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History books

Please can you recommend me your favourite history books:

I'm especially interested in late-modern history such as military history and race, ethnicity & community.

Also I want an easy read so no big chunky detailed books please.

Thanks!

Reply 1

BogdanK

I don’t think I can recommend any enormously factual books but there are some that provide invaluable historical context while simultaneously being fictional (in their particular stories). “Journey to the End of Night” is a fascinating read, this is more from a literary perspective, but also a cynical (and very accurate) commentary on WW1 and, more interestingly, French colonial Africa (so its quite gruesome). Also consider reading “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway. It’s about the Spanish civil war and asides from being a beautifully composed book the information seems to be very specific and factual certainly providing an enormous amount of context (from first hand experience as Hemingway was a reporter in Spain during the war). Lastly, “Generation P” is a Russian novel written about some of the socio-cultural issues present in post-soviet Russia, which are certainly very numerous. Hope this was helpful, I imagine you might be more interested in the third book since it’s closer to what you said your interests are.