history

For a country that is both Europe’s most prosperous power and arguably the worst villain nation of the 20th century, Germany does not get much mention in the English-language world, especially when compared to France or Italy. Germania- A Personal...

I always enjoy reading books about entire countries and Why the Dutch are Different- A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands was certainly very enjoyable. Usually, when most people think of the Netherlands, windmills, dikes, and the red...

As a follow-up to my post a while ago on the best books about entire countries, here’s a list of great books about regions and continents that I’ve read. I really enjoy these kinds of books for their epic scale and the variety of...

As a small island, Trinidad is beautiful, hilly and green, but it lacks spectacular mountains or large lakes. What it has instead are the world’s largest natural asphalt deposit- the Pitch Lake, and one of the world’s largest urban savannahs...

If it wasn’t for the fact that Turkish authorities decided to ban the author from reentering the country due to her political journalism, the idea for writing about the former Ottoman Empire would not have come to fruition. So it is thanks to...

I’ve always been fascinated by Saladin, the great military leader of the Muslim Arabs or Saracens who fought and won victories against Western Crusaders in the 12th century. He is famous for capturing Jerusalem from the Crusaders, but he was...

At its peak, the British Empire owned territories around the world on almost every continent from Africa to Asia to Australia. I’m sure most of us have been to countries that made up this empire. At its core were illustrious cities like Bombay, Hong...