossroads
A History of Xinjiang
F.W. Mote: Imperial China 900-1800*
- with a focus on political institutions and systems of government
Milton Osborne: The Mekong
Turbulent past, uncertain future
Nicholas Ostler: Empires of the Word
A Language History of the World
Richard Pankhurst: The Ethiopians
A History
John Reader: The Untold History of the Potato
- social history, agriculture, food
John J. Reilly: Spengler's Future
- an exploration of the cycles of world history
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky: A History of Russia
- Kievan, Appanage, Muscovite, Imperial, and Soviet Russia
J.L. Salcedo-Bastardo: Bolivar
A Continent and its Destiny
Keith Sinclair: A History of New Zealand
- a classic, with five editions since 1959
Svat Soucek: A History of Inner Asia*
- from the coming of Islam
D. J. Steinberg: In Search of Southeast Asia
A Modern History
Jonathan Steinberg: Why Switzerland?
- history, politics, language, wealth, religion + identity
Tony Swain: A Place for Strangers
Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being
Nicholas Tarling: The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia
- a genuinely regional approach, with 20 chapters by specialists
Camilla Townsend: The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs**
- using indigenous Nahuatl sources
Jaime Vicens Vives: Approaches to the History of Spain
- short essays on topics from prehistory to the civil war