One of the more niche skills I, and many others, have acquired in studying for a PhD in history is the ability to identify whether a history book is likely to be good or not. This is also something of a curse, since whenever some non-historian friend shows me a new book they’ve bought or are excited to read, I must suppress (something I don’t always succeed at) the urge to pontificate on the merits of such a book. To do so is, more often than not, to take on the role of a vibe killer by pointing out why X popular history book is fundamentally flawed (looking at you Guns, Germs, and Steel, you know what you did). This leads to a natural follow up, though, of how could I help someone find better history books – how can I share this skill of identifying whether a book is likely to be good or not with others who are interested in reading good history books but didn’t spend years of their life getting a fancy piece of paper to hang on their wall? It’s a rather difficult skill to articulate, but in this post, I’m going to do my best to explain my methods and to also discuss the importance of good history.
To a degree this is an impossible task, because historians never read just one book. There are very few subjects where I can point to just one book and say, “this is the one you need to read”. This is especially true of larger subjects where there are many, many books. I’ll talk about this more later, but history is a dialogue between scholars and no one person has a monopoly on it. Each book brings something different to the discussion and engaging in multiple viewpoints (within the scope of real history, conspiracy theorists not invited) is essential to a good understanding of a topic. This is why even after I’ve read a dozen or more books on a topic like the American Civil War, I can still feel like I am a relative novice on that subject.
However, I fully acknowledge that your average person on the street does not want me to recommend six to eight books to them. They have their lives to live, and they want one, maybe two if I can really sell it to them, books on a subject to read before bed. That is partly why in this post I’m hoping to empower individuals to find their own books without having to engage in the eternal struggle of having your historian friend try and distil a field down to one book. You don’t need to pick out the book on a topic, because no such book exists. Instead, I want to help you find a good book, which can maybe be the first step towards that obsessive reading that drives so many historians.
I want to acknowledge the subjective nature of what I’m doing here. In my definition a good book is one that will teach the reader something about history that is largely, at time of reading, accepted to be true by most scholars of that subject. History is an eternal debate whose relationship to “truth” is ever fluctuating (more on that later), so I don’t want the notion of a good book to be taken in an absolute, objective sense. Similarly, readers can learn a lot from a book I would classify as bad, i.e. one that lacks scholarly rigor or contains significant numbers of falsehoods, but I would in general steer beginner readers away from the more troublesome books on a topic. For the purposes of this article a good book should also be able to largely stand on its own and not require an onerous amount of prior knowledge of the subject (a tall order, I know).
I’m going to outline my general approach to selecting a book on a subject that is new to me which usually helps to secure a book of good quality. I will note now that it is not a guaranteed success – several terrible books have successfully met these criteria, and some stellar history has failed to. Instead think of it as playing the odds, with these criteria I find my chances are at their best when going into a new field with no prior experience.
In summary, to be expanded upon afterwards, here is how I judge books:
Was this book, or a similar book by the same author, recommended to me by someone whose knowledge on this topic I respect?
Was the book published in the last thirty years?
Is it from a respectable publisher (usually academic, but not always)?
Does the author hold a higher degree in history and/or are they an academic at a respectable institution?
Has the author written other books on this topic? Is this a deviation from their normal work?
How long is the book? How expensive? Is it in my local library?
Was this book, or another similar book, recommended to me?
This is the best and most consistent way to get a good book: be recommended it by someone who knows what they’re talking about. Sadly, this is also one of the hardest to achieve, because unless you know someone who happens to specialise in your new area of interest you’re going to have to track an expert down. If you do happen to know a specialist, please, please ask them about the subject. I guarantee you they are begging for people to listen to them recommend books and talk about it – everyone in their immediate life is probably sick of hearing about it! If you don’t happen to have an expert in your wider social circle, I recommend borrowing one from someone else’s. I usually steal mine from r/askhistorians.
The booklist on r/askhistorians is a treasure trove of books you haven’t heard of but should probably read. While somewhat irregularly updated, most of its sections contain a plethora of works that have been reviewed and discussed by people who know what they’re talking about, and they even include little blurbs to tell you why the book is good. The real challenge for me is limiting myself to just one of the amazing selection of books they show me! If the booklist should fail you, you can also ask for a recommendation on the subreddit itself, although if your topic is sufficiently niche you may not receive an answer.
Now, should you be without a local expert and if your chosen topic is not well covered by the r/askhistorians community (or if you have a Reddit allergy, I can’t blame anyone for that), then we must move on to the next criteria.
