Established 2000Historia magistra vitaeBy private tuition

Reading & Reviews

The books that shaped how I teach

History lives in its great books — and in the arguments between them. These are the works I return to, reviewed without fear or favour.

The library15 works reviewed

Economic History

David Hackett Fischer

Oxford University Press, 1996

The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History

Professor Fischer has done us a great service in tracing the long rhythms of prices.

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Fascist Italy

Christopher Duggan

Vintage Books, 2013

Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy

Professor Duggan has opened a window into the past that had been closed.

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Fascist Italy

R.J.B. Bosworth

Arnold, 2002

Mussolini

Empty chameleon? Sell-out? Conflicted man? Bloodthirsty cynic? Bosworth weighs them all.

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French Revolution

Simon Schama

Viking, 1989

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Schama is an excellent writer, and his command of the historiography is total.

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Holocaust

Stanley Milgram

Harper Perennial, 2019

Obedience to Authority

“I was just following orders, so I am not responsible.” Milgram tests the claim to destruction.

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Holocaust

Christopher R. Browning

Harper Collins, 2017

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Men murder because the 'authorities' tell them to — Browning's chilling, essential study.

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Holocaust

William D. Rubinstein

Routledge, 2000

The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies could not have saved more Jews from the Nazis

The deeper you dig, the more you become aware of the historiographical debates beneath.

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Marxism

Paul Kengor

TAN Books, 2020

The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception and Infiltration

I had no idea how much of a scoundrel Marx was — Kengor marshals the evidence.

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Military History

Martin van Creveld

The Free Press, 1991

The Transformation of War

Van Creveld obliterates the dictum that war is nothing but the continuation of politics.

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Modern Conflict

Michael Scheuer

Brassey's Inc., 2004

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror

Muslim terrorists do not hate the West because it is free — Scheuer's thesis is more uncomfortable.

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Nazi Germany

William L. Shirer

Pan Books Limited, 1964

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Shirer was among the first to tackle the entire National Socialist period at once.

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WWII

Robert B. Stinnett

The Free Press, 2000

Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor

Stinnett's argument is simple: Franklin Delano Roosevelt followed eight steps to provoke war.

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WWII

Gar Alperovitz

Alfred A. Knopf, 1995

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth - Book I

Most Americans believe dropping the bombs was justified. Alperovitz asks whether it was necessary.

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WWII

Gar Alperovitz

Alfred A. Knopf, 1995

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth - Book II

The conventional wisdom that the bomb saved a million lives deserves the closest scrutiny.

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World History

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2011

Jerusalem: The Biography

Montefiore writes a biographical labour of love for the most contested city on earth.

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