Best History Books of the Last Decade
This time of year produces a ton of "Best of..." or "Top ____ of the Year" lists, and they're usually pretty good. However, I always come away from such reads wishing they would have been deeper, or covered more ground, or had a bit more history to them. So, I thought I'd come up with a list of the best 10 history books over the last 10 years.
This list isn't about my favorites, or about the public's favorites, but is rather, simply, about the best of the best. Ten great books published over the last 10 years. Here we go:
10. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (2014) by Jürgen Osterhammel. This massive book requires patience to finish, though this is not to say you can’t read it easily. Osterhammel handles the 19th century as adroitly as is possible for a German scholar, and everybody, from history buffs to fellow specialists, will find something to enjoy in this book. His chapters on “Labor” and “Energy & Industry” are just what you’d expect from a man who occupies a seat on the left side of the German political aisle, but the rest of this 919-page book (not including endnotes and the bibliography) is a delightful surprise. Osterhammel, for example, ends up on the right-wing side of the American political aisle in regards to “American Exceptionalism” after exploring the U.S.’s expansion from the East Coast to the Pacific Ocean. Using his comparative analysis, he shows exactly how and why the United States is indeed an exceptional case when it comes to expanding its empire from coast-to-coast in the 19th century. Canada had much more in common with Argentina than the U.S. in its expansion westward, while Brazil, Russia, and South Africa all displayed common traits unfamiliar to the American experience (like powerful indigenous rivals and insurmountable ecologies). Chapter 7 (“Frontiers”), at 53 pages, is alone worth the price of admission, as Osterhammel demonstrates his grasp of important concepts that are now on the forefront of historical scholarship: borderlands, contested sovereignties, and mestizo logics.
9. Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War (2012) by R.M. Douglas. There has been a ton of great research on the Eastern Front of World War II since the fall of the Berlin Wall. My guess is that the archival research that has powered these studies will slow as Russia descends into despotism and E.U. member states in the east continue to balance sovereignty with membership in a confederation. In the meantime, books such as Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands and Tara Zahra’s Lost Children are some of the essentials in this regard, but for my money Colgate historian R.M. Douglas’s 2012 book is the best of them all, at least from an Anglo-American standpoint. The subject matter is brutal and self-explanatory, so if light-hearted histories are your thing, skip this book. If you are more of a rationalist and skeptic of power, you’ll find much to enjoy about Douglas’s well-written history, including the turning of a blind eye by Allied forces as non-Germans ruthlessly purged German-speaking women and children from the lands they had lived in for decades or centuries. "Lebensraum" wasn’t conceived of by Nazis as a space that needed to be cleared for Germans, it was a place already occupied by German-speaking peoples -- again, sometimes for centuries -- that needed to be protected from their (non-German) neighbors. If you want to find out how the victorious democracies of World War II allowed one of the largest ethnic-cleansing campaigns to happen right under their noses, read this excellent book.
8. Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. First published in 2011, Debt is one of those rare books about world history that only an anthropologist could write. Graeber, who earned his PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago, takes a long hard look at one of the most basic assumptions found in the work of economists (anthropology’s Other): the origins of money. That’s reason alone to check out the book, but for those of you who are tired of academic turf wars and just want some good ol’ fashioned engaging history, Graeber’s anecdotes in defense of Debt’s thesis will take you from the small, provincial comforts of European or Chinese history and into a world where the massive continents of Eurasia and America are used to get his points across. Did you know, for example, that around the time of the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, northern India also harbored a constellation of democratic city-states (“Ksatriya republics”) that birthed the founder of Buddhism? Like the ancient Greeks, these democracies succumbed to empires (there was even a famous treatise written on how to subvert and destroy democratic institutions), but not without deeply influencing the teachings of major religious prophets. Or have you ever given pause to think through the argument that Islam had long been considered the core of Western civilization? Graeber’s book does just this, and when viewed under the lens of Debt, the notion of Islam as the center of Western civilization goes from absurd on its face to believable to most likely true, at least during the Middle Ages. Graeber’s proudly unfocused forays in history take several pains to remind you that debt, right-wing politics, and violence are intricately and explicably linked. A man of the Left to the very end, Graeber’s contributions to history will not soon be forgotten. Rest In Peace.
7. The Emergence of Globalism: Visions of World Order in Britain and the United States, 1939–1950 (2017) by Or Rosenboim. A history professor at the University of London, Rosenboim's book on the postwar debate about global governance and norms is nothing short of essential for understanding today's world. The debate surrounding global governance (not government) is one that won't end soon; indeed, it's one of the oldest debates in recorded human history, and in this regard Rosenboim's book fits in nicely with a long line of treatises and scholarship. What makes her contribution the best of the decade -- standing head and shoulders above excellent recent works by Slobodian, Getachew, and Wasserman -- is the carefulness with which she treats the ideas involved. Her work on Hayek especially is nothing short of brilliant, and it adds a nice layer of tempered scholarship to a rapidly growing body of work.
6. The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz (2016) by Mostafa Minawi. I haven’t been able to find a single book that gives me a great picture of the Ottoman Empire. Eugen Rogan’s book does a good job, as does James Gelvin’s, but both focus on the Arab world, and up until I happened across Minawi’s little treasure I hadn’t found a deep, luscious treasure trove of a book about the Ottoman Empire’s true self. There are some contenders. Salih Özbaran’s Ottoman Expansion Towards the Indian Ocean in the 16th Century is excellent, but far too narrow and lacks theoretical sophistication, while Cihan Artunç’s work is theoretically and economically robust, but lacks a certain zest. This is where Minawi’s excellent little book comes into play. The maps alone are incredible, but The Ottoman Scramble for Africa does much more than argue that Istanbul wasn’t the sick man of Europe it’s often made out to be. Diplomatic histories are my favorite sub-genre, but they are hard slogging and you often need some sort of a basic historical background to really learn anything from them. Not so with Minawi’s account of Ottoman dealings in Africa. In it, you will find sufficient background to explain the Ottoman Empire’s foreign policy in regards to its vassals in North and East Africa, but also Central Africa, all the way down into Lake Chad. I had no idea that the Ottomans had so far a reach in Africa, and Minawi’s explanations for Istanbul’s dealings with the kingdoms, long gone from contemporary maps, was just a pleasure to read.
5. Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North American West, 1800-1860 (2011) by Anne F Hyde. Winner of the 2012 Bancroft Prize, Hyde’s work is a must-read book for American history buffs. Eschewing the East Coast for the supposed wilds of the West, Empires, Nations, and Families explains that the common understanding of Americans moving west to tame an untapped wilderness is a myth, plain and simple. Under Hyde’s careful scholarship, the city of Saint Louis moves from an urbanizing area on the frontier to the center of a vast and prosperous trading network, with commercial ties in both the Pacific trade and in Indian territory, where the livestock trade boomed and the fur trade of the Rockies was still lucrative; from Mormon efforts at state-building in Deseret to Native American conceptions of private property rights, Hyde’s command of relevant theory is so brilliant that you don’t even realize you are being taught important concepts as you breeze through her historical narrative. Empires, Nations, and Families is a true paean to the idea that history is the highest form of art.
4. A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (2019) by Toby Green. When I first went to live in Ghana, as a research assistant for a medical anthropologist, I was almost completely ignorant of African history. All I knew was that slaves came from Africa and that African countries were prone to violence and were undemocratic. I knew of some history, like the Zulus fighting the British, and Mansa Musa's empire and his hajj to Mecca, but not much else. Good history has been done on regions in Africa over the past three decades, and now that regional scholarship is providing a foundation for research on Africa's global role throughout history. Green's book is the best of this new scholarship. Under his expert and passionate guidance, African factions become vital players on the world stage, rather than victims of oppression with no ability (or desire) to become powerful, rich, or free. Green's chapter on the "fiscal-military state" contributes immensely to one of the most important arguments of the last 10 years: that African autocracy was not introduced by Europeans and their imperial systems but rather emerged indigenously as a response to what we now colloquially term "globalization." The implications of this are huge. If Africans created militarized autocracies to counter the effects of the world marketplace (including "the market's" imperial-invisible hand), then Africans should also be able to create polities that embrace the effects of globalization. What's preventing Africans from doing so today?
3. Outsourcing Empire: How Company-States Made the Modern World (2020) by Andrew Phillips & J.C. Sharman. This rather short book gets the nod over Dalrymple's much more famous The Anarchy due to both its theoretical sophistication and its argument about the company-state's role in creating the world we live in today. The creation of company states were answers that the Dutch and English came up with to help solve their problem of growing Habsburg power. These company-states were not new inventions but grew out of the logic of earlier eras of maritime exploration; they were innovative and evolutionary institutions. These companies were given free reign to establish commercial, political, religious, and military ties with non-European sovereignties, and they didn't disappoint. British and Dutch freedom from Habsburg reach became guaranteed as wealth flowed into their polities, and power itself soon shifted from Vienna and Madrid to London and Amsterdam. One argument in particular has stuck with me. Outsourcing Empire shows that Europeans had an essentially "binary" view of international relations and diplomacy; within Europe, diplomats represented sovereign states that interacted in a state system rooted in Westphalian logic, but outside of Europe diplomats represented corporations operating in an anarchic environment. This binary view no longer exists, as Westphalian logic has encompassed the globe, but what if the logic of the company-state had become paramount in our world instead of the logic of the nation-state? The choices and decisions made by these companies gives us one answer, yet more thinking needs to be done. Thankfully, there is this foundational book by Phillips & Sharman to build on.
2. Citizenship Between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945-1960 (2014) by Frederick Cooper. This is a book about an idea that got lost in the public sphere of debate. Once upon a time in post-war France, there were calls for the metropole (European France) to federate a la the United States with its colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. Cooper, a historian at Columbia, digs deep into the diplomatic archives of several African countries, as well as those of France, to give readers an intellectual history of an idea worth reintroducing into the public. This book is the hardest to read of all ten, but also the most rewarding. Why did France reject African offers to federate? Why did Africans reject offers from France to federate? Citizenship Between Empire and Nation answers these questions by highlighting factions, explaining political sore spots in various parts of the empire, and delving into the more theoretical issues associated with concepts like citizenship, constitutional rights, and republicanism. As a Madisonian Federalist myself, I found this book to be as enlightening as it was somber, for what could have been if the Federalists had won the war of ideas in post-imperial French Africa?
1. Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850 (2016) by Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford. This is a good book. It's the best history book of the decade, in fact. Nowhere else will you find the logic of the British Empire explained so clearly and with such precision, such vigor! The book is short by history standards, too, so you shouldn’t feel intimidated when scooping it up. Rage for Order explores -- and the exploratory vibe rather than pedantic tone that most history books often take is why this book is the best of the decade -- British efforts at imperial constitutionalism. That is to say, how London tried to bring order to its quite chaotic empire. I don’t want to spoil this book too much. You should read it. Lauren Benton’s contributions to history over the past few decades have been immense. We are all in her debt. One thing to take away from this book, and the list in general, is that international law is in our immediate future. The imperialists and corporatists paved the way, the nationalists (disguised as anarchists) have combated the trend, and the federalists - led by James Madison and F.A. Hayek - have sought an alternative route.
Have a great 2021.
