Here you will find suggested reading that covers the broad scope of Modern history. This will be continued to be updated but please do not hesitate to ask for guidance or particular areas that interest you that you cannot find here. Any book marked with an * means we have a copy available to loan.
Modern history is vast and it would difficult to incorporate every single area within this list. Here are a few areas that have not been included that we can provide recommendations for:
Modern Chinese history: Late Qing dynasty, Republican China, Communist China
Modern Russian history: Russian Revolution, Stalin's Russia, Armenian history, Georgian history
Modern German history: Imperial Germany, Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, The Federal Republic and East Germany
Modern French, Spanish and Italian history: Vichy France, liberal Italy, Mussolini's Italy, Spanish Civil War
Modern Balkan history: Yugoslavian history
Fischer, F (1991). From Kaiserreich to Third Reich: Elements of Continuity in German History, 1871–1945. Abingdon: Routledge - Originally published in 1976,
Fischer examines the continuities in German history from the Kaiser's Germany to Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945.
Fischer, F (1976). Germany’s War Aims in the First World War. New York: Norton. The classic controversial account that sent shock waves through the
historic community when Fischer blamed Germany for the start of the First World War.
Gaddis, John Lewis (1998). We now know: rethinking Cold War history. Oxford: Clarendon. - We Now Know provides a vividly written, eye-opening account of the Cold War during the years from the end of World War II to its most dangerous moment, the Cuban missile crisis.
*Gaddis, John Lewis (2005). The Cold War. London: Penguin Books. - This book explains why America and the Soviet Union became locked in a deadly stalemate and how close the world really came to nuclear catastrophe.
V. de Grazia (2005). Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth Century Europe. Havard: Havard University Press. - de Grazia offers an intimate and historical dimension to debates over America's exercise of soft power and the process known as Americanisation.
Hobsbawm, E (1991). Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge University Press. - Nations and Nationalism since 1780 is
Eric Hobsbawm's widely acclaimed and highly readable enquiry into the question of nationalism
Hobsbawn, Eric (2004). Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991. London: Abacus. - Remarkable in its scope, and breathtaking in its depth
of knowledge, this immensely rewarding book reviews the uniquely destructive and creative nature of the troubled twentieth century and makes
challenging predictions for the future.
Judt, Tony, and Ralph Cosham (2017). Postwar: a history of Europe since 1945. New York: Vintage. - Postwar tells the rich and complex story of how we got
from there to here, demystifying Europe's recent history and identity, of what the continent is and has been.
Marwick, Arthur (2012). The sixties: cultural revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974. London: Bloomsbury. - If the World Wars defined the first half of the twentieth century, the sixties defined the second half, acting as the pivot on which modern times have turned. From popular music to individual liberties, the tastes and convictions of the Western world are indelibly stamped with the impact of this tumultuous decade.
Mazower, Mark (2018). Dark continent: Europe's twentieth century. London: Penguin - Explains how "civilised" Europe became the bloodiest continent in
that century, Mazower brings fascism back into the picture as a really competing opponent to communism and capitalism
Neiberg, M.S (2011). Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I (Cambridge, MA; London: Bellknap Press. - Michael Neiberg shows that
ordinary Europeans, unlike their political and military leaders, neither wanted nor expected war during the fateful summer of 1914.
Ross, C (2008). Media and the Making of Modern Germany: Mass Communications, Society, and Politics from the Empire to the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford
University Press. - Corey Ross provides the first general account of the expansion of the mass media in Germany up to the Second World War, examining
how the rise of film, radio, recorded music, popular press, and advertising fitted into the wider development of social, political, and cultural life.