[Agent Kang]

Here are my recommendations.



The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

This is classic book by William Shirer in a single volume account of the history of Nazi Germany. I first read this book during the summer after my freshman year in high school, and have recently decided to read it again. The story and the narration is very captivating. I can't recommend this enough to those that are lucky enough to be read this for the first time.



Another great read is


The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Some may not like Gibbon's heavily stylized writing, but once you get used to his elegantly structured sentences and paragraphs it becomes rather enjoyable. I've finished Shirer's 1500+ pages in about a week's time. This book took significantly longer to finish.

 

[blessingx]

I'm not sure either of those are biographies.

A few I've enjoyed lately:
Joseph J. Ellis' His Excellency: George Washington
Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
David McCullough's John Adams
Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Joshua Wolf Shenk's Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness

Outside of biographies (in strict sense):
David Fromkin's Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?
Stephanie Coontz's Marriage, A History
Joseph J. Ellis' Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
David McCullough's 1776
Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot & Assassination Vacation
Jared Diamond's Gun's Germs, and Steel & Collapse
Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History
Nina G. Jablonski's Skin, A Natural History

Shorter periods of history:
David Plotz's The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank
Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare At Goats
Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers


I just picked up Reese Erlich's The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis today after hearing him speak, which may or may not fit on this list.

 

[Agent Kang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not sure either of those are biographies.

You are absolutely right

I was going to recommend 3 books, with the first 2 being history and the last being a historical biography, but towards the end I got lazy and decided to stop at 2.

So here is my last one;

Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie.

 

[The Pieman]

The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes.

An excellent book about the white settlement of Australia by the British.


cheers
Simon

 

[britishbane]

The Last Lion by William Manchester. An interesting look into the life of Winston Churchill.

Also, Medieval Kingship by Henry Miers. Pretty self explainatory title.

 

[Agent Kang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Pieman /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. An excellent book about the white settlement of Australia by the British. cheers Simon

This one sounds interesting, as I've yet to read a history book with Australia as a focal point. Thank you for the recommendation



Quote:

The Last Lion by William Manchester. An interesting look into the life of Winston Churchill.

William Manchester is great! I read Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War", which was very enjoyable. I already have Churchill's massive autobiography, so a different, somewhat less biased account of his life seems to be in order for me.



Quote:

David McCullough's 1776 Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

X2.

Jared Diamon's Guns, Germs & Steel was highly recommended to me, and I ended up receiving it as a gift. Unfortunately, I've never got around to finishing it.

 

[kugino]

The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin

read this before the Origin of Species and you get a whole new insight into the Origin...highly recommended!

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Black Boy - Richard Wright

His other major work, Native Son, is fictional, but still draws parallels with his life experiences.

 

[PhaedrusX]

che guevera: a revolutionary life by john lee anderson.
this is the most insightful and scholarly biography of the man, from his youth to his final days.

 

[Quaddy]

Countess Dracula - The Life and times of Elizabeth Bathory - The Blood Countess.

and... - not really a biography, but a contemporary military & historical breakdown of one countries self strangulation


The Death of Yugoslavia

 

[beerguy0]

I just finished "Einstein: His Life and Universe" by Walter Isaacson. Very enjoyable read, highly recommended.

I've read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Very long, but well written.

 

[appophylite]

Brighter Than A Thousand Suns-by Robert Jungk

This book was required additional reading for me in my Modern Physics class as a freshmen in college. It is a history of the Atomic Scientists, beginning with Ernest Rutherford and leading into the development, use and aftermath of the Manhattan Project and the first atomic bombs. It reads almost like a novel and its actually a very exciting book.