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“The First Cold War: Anglo-Russian Relations in the 19th Century” by Barbara Emerson (Hearst)
From Poland and the Black Sea to Persia and Central Asia, the British and Russian empires were often at odds in the 19th century, but with the exception of the Crimean War of 1853-1856, the two countries generally kept their conflicts in check. Emerson’s account is thoroughly researched and enlivened with surprises and amusing anecdotes.
Amitabh Ghosh, Smoke and Ash: The Hidden History of Opium (John Murray/Farrar Strauss & Giroux)
The British Empire’s opium trade, based on mass poppy cultivation in India and the sale of the drug in China, has fascinated historians in recent decades, and Ghosh, an award-winning Indian novelist and non-fiction writer, retells the story with deftness and controlled passion.
How the World Made Its Western Destiny: A 4000-Year History, by Josephine Quinn (Bloomsbury/Random House)
From the Renaissance to the late 20th century, the history of ancient civilizations was taught in the Western world primarily as the history of ancient Greece and Rome. In his insightful book, grounded in modern scientific discoveries, Oxford scholar Quinn paints a much broader canvas.
Trailblazer: The First Feminist Who Changed the World by Jane Robinson (Doubleday)
Born illegitimately in 1827, Barbara Bodichon was a radical women’s rights activist, organiser of the first mass movement for British women’s suffrage and one of the co-founders of Girton College, Cambridge. Robinson has written a vivid and sympathetic biography of the woman who was a pioneer of the book’s very title.
Damascus: The Massacre of 1860 and the Collapse of the Old Ottoman World by Eugene Logan (Allen Lane)
After Muslim mobs killed thousands of their Christian neighbors in Mount Lebanon and Damascus in July 1860, Ottoman authorities responded with far-sighted statesmanship, defusing tensions and restoring order. But as Logan’s exemplary study makes clear, this incident was a harbinger of even worse violence later in the Ottoman Empire.
Coming to the book in summer 2024…
This week, FT reporters and critics will be sharing their favourite stories. Highlights include:
Monday: Business by Andrew Hill
Tuesday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Wednesday: Environment by Pirita Clark
Thursday: Fiction by Laura Battle and Andrew Dixon
Friday: History by Tony Barber
Saturday: FT journalists choose their favourite books of 2024 so far
Sunday: Politics with Gideon Rachman
Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Case by Morris Samuels (Yale University)
The Dreyfus Affair, which rocked the Third Republic in the 1890s, was a defining event in the history of modern French and international anti-Semitism. Samuels distinguishes himself from many previous scholars by focusing sharply on the life of Alfred Dreyfus and the model of Jewish identity in France that he embodied.
Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore (Bodley Head)
A comprehensive, entertaining, and always scholarly guide to witchcraft in late medieval and early modern Europe, Stanmore reveals a world in which folk practices were embedded in everyday life. This book by a historian from the University of Exeter is full of colorful stories and precise analysis.
The World That Wasn’t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century by Ben Steil (Avid Reader Press)
Steele’s big success came with two impressive books, on the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Woods Conference, focusing on the career of Henry Wallace, Franklin Roosevelt’s third vice-president. Steele’s portrait is by no means a positive one, but his books are well worth the read.
Tell me what you think
Will you be taking any of these books with you on your summer vacation this year? Which ones? Are there any titles we missed? Let us know in the comments below!
Revolution: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World, by David Van Reybroeck, translated by David Colmer and David Mackay (Bodley Head)
Published in Dutch in 2020 and now with an excellent English translation, Revolusi is a masterful portrayal of the Indonesian and Dutch wars of independence from 1945 to 1949. Belgian historian Van Reybrouck makes extensive use of oral testimonies to reconstruct a war that inspired independence movements around the world.
Lost Homelands: Europeans Between Empires and Nation-States, 1867-1939, by Irina Vushko (Yale University)
Vuszko, a Princeton scholar, offers a fascinating new look at late 19th- and early 20th-century European political history. He details the careers of 21 statesmen who grew up in the final decades of the Habsburg Empire and experienced the turmoil after 1918, not all of whom will be familiar to English-speaking readers.
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