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Collected reviews from decades of reading — organized by subject and written for clarity, context, and long-term reference.
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When William H. McNeill published “Plagues and Peoples” in 1976, it startled historians and anthropologists alike. Here was a sweeping, erudite global history that placed microbes – not kings, generals, or economic systems – at the center of the human story. In doing so, McNeill challenged centuries of historical writing that had largely treated disease…
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When Garrett Mattingly’s “The Armada” was first published in 1959, it became an immediate sensation – not just among historians, but among general readers. It won the National Book Award and quickly carved out a reputation as one of the most engaging works of narrative history ever written. Even today, over half a century later,…
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David M. Potter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history “The Impending Crisis” (1976) is that rare historical work which, decades after its publication, remains not only authoritative but essential. Posthumously published in 1976 and completed by his Stanford colleague Don E. Fehrenbacher, the book distills nearly a lifetime of scholarship into a sweeping, judicious, and penetrating account of…
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I first discovered this book in a box of donated books at a forward operating base on the Afghan-Pakistan border in 2010. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the most entertaining works of history I’ve ever picked up. Alison Weir has an unusual knack for putting flesh-and-bones on long dead…
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Anthony Gottlieb’s “The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance” (2000) stands as a remarkable achievement in making the complex world of ancient philosophy accessible to modern readers, much the way Bertrand Russell’s seminal “The History of Western Philosophy” (1946) did for previous generations. Gottlieb’s group biography does for…
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In the pantheon of “great project books,” David McCullough’s “The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 (1977) may be the best. It is a sweeping and authoritative chronicle of one of the most ambitious engineering projects in human history. With characteristic narrative verve and exhaustive research, McCullough traces the efforts…
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David McCullough has long been one of my favorite popular historians. He can turn almost any event into a compulsively readable, character-driven adventure story. “The Wright Brothers” (2015) was written in McCullough’s twilight years (he died in 2022) and it isn’t nearly as commanding or dense as his earlier award-winning works, like “Truman” (1992) or…
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Pauline Maier’s “From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776” (1972) is one of the most thoughtful and enduring contributions to the historiography of the American Revolution. The book represented a significant shift in how scholars approached the study of colonial radicalism, eschewing romanticized portrayals of the founding…
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Most people don’t think of the Carolinas as a major theater of operations during the American Revolution. Yet, the British looked at the South as a critical part of their strategy to isolate and destroy seditious New England, which the North administration believed was the atypical nest of rebellion. John Buchanan’s “The Road to Guilford…
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