JUDITH FLANDERS
‘who wrote shakespeare?’ lives up to ‘who was jack the ripper?’ for too long, academics have barely bothered to answer the ‘he-was-the-earl-in-the-library’ doubters. version with a candlestick of the literary key, but now the shakespeare of editors paul edmonson and stanley wells is beyond doubt: evidence, argument, controversy (cambridge university press) have produced a satisfactory answer. From contributions on the local stratford language that peppers shakespeare’s plays, to analysis of manuscripts, to (my favorite) the art of theater that enabled small actors to successfully double roles, the book is thorough, rigorous, scholarly, and very funny.
You are reading: Best history books of 2013
just as exciting was my discovery of mary s. Hartman’s 2004 book, Home and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past (Cambridge University Press). Hartman takes the demographers’ identification of the Northwest European marriage pattern—where couples married late, were relatively equal in age, and lived in nuclear households—and builds a thesis to suggest that this single demographic precipitated the Protestant Reformation. the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism. it certainly is subversive. and persuasive.
Judith Flanders is the author of The Victorian Town: Everyday Life in Dickens’s London (Atlantic, 2012).
peter frankopan
peter sarris’s empires of faith (oup, 2011) is a brilliant book on the fall of rome and the rise of islam, packed with insights and groundbreaking ideas from one of britain’s greatest historians. Rodric Braithwaite’s Afgantsy (Profile, 2012) is an account of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which reads like a thriller. there is a lot of original material here, drawn from contemporary Russian sources, much of it published in English for the first time. christopher de bellaigue’s patriot of persia (bodley head, 2012) is about a wildly popular figure who promised that iran’s future would not depend on paying homage to the west: mohammed mossadegh, who was brutally removed from power in a coup orchestrated by the cia in 1953. de bellaigue is a prominent journalist and you can tell why. Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (Bodley Head, 2011) is a remarkable study of suffering on a staggering scale in Eastern and Central Europe in the 1920s, 1930s, and during World War II. Snyder has sought out some notable sources to tell a story that is both poignant and tragic. Mary Laven’s Mission to China (Faber & Faber, 2011) is about a 16th-century Jesuit mission to China led by the charismatic and determined Matteo Ricci. a charming and revealing tale, beautifully evoking the sense of wonder as well as the challenges these men faced many thousands of miles from home.
peter frankopan is director of the oxford byzantine research center and senior research fellow at worcester college, oxford.
suzannah lip comb
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my history book of the year is joel f. Harrington’s Sparkle The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century (Bodley Head), which is inspired by the diary of the Nuremberg executioner Frantz Schmidt and his horrific catalog of torture and capital punishment. Page after page, this bloody tale offers an extraordinary insight into the mindset and society of the time.
meanwhile, leanda de lisle’s tudor: the family history (chatto & windus) is a very lucid, entertaining, and excellent read. While we don’t agree on everything (Tudor historians? agree?), I found that she offered many moments of insight and fresh insight that brought new perspectives to familiar territory. a must read.
i too was totally enchanted by hannah dawson’s fiercely brilliant little book, life lessons from hobbes (macmillan). His clear, lyrical prose made me shake off many of my mistaken assumptions about the “Malmesbury Monster” and I envied Dawson’s great facility with language.
Suzannah Lipscomb is Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of History at the new Humanities College.
cute porter
My favorite history book of 2013 is actually a historical novel, a genre I normally don’t like. But Andrew Greig’s brilliant Fair Helen (Quercus), a reimagining of the frontier ballad ‘Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Lea,’ is so magnificently set in its time and place, the violent but beautiful country of the frontiers, that it’s irresistible. In Greig’s lyrical prose (heavily peppered with sixteenth-century Scottish words, but perfectly understandable in context, though there is a glossary) the Scottish borderlands of the 1590s come vividly to life. At a time when the Scots were impatiently awaiting the death of the ‘old hag’, Elizabeth I, the machinations of new men seeking to curry favor with James VI add to blood feuds that stretch back centuries. It’s a climate where no one – friend, family, lover or political patron – can be trusted, and while there may be a brief respite from old hatreds during the raids in England, the underlying feuds remain and will ruin lives forever. Fair Helen has a beautiful, feisty, sexually liberated heroine and a wonderfully sinister villain. however, it is much more than a story from a distant time. a beautifully written elegy about love and loss, it will grab you from the first page. and his final reveal is heartbreaking. simply a wonderful read.
