The 100 best moderately difficult history books

No. 11 on this list. Argonauts of the Western Pacific · Bronisław Malinowski · 1922

The founding text of modern fieldwork and taught in almost every anthropology programme.

No. 12 on this list. The Power Broker · Robert A. Caro · 1974

The standard account of Robert Moses and of how power works in American cities, assigned in urban planning, political science and journalism programmes. It appears on nearly every list of the best American nonfiction of the twentieth century.

No. 13 on this list. Eichmann in Jerusalem · Hannah Arendt · 1963

Eichmann in Jerusalem appears on syllabi across political philosophy, Holocaust studies, Jewish studies, ethics, history, and law — among the most assigned works of political non-fiction of the 20th century. It is standard reading in any course addressing totalitarianism, moral responsibility, or the Holocaust. The phrase "banality of evil" has entered the language as a fixed concept, which is the clearest measure of canonical status a non-fiction work can achieve.

No. 14 on this list. The Feminine Mystique · Betty Friedan · 1963

The Feminine Mystique appears on hundreds of women's studies, American history, and sociology syllabi across the United States and internationally. Time magazine named it one of the 100 most important nonfiction books of the 20th century, and it features on Modern Library and similar 'essential nonfiction' lists. Its Wikipedia article exists in dozens of languages with substantial coverage of its reception and cultural impact.

No. 15 on this list. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction · C. T. Hsia · 1961

The foundational English-language literary history of modern China; still the first book assigned in graduate courses on the subject.

No. 16 on this list. The History of Rome · Theodor Mommsen · 1902

The History of Rome is foundational to Western classical scholarship and 19th-century historiography, taught in history and classics departments worldwide. The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded explicitly for this work in 1902, the first and only time the prize went to a historian. The Wikipedia article is thin in the database but the work's presence in academic syllabi on Roman history is longstanding.

No. 17 on this list. The Road to Serfdom · Friedrich Hayek · 1944

Standard required reading in political philosophy, economics, and liberal theory courses at universities worldwide. Consistently appears on lists of the most influential non-fiction of the 20th century, including TIME's 100 Best Nonfiction list and the Modern Library's reader list. The Wikipedia article exists in over 40 languages, and the book has never gone out of print since 1944.

No. 18 on this list. The Open Society and Its Enemies · Karl Popper · 1945

Karl Popper wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies in New Zealand during World War II, watching fascism spread across Europe and wondering how philosophy had helped it along. His answer runs to two thick volumes: Plato built the first blueprint for totalitarianism; Hegel dressed it in mystical abstraction; Marx gave it pseudo-scientific prophecy. The 'enemies' of the title are not politicians but ideas — historicism (the belief that history follows iron laws), essentialism (the belief that social entities have fixed natures), and utopianism (the belief that a perfect state can be designed and implemented whole). Popper dismantles each in turn with patient, numbered argument. He finds Plato's philosopher-kings to be authoritarians by design, their wisdom indistinguishable from the claim that power justifies itself. He finds Hegel's prose to be deliberate obscurantism in service of Prussian power — 'supreme only in his outstanding lack of originality.' He finds Marx's economic prophecies unfalsifiable, and therefore not science but mythology with a scientific costume. What survives the demolition is a defense of the open society: one that tolerates criticism, reforms institutions incrementally, and resists the tribal pull toward certainty. The arguments about why intellectuals are drawn to closed societies — and what makes free societies structurally fragile — read as if written for any decade that has produced one.

No. 19 on this list. The Cambridge History of Italian Literature · Peter Brand · 1996

The standard comprehensive reference for Italian literary history in English.

No. 20 on this list. A History of Korean Literature · Peter H. Lee · 2003

The standard comprehensive reference for Korean literature in English; the first point of entry for Western scholars and students.

No. 21 on this list. Women, Race & Class · Angela Davis · 1981

A fixture on syllabi in Women's Studies, African American Studies, Sociology, and History courses across US universities since its 1981 publication. Required reading in virtually every Black feminist theory course and central to the canon of intersectional scholarship. Widely included on lists of essential texts in feminist and critical race theory.

No. 22 on this list. Postwar · Tony Judt · 2005

Postwar is widely assigned in university history, political science, and European studies courses across the English-speaking world. It is the standard single-volume reference for post-1945 European history, found on graduate and undergraduate reading lists alike. Multiple editions and translations have kept it in continuous academic circulation since its 2005 publication.

No. 23 on this list. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T'ang · Stephen Owen · 1981

The standard English critical account of the High Tang; assigned in Chinese literature courses across North American universities.

No. 24 on this list. The Discovery of India · Jawaharlal Nehru · 1946

A required text in modern Indian history and nationalism courses and the founding statement of India's official self-image.

No. 25 on this list. An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature · Jean Franco · 1969

Established as the foundational anglophone survey of Spanish American literature for over three decades.

No. 26 on this list. The Muqaddimah · Ibn Khaldun · 1377

Included in: UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

Ibn Khaldun's introduction to his universal history is one of the most original works of social theory ever written. Six centuries before sociology existed as a discipline, Ibn Khaldun developed a cyclical theory of civilization: nomadic peoples, bound by 'asabiyyah (group solidarity or social cohesion), conquer settled societies, establish dynasties, and then lose their cohesion through the comforts of urban life, only to be conquered in turn by fresher nomadic groups. He analyzed the rise and fall of empires with the rigor of a scientist, examining climate, economy, education, and religion as variables that shape social organization. The Muqaddimah covers everything from the nature of prophecy to the economics of taxation to the psychology of mob behavior, making it simultaneously a work of history, political science, economics, and anthropology. Arnold Toynbee called it 'the greatest work of its kind that has ever been created by any mind in any time or place.'

No. 27 on this list. Capital in the Twenty-First Century · Thomas Piketty · 2013

Capital in the Twenty-First Century has become required reading across economics, political science, sociology, and public policy programs worldwide. Within five years of its English translation, it appeared on syllabi at Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, LSE, Sciences Po, and virtually every major university with an economics or inequality studies program. It is the rare economics book that crossed into general education and interdisciplinary curricula. It has not yet had the multi-generational canonical staying power of Smith's Wealth of Nations or Keynes's General Theory, but its syllabi presence is extraordinary for a book published in 2013.

No. 28 on this list. A History of Modern Japanese Literature · Yoshida Seiichi · 1985

Standard survey within Japan; the reference against which canonical judgments in modern Japanese literature are measured.

No. 29 on this list. The Literature of the Sagas · W. P. Ker · 1930

A classic of saga scholarship; still cited by medievalists as the best brief critical orientation in English.

No. 30 on this list. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Literature · Dennis Washburn · 2010

The standard English-language scholarly companion to modern Japanese literature; assigned in graduate seminars internationally.