Books like The Histories
12 books with a reading profile close to The Histories by Herodotus. Deep, outward-looking and contemplative; a demanding read.
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1
Letters from Russia
Also deep and outward-looking · history, narrative
Marquis de Custine’s 1839 travelogue chronicles his transit through the Russian Empire during the reign of Tsar Nicholas I.
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2
History of the Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides
Also deep and outward-looking · history, academic
Thucydides recounts the twenty-seven-year conflict between the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta.
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3
The Lives of the Artists
Also outward-looking · history, academic
Giorgio Vasari’s seminal text traces the progression of Italian art from its medieval decline to its sixteenth-century peak.
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4
Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium
Also outward-looking · history, academic
Jonathan Harris reconstructs the urban landscape and political culture of Constantinople during the peak of its influence around the year 1200.
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5
The Invention of the Restaurant
Also outward-looking · history, academic
Rebecca Spang traces the origins of the restaurant to eighteenth-century Paris, arguing that these establishments did not begin as places for gluttony, but as quasi-medical spas.
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6
Russia and the Russians
Also outward-looking · history, academic
Geoffrey Hosking analyzes the tension between the expansion of the Russian state and the development of its national identity.
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7
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8
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Also deep and outward-looking · history, academic
Isabel Wilkerson argues that the United States is governed by a rigid, unspoken hierarchy that functions like a caste system rather than just a collection of racial prejudices.
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9
Child's History of England (Annotated and Illustrated)
by Charles Dickens, Toby Davidson
history, narrative
In this work, Charles Dickens provides a chronological narrative of English history spanning from the ancient Roman invasions under Julius Caesar to the seventeenth-century Glorious Revolution.
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10
Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo
Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative
Jean Valjean exits a French prison after nineteen years of hard labor, a sentence triggered by stealing bread for his family.
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12
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative
Set in a 1950s Soviet labor camp, the novel tracks Ivan Denisovich Shukhov through a single winter day of his ten-year sentence.
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