This is part 2 of my annual list of the best books that I
read in 2017. As those of you who know
me are aware, I love a good history book.
I read a lot of good ones this year, so many it was a bit difficult to
choose which ones stood head and shoulders above the rest. All my favorite topics are here – a good dose
of military history, Canadian history and Arctic exploration, among other
topics.
Abraham Lincoln:
Redeemer President by Allen C. Guelzo. I read Guelzo’s book on Gettysburg last year
and was so impressed I ordered his biography of Lincoln. This is a spiritual biography, which focuses
in on his intellectual and religious life.
Guelzo makes no claims that Lincoln was an evangelical Christian as we might
understand it, but he makes a strong case that Lincoln’s understanding of God
developed and flourished and came to affect many of the decision he made as
president.
The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth by Peter
Cozzens. Cozzens is one of the best
American Civil War historians. This book
portrays two relatively unknown battles that were pivotal in the Union’s
attempt to occupy northern Mississippi.
Cozzens moves easily between strategic decisions to the average
soldier’s experience and back again, giving the reader a powerful picture of
these hard fought battles.
Song of Wrath: The
Peloponnesian War Begins by J. E. Lendon.
The Peloponnesian War was fought in between Athens and Sparta in the 5th
century B.C. Analyzing the first 10
years of the war, Lendon gives us a picture of the origins, history and
strategy of this violent conflict, a conflict from which we can still learn
lessons today.
Race to the Polar Sea:
The Heroic Adventures of Elisha Kent Kane by Ken McGoogan. I love Ken McGoogan’s books. While not as good as Fatal Passage, Race
to the Polar Sea is a fascinating account of forgotten American hero Elisha
Kent Kane and his will to endure and explore the Canadian Arctic.
The Rise of Germany: 1939-41 by James Holland. The Rise of Germany is part one of a 3
part series on the story of World War 2 in the west. (Part 2 is also out, entitled The Allies
Strike Back.) Although I knew much
of the history before reading this volume, Holland’s analysis of supply and manufacturing
on both sides of the conflict was especially enlightening.
Red Famine:
Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum. This a chilling book about what happens when
a paranoid dictator chooses to exercise unlimited power. Stalin’s policy of collective farming was the
direct cause of a massive famine in the Ukraine in which millions died. This book was especially personal because my
grandparents were exiled from the Ukraine just before the famine hit.
The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians and Jews under Islamic
Rule in Medieval Spain by Dario Fernandez-Morera. Just about any modern American history book
on the European Middle Ages will argue that Muslim Spain was a bastion of
tolerance where Islam, Christianity and Judaism flourished side by side. Fernandez-Morera’s meticulous scholarship
exposes the lie to that assumption, clearly showing that Muslim-ruled Spain was
a place of intolerance, slavery and brutal treatment of all who did not bow the
knee to Allah.
2nd
Tier reads – still very good, highly recommended.
The Lost City
of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
Hero of the
Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape
and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard
John A. , The
Man who Made Us: The Life and Times of
John A. McDonald, vol. 1 by Richard Gwyn
Nationmaker: Sir John A. MacDonald, His Life, Our Times,
vol. 2 by Richard Gwyn
Armies of
Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest
for the Apocalypse by Jay Rubenstein
Fields of
Fire: The Canadians in Normandy by
Terry Copp
Emperor of the
North: Sir George Simpson and the
Remarkable Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company by James Raffan
Over the Edge
of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence
Bergreen
To War with
Wellington: From the Peninsula to
Waterloo by Peter Snow
The Burma
Road: The Epic Story of the
China-Burma-India Theater in World War 2 by Donovan Webster
The General
vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman
at the Brink of Nuclear War by H. W. Brands
Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer by Michael Smith
Clouds of
Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E.
Lee by Michael Korda
Frozen in
Time: the Fate of the Franklin
Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger
Operation
Nemesis: The Assassination Plot That
Avenged the Armenian Genocide by Eric Bogosian
Churchill and
Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by
Thomas E. Ricks
Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in
Vietnam by Mark Bowden
Churchill’s
Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The
Mavericks who Plotted Hitler’s Defeat by Giles Milton
Three Days in
January: Dwight Eisenhower’s Final
Mission by Bret Baier
Nathaniel’s
Nutmeg: Now One Man’s Courage Changed
the Course of History by Giles Milton
Pubic
Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave
and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough
Italy’s
Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-1945 by
James Holland
Catastrophe
1914: Europe Goes to War by Max
Hastings
The Allies
Strike Back, 1941-43 by James Holland
Leonardo Da
Vinci by Walter Isaacson
The
Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall
of God’s Holy Warriors by Dan Jones
3rd
Tier reads – good, but somewhat disappointing.
Napoleon’s
Wars: An International History by
Charles Esdaile
Marco
Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by
Laurence Bergreen
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