Was the book published in the last thirty years?
It can seem a bit snobbish or biased to exclude books of an older vintage, but it is generally the case that more recent books contain better scholarship. The explanation for this is honestly pretty straightforward: the people writing books now have more books and more research to inspire and guide their own work than those who came before them did. We have also seen a greater diversity of scholars entering academia in the past thirty or so years (before it all caught fire, but that’s a separate diatribe), which has in turn led to exciting re-examinations of things once believed to be true. More diverse voices and perspectives using existing research have built better foundations for future scholars to work from – good history begets more good history.
This is sort of what historians mean when they talk about historiography. Technically, historiography is the study of what previous historians wrote about a subject – i.e. instead of reading a historian because you want to know about the Wars of the Roses you are reading his or her work because you want to know what they thought about the Wars of the Roses, disconnected from what may or may not have happened.
Historiography is fundamental to the practice of history and is also an excellent way to show how perspectives on history have changed over the centuries. Every generation of scholarship is infused with the biases and interests of the time it was written, but it is usually only obvious what those were years later when we look back. This in turn gives us reason to reevaluate what was written before and use that information to inform future work.
I have at times seen the belief from non-historians that basically what historians do is they pull out the existing puzzle pieces of “objective facts” about a topic and then they use those pieces to arrange their own story about the past. I cannot stress how far from the truth this is. There is no supply of objective historical fact – what we “know” about the past is inherently filtered through biases before it ever reaches our eyes.
There is more available information on the past than any one person can sift through in a lifetime. Each new history not only builds upon the work that comes before but also often introduces or reevaluates existing evidence, changing our perspective significantly. The more works that have been published in a field the more information we can draw on when we discuss it (since historians must rely on each other as much as we rely on primary sources). Older histories by their vary nature were working with a more limited pool of information and context – sometimes they are still great, but they cannot magically overcome that limitation.
Now, there are many excellent older historical works that still hold up to this day – especially in more niche fields that don’t see a lot of active publication. However, in general a book published in the last twenty to thirty years has the benefit of more research and scholarship to draw on than one written forty or more years ago, in addition to the fact that in general academia has improved significantly in the quality and rigor of its work over the same time. This is even more true if you are interested in reading about a country or people that was subject to European colonialism – the works written when they were still colonies are often highly problematic.
This is, of course, not a guarantee. Some recent books are awful, or at last sub-par, which is why you should pair this consideration with my next two.
Is it from a respectable publisher?
But what is a respectable publisher? In general, an academic publisher should ensure a level of rigor to the research. In the past, academic texts had a reputation for often being dry or boring to read. While books like this certainly are still published, more and more I’ve found that contemporary academics pride themselves on being able to effectively communicate their work to a wider audience. It may not be Mark Twain, but most academic books are a perfectly good read.
However, academic books can also be incredibly expensive. Some presses have made an effort to remain relatively affordable, but many increasingly target a niche market of scholars and university libraries who have book budgets they can spend on volumes that cost upwards of a hundred dollars or more. In general, unless you are a specialist yourself, I would skip these triple digit books – they are less likely to be written for a general audience and are usually not going to be worth the cost to a non-specialist.
Many academic publishers specialise in specific subjects and are worth a look if that overlaps with your interest. Boydell and Brewer have a great selection on Medieval Europe while University of North Carolina does great work on the American Civil War, for example. University of Chicago, Yale University Press, and MIT University Press have all generally impressed me with the quality of their output without necessarily charging eye-watering prices.
While certainly some good scholarship has come from self-published histories – one of my all-time favourite books, Playing at the World, was basically self-published in its first edition – in general these are few and far between. Especially now in the age of AI and easy self-publishing of eBooks I would be wary of something that hasn’t been put out by at least a mid-tier press.
Large publishers or specialist publishers, think Penguin or Random Houe for the former and Osprey or Pen and Sword for the latter, can put out good books but it depends a lot on the author. With these books you can be confident that they will be proofread, and the actual physical book should be of good quality, but if you want to be confident of the scholarship inside you should look to the next two categories.
Does the author hold a higher degree in history and/or are they an academic at a respectable institution?
Many excellent historians have no formal academic training in the subject and quite a few PhD holding Doctors of History are complete cranks, but in general the process of receiving a higher degree in history (be it a masters or PhD) will give the author the research and writing skills that will help them to create good history.
