Hey! I'm Gabria and I'm a junior academic historian from the UK who reads pretty frequently, and I'm looking for recommendations to expand my collection of books on a particular set of topics ^ I'm looking for more 'unconventional' or 'new angled' books (for example Camilla Townsend's 'fifth sun' is pretty unconventional as compared to other accounts of the fall of the aztecs) on a set of topics listed below. Most of these are historical topics so I'm mainly looking for nonfiction, however there are a few fiction topics too!
Nonfiction:
These are the topics I'm looking to expand on ^ I have most of the standard 'must buy' books in these categories, so I'm looking for unique takes, studies on unseen characters or more academic peices that go into greater depth
- Balkan Political Instability [20th Century]
- US Advancements in technology, foreign policy and law [1865-1970]
- US intervention in South America and FBI involvement in coups [20th Century]
- The Plantagenet 'Empire' [1155-1216]
- Late-Modern Britain [1945-2008]
- The Conquistador's and the Fall of the Aztecs
- The Early Achaemenid Empire and the transition to modern Iran
- Classical Art and Literature
Also open to topic suggestions if you can give a list of good introductory books (note I'm not looking for any more US history 😭 almost as frustrating as studying the British Empire)
Fiction:
I'm super into Lovecraft, Stephen King, Arthur Conan Doyle, Doeyovetsky, Camus, Kafka etc and I run a very sort of 'old gods' cosmic horror murder mystery dnd campaign, so im always looking for books that'll give tons of monster inspo ^
Thanks for reading guys, looking forward to your recs!!!
by Crafty-Effort3940
3 Comments
Two things: 1) I’m fairly certain you meant CIA and not FBI. 2) The FBI was established in 1933, and the CIA was established in 1947: both postdating the turn of the century and some of the events you are looking for.
* *Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq* by Stephen Kinzer.
* *Regime Change in Iran: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq November 1952 – August 1953* by Donald N. Wilber.
* *All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror* by Stephen Kinzer.
* *War Is a Racket* by Major General Smedley D. Butler.
* *History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru* by William Hickling Prescott.
* *The Balkans 1815-1914: Berkshire Studies in European History* by Leften Stavros Stavrianos.
* *The Long Fuse: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War I* by Laurence Lafore.
* *The Guns of August* by Barbara Tuchman.
* *From Mahan to Pearl Harbor* by Sadao Asada: an in depth review of the three diplomatic naval conferences of the 1920s involving Japan, Britain and the U.S.
* *Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy: 1932-1945* by Robert Dalleck.
While Stephen Kinzer’s writing style is breezy and entertaining, he’s a bit too flippant to be 100% trusted. Compare what Kinzer writes to what Wilber wrote. There’s a marked difference, but Wilber is the primary source.
Try ‘The Aztecs’ by Michael E. Smith for a unique perspective on the fall of the Aztecs.
I don’t know very much about history, unfortunately, but I do have [this list saved](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4o1n26/i_want_to_read_a_book_like_guns_germs_and_steel/) from /r/askhistorians . This may be a bit simpler than what you are looking for, but I liked Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest.
>I run a very sort of ‘old gods’ cosmic horror murder mystery dnd campaign, so im always looking for books that’ll give tons of monster inspo ^
Now this, I can help with!
* She Walks In Shadows edited by Silvia Moreno Garcia and Paula R. Stiles. I’m reading this right now. It’s a collection of short Lovecraftian fiction written by different authors.
* Leech by Hiron Ennes. Post apocalyptic gothic horror sci fi. Lots of creative weirdness in the setting.
* Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder. Feminist Lovecraftian horror with a lot of disgusting body horror.
* Nightflyers by George R. R. Martin. A collection of sci fi horror.