The 15 best books for summer
The New Statesman’s selection of essential recent releases.
ByHistory books
Discover all the New Statesman’s latest articles and reviews of history books. Here you can find expert opinion on the best reads for 2022.
Why Gone with the Wind is American culture’s original sin
Sarah Churchwell’s book is a 458-page indictment of the Civil War-era romance. Frankly, should we give a damn?
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When women were warriors: the forgotten female leaders of the Middle Ages
In Femina, Janina Ramirez tells the stories of women previously written out of history books.
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Burning the bastards out
The destruction of country houses in the Irish revolution can be seen as the last stage of a long Land…
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The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: how Putin exploited a wartime myth
There are echoes of the invasion of Ukraine in the epic battle for Stalingrad, but this time Russia is on…
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Nietzsche before the breakdown
In the 1880s, the ailing philosopher prophesied the West’s violent decline – but not even he could prevent it.
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The Great War’s miracle worker
How one surgeon’s pioneering treatment healed soldiers with the most disfiguring injuries of the First World War.
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Bringing the dead back to life
The world of South Africa’s /Xam Bushmen blended vision and reality, human and animal – until it was brutally destroyed.
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How the empire degraded Britain
Three new histories reveal the corrosive effects of colonialism and slavery on today’s British politics.
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Henry Kissinger’s whitewashing of Richard Nixon
The American diplomat’s new book, Leadership, is undermined by his self-serving portrait of his thuggish former boss.
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A history of nuclear catastrophe
Seen by many as a route to net zero, nuclear power is haunted by its past disasters.
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What Antony Beevor gets wrong about Russia
The historian’s new book Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 fails to understand that brutality is powered by ideas.
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How nostalgia fuels the culture wars
In her new book Rule, Nostalgia, Hannah Rose Woods explores how illusory and contested golden ages have haunted Britain since…
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Rebels Against the Raj: A morality tale for Modi’s nationalist India
A new history of the Westerners who fought with Gandhi to free India from British rule has lessons for the…
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Gilbert Murray: the Oxford don who made Greek chic
Daisy Dunn’s charismatic interwar history of Oxford illuminates the wide influence of the celebrated classicist and his circle.
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The strange allure of the strongman leader
Authoritarians and autocrats continue to flourish despite a long parade of inadequacy. Can liberal democracy strike back?
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Trouble in the House of Windsor
New works by the journalists Tina Brown and Robert Hardman question whether the monarchy can survive without radical reform.
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What the Nazis did next
Danny Orbach’s intriguing book Fugitives details how former Third Reich officers sold their services to the West – and turned…
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Morality after the Bomb
How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch transformed philosophy for a postwar world.
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What to read in 2022: non-fiction
From politics and science to history and pop, the essential books for the year ahead.
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