While more conspiracy theorists and backwards racists than I would like are employed by major academic institutions, for the most part existing within the scholarly community imposes on historians an expectation that their work will meet a certain standard and not embarrass themself or the discipline of history. Also, those who work full time at a university have more time and funding to devote to research and writing than many outside of academia do (excluding that minority of popular authors who somehow manage to make a living writing history). No, I’m not jealous, I swear. I love paying for all my books out of my own pocket.
Outside of traditional academia, some journalists write amazing history and some write absolute trash. If the author of a book I’m interested in is a journalist one of the first things I do is flip to the back and look at the referencing. I don’t need to read it in detail, but in general of the journalist is doing the work of actual references and bibliography I place a higher level of trust in them than someone who maybe isn’t bothering. I will say that in general journalists are better writers than historians.
While no surefire guarantee, an academic background or position is usually a nudge in favour of an author, suggesting that their work will at least be pretty good.
Has the author written other books on this topic?
There is a certain type of academic, or other intelligent person, who is great on one subject but doesn’t really know how to stay in their lane. This person assumes that expertise in one field gives them expertise in another when this is basically never the case. Now, many a scholar has mastered more than one field, so publishing a book in two subject areas isn’t a red flag. However, it is essential to consider how closely related those fields are and the tone of those works.
For example, a physicist publishing a history book on the development of the atomic bomb is a logical connection – expertise in physics could help them understand and explain the bomb. However, if their book claims to reveal some heretofore unknown dark secret or to completely revolutionise our understanding of mid-twentieth century history, proceed with caution. The belief that one can completely redefine someone else’s field (especially with just one book) suggests the kind of arrogance that is usually driven by ignorance.
In general, an author who has written multiple books on a subject (e.g. the Civil War or labour movements in the nineteenth century) is more likely to be a trusted source on that subject that someone who has written primarily in another, unrelated field.
It is useful to pair this with an examination of how those books were published, though, since you don’t want to confuse someone who churns out poorly written and edited slop with a scholar who has devoted years to their subject. Publishing a lot on a subject is not a guarantee of expertise.
Also, just be really careful about economists writing history. I don’t want to be engaging in stereotype too much, but a lot of them write really trash history.
How long is the book? How expensive? Is it in my local library?
Okay, you’ve made it this far and you’re still not sure about whether this book is the one you want. There’s only so much prep you can do, at a certain point you just got to take a swing and see if it’s a hit. You’ve hopefully managed to nudge the odds a little in your favor with the previous criteria, so this is just some final mitigating factors.
How long is the book? I’m much more willing to take a chance on an interesting looking book that’s 200-300 pages long than I am on one that’s 800 pages. If I’m going to commit to a doorstopper, I really want it to be good. Getting 200 pages into a book and finding out it kind of sucks is no fun at all.
How much does it cost? Similar to the above, if a book is ten bucks, well maybe it’s worth a shot. If a book is fifty dollars, then it’s probably not. However, if the book can be found in my local library (or requested via inter-library loan), that’s another matter. Taking a chance on something that’s free is really no harm at all.
In Conclusion
Well done for making it this far. I left off a few other possible avenues – such as digging up academic book reviews in peer reviewed journals – usually due to them being either too niche or too difficult for an ordinary person to access. Reviews are often paywalled, which is egregious if you ask me.
Hopefully, after reading this, you feel empowered to find good books and enjoy them but not overwhelmed by my abundance of wordy criteria. I want to end on the note that there is no shame in reading a bad book, we’ve all done it, but I want you to read good books and be confident that you have. Even more than that, though, I want you to read many books. No single book can give you true understanding of a subject – you must read both widely and deeply for that. It’s not for everyone, but I promise you it can be incredibly rewarding.
Finally, finally, here, in no particular order, are a few of my favourite history books. I’ve tried to pull from a range of subjects, so hopefully some will strike your fancy. I highly recommend them:
The Jacquerie of 1358 by Justine Firnhaber-Baker
The Evolution of Modern Fantasy by Jamie Williamson
The Battle of Crécy, 1346 by Andrew Ayton and Philip Preston
Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors by Brian Catlos
Frederick the Great: King of Prussia by Tim Blanning
The Historian’s Craft by Marc Bloch
Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer
And if you’ve made it to this very end, may I recommend my own books? They meet some, but not all, of the criteria I’ve used in this article, but despite that I personally think they’re pretty good. They are:
(Hey, if you like what I do here, maybe consider making a donation on Ko-Fi or supporting me on Patreon so I can keep doing it.)