Any moments of history you enjoy reading?

[Deathraystare]

Our book club has decided to pick some moments in history to read about.

I picked the Clearances (did put me through the wringer a bit - what with reading that and watching about the Holocaust!). It was well and truly shocking!

I love books about the beginning of modern surgery in the 18th century. The knife man by Wendy Moore is brilliant - it's a biography but reads like a novel. I love stories about resurrectionists and anatomists.

Books about slavery in the 18th/19th century.

Books about WW1 and WW2.

I’m currently reading Ghost Wars by Steve Coll. It’s about the Afghanistan-Soviet war and the involvement of the CIA and subsequent rise of Osama Bin Laden.

It’s extremely well written and informative. I’m not finished it yet (about halfway through) and I feel like I’m learning stuff that is so important to know given what’s happening in the world today.

It the Pulitzer for non-fiction in 2005 and I can understand why.

I like modern African history.
King Leopolds Ghost/Dancing in the Glory Of Monsters are two particularly good books.

Ooh. These all sound very interesting. I am also interested in reading about India and Pakistan - about the split (cannot remember the proper word. Anyone read anything on that??

Re India Pakistan - “A suitable boy” by Vikram Seth is a (very, very long) wonderful book which covers a lot about the partition but it is a novel rather than non-fiction. It’s one of my favourite books.

The Ghost Wars book I refer to above touches on the India / Pakistan relationship because it’s of course pertinent to Pakistan’s foreign policy.

Deathraystare I'm very interested in books set in the Indian sub-continent too.

Partition by Amit Majmudar helped me to understand the history of that time better.

The Friendly Ones by Philip Hensher is partly set in England, partly in Bangladesh, and focuses on what happened during the conflict in Bangladesh in the early 70s.

Also A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. One of my all-time favourite books. Set at the time of The Emergency, mid-70s and afterwards. Really engaging characters but set against a backdrop of the political changes in the country .. excellent.

I'm a scientist and like reading science history books and biographies. Started with the very short and readable autobiographical account The Double Helix by James Watson.

Otherwise it's about how well written the book is as much as the subject. Last historic biography I read was Bess of Hardwick by Mary Lovell, that was excellent. Bored my family silly as we went round Hardwick and Chatsworth

@CountFosco have you read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”?

Incredible story both from the scientific importance but equally the appalling racism in the way she and her family were/are treated.

There is a 3 part series by Sandra Gulland about the life of Josephine Bonaparte that is really good. "The many lives and secret sorrows of Josephine B" is the first one.

She lived through the French Revolution and married Napoleon Bonaparte.

@Scautish yes I have. I am one of the generations of scientists who were told the cells came from a woman called 'Helen Lane'.

Britain has much better legislation around control of the use of human cells (because of the Alder Hey scandal) so what happened to Henrietta Lack could no longer happen here.

I picked up Florence Nightingale by Cecil Woodham-Smith at random in a charity shop. It's an excellent biography.
Otherwise, I'll read anything about the period round the 1500s in Europe. Such an interesting period.

I love reading Tudor history.

Anything Anne Boleyn related especially.