Author: Peter Frankopan
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

A sweeping history told from a perspective all too often lacking - that is, world history where the West is not the central player and its current dominance is not fated. Dr. Frankopan tells the engrossing and intricate history of the world from the vantage point of the vital Silk Road. This shifts the reader's gaze from a Euro-centric (and later American-centric) narrative to a broader vantage point, seeing power and commerce, politics and religion, as it coursed along the all-important trade routes connecting Asia and the Mediterranean. 

Author: Annie Jacobsen
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

Another thorough job of historical reporting from Jacobsen. She has obviously closely studied de-classified documents and other sources to paint as complete a picture as possible of the United States' program to recruit Nazi scientists from Europe to work in the United States.  

Author: Lawrence O'Donnell
Rating: 5 Stars
Review By: Shana

There are books that you must work your way through, those you think you should read because they talk about something important and require a serious outlay of effort. O'Donnell has written a book that manages that wonderful alchemy of being a serious piece of historic and political research on an important time period that is a compelling read. His writing propels the story forward and it never feels like work as the pages fly by.

Author: Niall Ferguson
Rating: 3 Stars
Review By: Shana

Ferguson, well-known historian, takes a look at the last 500 years as he examines Western prevalence in world affairs. I must admit that I struggled mightily in deciding whether this is three or four stars. The book is eminently readable, and Ferguson is passionate, humorous, and fast-paced in his writing. He also offers some very interesting ideas (not all of which are novel, but are nonetheless packaged well and deployed with verve) to frame the last 500 years of Western dominance in the world. 

​Ohler takes what feels like a too brief (or at least not broad enough) look at drugs in Germany during the interwar and World War II period. The general public (at least those who are history buffs) have known for decades that amphetamines (e.g., the drug colloquially known as speed) have been used by soldiers in wars throughout much of the twentieth century. But historians have known for decades that it wasn’t just amphetamines, but also methamphetamines. Both drugs were copiously consumed during World War II. In this book, Ohler covers the history of these drugs, how they came to be mass produced and mass ingested, and how this fueled and then derailed the Nazi war effort.

​This excellent history is not for the squeamish. It is no overstatement to say that antiseptic methods utterly revolutionized the practice of medicine in general, and surgery in particular.  Fitzharris tells the story of the antiseptic watershed through a sweeping history of medicine and some very nice biographical work on key figures of the time and on Lister, who documented and championed the cause.  

Author: Michael Burleigh
Rating: 5 Stars
Review By: Shana

​With so many histories of World War II on offer, students of that world-changing event have a wealth of options for study. There are books tightly focused on key individuals or specific battles, others offering a wider view by examining a specific country or demographic group, and still others try to take in the broad sweep of the entire event (though to be thorough multiple volumes would be needed or else would fall short by giving short shrift to certain theaters or groups). Here Burleigh approaches this watershed of 20th century history by attempting to take in the immensity of the war through the frame of morality during the war. The aforementioned students of World War II history would be well-served by picking up this book, which manages to be both familiar and surprising. 

Author: Earl Swift
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

A wonderful book, adroitly navigating the history of our major highway system – a system most of us take for granted. The aptly-named Swift guides the reader through the earliest calls for better roads, introducing us to individuals who saw the roads as places for bicycles well before horseless carriages became all the rage.

Author: Rachel Maddow 
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

​A whirlwind tour through the last 60-ish years of American military power. Maddow also gives the reader a necessary grounding in the founding fathers, how they viewed war with wariness, and how the Constitution reflected this, before decisively laying out how America at war has morphed since the founding, and not for the better. Most likely to appeal to those who are generally in line with Maddow's political views, but even for others, she makes her points well and some of the conclusions should (rationally) be bipartisan. 

Author: Luke Harding​
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

​This 2016 book, unfortunately, remains all too relevant and has a ripped from the headlines feel. Harding not only recounts (with all materials available at the time of printing) the events that lead up to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in particular, but more generally looks at the events that have shaped Russia under Vladimir Putin. This includes a truncated explanation of the fall of the USSR and the birth of Russia, how the assets that used to belong to the state were divvied up among the Oligarchs, the failure of any nascent democracy in Russia, Putin's improbable rise and eventual consolidation of power, and workings and tenor of present-day Russia under Putin.