Best summer books of 2022: History

The Decline of Empires in South Asia: How Britain and Russia lost their grip over India, Persia and Afghanistan
by Heather A Campbell, Pen and Sword Books £20/$34.95

South Asia was where British and tsarist Russian imperial designs collided in the 19th century’s “Great Game”. In her concise and carefully argued study, Campbell traces how the first world war and the Bolshevik revolution led to the decline of British and Russian influence in the region.

Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan
by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Bloomsbury £25/$29.95

Fernández-Armesto is not just a pioneering scholar of the Spanish empire and the Age of Exploration, but a historian who tells wonderfully readable stories. In Straits he offers an original, convincing reassessment of Ferdinand Magellan, who died while leading the first circumnavigation of the world.

The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution
by Ian Gentles, Yale University Press £25/$38

Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army won the decisive battles of the English civil war, overthrew the monarchy in 1649 and sustained the republic until its collapse in 1660. In this expanded version of a study published in 1992, Gentles shows why he is considered the leading authority on the army.

Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe
by Emily Greble, Oxford University Press £26.99/$35

Greble’s important book casts modern Europe’s history in a fresh perspective by concentrating on the continent’s indigenous Muslims. The Vanderbilt University historian recounts events from the 1878 Congress of Berlin to the formation of Tito’s communist Yugoslavia in the 1940s.

The Normans: Power, Conquest and Culture in 11th-Century Europe
by Judith A Green, Yale University Press £25/$38

Starting from their small duchy in northern France, the Normans made a profound impact on medieval European politics and culture by conquering the British Isles and extending their power into the Mediterranean. Green’s book is immensely readable and based on impeccable scholarship.

Rebels Against the Raj: Western Fighters for India’s Freedom
by Ramachandra Guha, William Collins £25/Knopf $35

Guha, a prominent historian of modern India, turns his attention in his latest book to seven white foreigners — five Britons and two Americans — who displayed great courage in joining the struggle for Indian independence from British rule. A lucid narrative written with sensitivity and insight.

Summer Books 2022

All this week, FT writers and critics share their favourites. Some highlights are:

Monday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Tuesday: Environment by Pilita Clark
Wednesday: Fiction by Laura Battle
Thursday: History by Tony Barber
Friday: Politics by Gideon Rachman
Saturday: Critics’ choice

Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World
by Scott Reynolds Nelson, Basic Books £25/$32

Grain is the focus of much concern as Russia’s war against Ukraine chokes supplies from two of the world’s major producers, threatening serious shortages, inflation and political upheaval. Despite its title, Reynolds Nelson’s fascinating book covers far more than the rise of the US wheat industry.

Horizons: A Global History of Science
by James Poskett, Viking £25/HarperCollins $30

Generation after generation, people in western countries have been educated to believe that the history of modern science began primarily in the 17th century in western Europe. In a book of breathtaking range and high quality, Poskett dismantles that narrow version of events and produces a genuinely global history.

Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time
by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, translated by Robert Savage, Princeton University Press £35/$39.95

Ruler of the Habsburg empire from 1740 to 1780, Maria Theresa towers over the history of German-speaking Europe like Elizabeth I over the history of England. This sweeping work by Stollberg-Rilinger, an expert on the Holy Roman Empire, will stand as the definitive study for many years to come.

Playing with Fire: The Story of Maria Yudina, Pianist in Stalin’s Russia
by Elizabeth Wilson, Yale University Press £25/$35

Wilson, a musician and writer who authored a fine book on Dmitri Shostakovich, has now produced the first English-language biography of Maria Yudina, one of Russia’s greatest 20th-century pianists. Her study gains strength from its vivid reconstruction of the classical music scene under Soviet rule.

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