Linda Porter’s latest book is Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary, Queen of Scots (Macmillan, 2013).
chandak sengoopta
The most interesting and instructive book I read this year was Jonathan Sperber’s Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life (W.W. Norton). Sperber, of course, is a well-known historian of Europe and he gives us a superbly comprehensive portrait of the age of Marx and the evolution of its doctrines, arguing (persuasively) that Marx’s theoretical work was shaped by very specific preoccupations and preoccupations. of the nineteenth century. Passions Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this was my book of the year, but it faced stiff competition from Partha Chatterjee’s Black Hole Empire: Story of a Global Practice of Power (Princeton University Press, 2012). Chatterjee shows how, and why, the old story of the black hole carnage in 18th century Calcutta has been used, distorted and reimagined for 200 years by imperialists, nationalists and academics. But despite this thematic focus, the book is so richly detailed and so carefully argued that it can serve as the perfect introduction to the history of British India and, indeed, to imperialism itself.
chandak sengoopta is professor of history at birkbeck, university of london.
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carolina shenton
A great addition to anyone’s gift collection this year would be Lucy Inglis’s London Georgian: Into the Streets (Viking, 2013). reading his energetic, astringent and hilarious tour of various boroughs of hanoverian london on boxing day is the ideal antidote to the excesses of christmas and will keep you comfortably entertained in your easy chair for hours. I also really enjoyed Margalit Fox’s Labyrinth Riddle: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code and the Discovery of an Ancient Civilization (Profile, 2013), a fascinating and highly readable account of the lives and works of the three scholars whose efforts in the course of a century finally led to the cracking of linear b. This group biography elegantly illustrates how progress in historical scholarship is made possible by the work of many hands, not just those of a single genius. finally, the most interesting public history book i’ve read this year is the story of ann gray and erin bell on television (routledge, 2012), a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how history is commissioned and how the audience is segmented by the producers; and convincingly analyzes how and why women historian-anchors are often mistreated on television.
The Day Parliament Burnt Down by Caroline Shenton (Oxford University Press, 2012) was the winner of the 2013 Political Book of the Year at the Political Book Awards.
kate cooper
All of my best books of 2013 have as their theme going behind the grand narrative and looking at the ancient world in light of the everyday lives of individuals and families. The first – which should not be left out now that the wonderful Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum is over – is the life and death of Paul Roberts in Pompeii and Herculaneum (British Museum). the best exhibition catalogs strike a wonderful balance between infinite detail and the big picture that adds up, and this one delivers on that score. ari bryen’s violence in roman egypt: a study in legal interpretation (university of pennsylvania press) strikes the same balance in a very different way, through a vivid discussion of ancient archaeologically discovered papyrus documents, often in ancient mounds garbage, in the dry climate of egypt. Bryen opens a window on the problems and strategies of old homes in terms that are sometimes chilling. finally, reza aslan fanatic: the life and times of jesus of nazareth (westbourne) has generated quite a bit of controversy, but it actually offers a solid, no-nonsense survey of what biblical scholars have been doing in recent decades to bring back to jesus to history as a first century person, who lived and died in roman galilee and judea.
kate cooper is a professor of ancient history at the university of manchester. Her latest book is Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women (Atlantic Books, 2013).
tom holland
I thoroughly enjoyed max adams king in the north: the life and times of oswald of northumbria (head of zeus), which unsparingly accomplishes the feat of providing a gripping panoramic portrait of 7th century britain . yes, he has a title that deliberately echoes game of thrones and yes, anyone who buys it expecting killer power plays will see all their expectations of him fulfilled. At heart, though, this is a profoundly scholarly book: as comfortable with the archaeological evidence as it is with the exacting patchwork of written sources. i also greatly admired the long shadow of david reynolds: the great war and the 20th century (simon & schuster). As the title implies, Reynolds has had the brilliant idea of examining the Great War by tracing the pattern of reflections on it throughout the century that followed. as an introduction to the controversies and complexities of a period of history that will be in all our demands next year, it’s unlikely to get any better.
penguin classics publishes new tom holland translation of herodotus stories.
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