Recommended contemporary history

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Sparks

Ian Johnson

An inspiring testament to China's dissident historians and activists, from the 1940s to the present

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The Picnic

Matthew Longo

An extraordinarily dramatic reconstruction of the greatest border breach in Cold War history

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Beauty Is in the Street: Protest and Counterculture in Post-War Europe

Joachim C. Haberlen

An electrifying history of protest and its transformations in post-war Europe

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Killing Thatcher

Rory Carroll

Killing Thatcher is the gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher and to wiping out the British Cabinet

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Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West

Calder Walton

A gripping history of spies - a non-fiction narrative that could be straight from the pages of a John le Carre novel.

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Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

Max Hastings

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most perilous event in history, when mankind faced a looming nuclear collision between the United States and Soviet Union. During those weeks, the…

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The Dream of Europe: Travels in a Troubled Continent

Geert Mak

How did the great European dream turn sour? And where do we go from here?

From the author of the internationally acclaimed In Europe, a stunning history of our…

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Empress of the Nile

Lynne Olson

The fascinating story of the feisty French archaeologist who led the international effort to save ancient Egyptian temples from the floodwaters of the Aswan Dam.

In the 1960s, the world’s…

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Roller-Coaster: Europe, 1950-2017

Ian Kershaw

The definitive history of a divided Europe, from the aftermath of the Second World War to the present

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Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Patrick Radden Keefe

Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2019. A gripping story forensically reported, Say Nothing explores the extremes people will go to for an ideal, and the way societies…

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Contemporary China: 1949 to the Present

Guiheux

With a population of nearly 1.5 billion and the world's second largest economy, China is a major player in the world today, and yet many in the West know very…

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Homelands: A Personal History of Europe in Our Time

Timothy Garton Ash

Homelands is a stunning blend of contemporary history, reportage and memoir by our greatest writer about European affairs.

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Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Patrick Radden Keefe

The story of the Sackler dynasty, their company Purdue Pharma, its bestselling drug OxyContin, their immensely generous philanthropy and their involvement in the opioid crisis.

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And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

Randy Shilts

A masterpiece of investigative reporting on the AIDS crisis in the USA; an international bestseller and winner of the Stonewall Book Award, which inspired an award-winning film.

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JFK: The Smoking Gun

Colin McLaren

Assassination? Conspiracy? Evidence of the shocking truth is finally revealed.

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City of Lions

Jozef Wittlin, Philippe Sands

Lviv, Lwow, Lvov, Lemberg. Known by a variety of names, the City of Lions is now in western Ukraine. Situated in different countries during its history, it is a city…

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The Koreas: The Birth of Two Nations Divided

Theodore Jun Yoo

What history, pop culture, and diaspora can teach us about North and South Korea today.

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The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Yang Jisheng

Yang Jisheng’s The World Turned Upside Down is the definitive history of the Cultural Revolution, in withering and heartbreaking detail.

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The Exceptions: Sixteen Women, MIT, and the Fight for Equality in Science

Kate Zernike

The remarkable untold story of how a group of sixteen determined women used the power of the collective and the tools of science to inspire ongoing radical change. This is…

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About England

David Matless

David Matless explores how ‘England’ and ‘Englishness’ have been imagined since the 1960s.

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A Continent Erupts

Ronald H. Spector

A harrowing history of the conflicts that swept Asia during the decade following the Second World War-and determined the fate of the continent

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Indelible City: Dispossesion and Defiance in Hong Kong

Louisa Lim

An award-winning journalist takes to the protest-riven streets of Hong Kong to write this startling landmark account of the island city’s complex past and precarious future.

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The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War

Louis Menand

The Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest sense - economic and political, artistic and personal.

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Another India

Pratinav Anil

A fresh take on the history of post-independence India, revealing how Muslim leaders in Congress and the community abandoned those they claimed to represent.

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Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Adam Higginbotham

The definitive, dramatic untold story of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, based on original reporting and new archival research.

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We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958

Fintan O'Toole

Fintan O'Toole’s history of Ireland in his own time. Ireland has changed almost out of recognition during the decades since O'Toole’s birth in 1958, and this is his very personal…

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Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth

Cathi Unsworth

The first book to cover in-depth and from an insider's perspective the inception and rise of goth - one of the world's most enduringly popular musical subcultures.

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Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate

M. E. Sarotte

Thirty years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, this book reveals how tensions between America, NATO, and Russia transformed geopolitics between the Cold War and COVID

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The BBC: A People’s History

David Hendy

A monumental work of popular history, making the case that the Beeb is as much of a National Treasure as the NHS.

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Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland

Karl Schloegel

A first-hand account of life and conditions in Ukraine, since Crimea’s annexation by Russia in March 2014.

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The Economic Government of the World: 1933-present

Martin Daunton

This is the history of the institutions and individuals who have managed the global economy, from the World Monetary and Economic Conference in the wake of the Great Depression to…

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How to Fix Northern Ireland

Malachi O'Doherty

A highly topical and original investigation into the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland, published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.

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Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

Svetlana Alexievich

In this magnificent requiem to a civilization in ruins, the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate reinvents a singular, polyphonic literary form, bringing together the voices of dozens of witnesses…

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Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare

Seth G. Jones

How three key figures in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran built ruthless irregular warfare campaigns that are eroding American power.

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The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957

Frank Dikoetter

A groundbreaking chronicle of the violent early years of the People’s Republic of China by the author of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize-winning Mao’s Great Famine.

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Recommended contemporary history

Sparks

The Picnic

Beauty Is in the Street: Protest and Counterculture in Post-War Europe

Killing Thatcher

Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West

Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

The Dream of Europe: Travels in a Troubled Continent

Empress of the Nile

Roller-Coaster: Europe, 1950-2017

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Contemporary China: 1949 to the Present

Homelands: A Personal History of Europe in Our Time

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

JFK: The Smoking Gun

City of Lions

The Koreas: The Birth of Two Nations Divided

The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

The Exceptions: Sixteen Women, MIT, and the Fight for Equality in Science

About England

A Continent Erupts

Indelible City: Dispossesion and Defiance in Hong Kong

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War

Another India

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster

We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958

Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth

Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate

The BBC: A People’s History

Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland

The Economic Government of the World: 1933-present

How to Fix Northern Ireland

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare

The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957