HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings
Wm Collins £30
Beautifully balanced, immaculately researched and written with immense confidence, this is Hastings’s masterpiece. He begins with the Vietnamese struggle for liberation from the French and is rightly unsparing about the failures of the US war effort. But his book really shines when describing the war on the ground. Horrifying, compelling, definitive — and quite brilliantly done.
Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
Profile £25
Hartnell’s glorious book opens a window into the beliefs and anxieties of our ancestors. Drawing on early medical textbooks, manuscripts, paintings and sculptures, the art historian explores how people in the Middle Ages understood the human body and its relationship with the world, from the severed heads of Christian martyrs to the rival relics of Christ’s foreskin. Refreshingly, he resists the temptation to poke fun, pointing out that medieval medicine was a rich, sophisticated world of its own. But he also has a wonderful eye for the bizarre. Sumptuously illustrated, vigorously written and overflowing with enthusiasm, his book makes the past at once familiar, exotic and thrilling.
Churchill by Andrew Roberts
Allen Lane £30
The most acute, readable and entertaining of Churchill biographies, Roberts’s behemoth does a superb job of teasing out what made the great man tick. And while Roberts is excellent on Churchill’s campaign against appeasement, his wartime leadership and the enduring power of his oratory, it is his portrait of the private man that lingers in the mind.
Brazil by Lilia M Schwarcz and Heloisa M Starling
Allen Lane £30
Coinciding with the election of the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, this epic history of the world’s sixth most populous country is a shocking, dramatic and utterly engrossing read. The details of Brazil’s history, from the 19th-century empire to the suicide of the quasi-fascist dictator Getulio Vargas, are largely unknown to British readers, but that only makes its dark story all the more fascinating.
In Pursuit of Civility by Keith Thomas
Yale £25
In this gloriously rich book, Keith Thomas, one of our greatest living historians, explores how the idea of civility, from lavatory habits to table manners, evolved in early modern England. Piling up the anecdotes, he builds an irresistible mosaic of 17th- and 18th-century life.
A Certain Idea of France by Julian Jackson
Allen Lane £35
A work of towering scholarship, Jackson’s biography of Charles de Gaulle is both a judicious portrait of this proud and fiercely patriotic leader and a riveting history of France in the age of world wars. Even Anglo-Saxon readers will find themselves rooting for the serious, lonely man who rallied his people after 1940 and still overshadows French politics to this day. Elegantly written and impeccably judged, this is a model of the historical biographer’s art.
The British in India by David Gilmour
Allen Lane £30
Taking in everything from shopping to hunting and holidays, Gilmour’s exploration of two centuries of British life in India teems with colour. Massively researched and drolly observed, his book is a tremendous feat of scholarship, but at its heart are the stories of individuals: explorers, civil servants, soldiers and missionaries, all described with wit and sympathy.
Endeavour by Peter Moore
Chatto £20
Moore’s enviably clever conceit is to stretch the story of Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour to the widest possible extent, from the history of the word “endeavour” and the origins of the ship’s wood to its presence at the Wilkes riots in 1768 and the battle for New York in 1776. Beautifully constructed, his book is not just the history of a single vessel, but a window into the intellectual and political life of the age of enlightenment, from the thrill of botanical discovery to the horror of Cook’s last moments on the beaches of Hawaii.
The Golden Thread by Kassia St Clair
J Murray £20
A history of fabric might not sound immediately exciting, but St Clair’s book is a refreshing treat, every page bursting with surprising insights. Clothing, she argues, is central to history, from myths and legends to trade and technology. The threads woven by the Greek Fates, the bandages that wrapped Egyptian mummies, the wool that made medieval England rich, the lace in Vermeer’s paintings: it all makes for a smart and entertaining historical tapestry.
Thomas Cromwell by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Allen Lane £30
As if Cromwell has not enjoyed enough attention in Hilary Mantel’s novels, along comes another multiple prizewinner, Diarmaid MacCulloch, with the definitive biography of the Tudor statesman. From this account Cromwell emerges as ruthlessly clever and cold-blooded, while his master, Henry VIII, comes across as a monster of wilfulness and cruelty. Yes, books on the Tudor trencherman and his hangers-on are ten-a-penny. But this is exhaustively researched and superbly written.
Imperial Twilight by Stephen Platt
Atlantic £25
Few people in Britain know much about the First Opium War of 1839-42, which saw China humiliated by British gunboats, trade opened to western merchants and Hong Kong handed over until 1997. But Platt, an American historian, makes the war the centrepiece of an epic narrative, full of extraordinary characters and unexpected twists, but shot through with a real sense of regret at the missed opportunities for peaceful cooperation. Crucially, Platt sees this as a definitive turning point, which broke China’s economic momentum for at least a century and informs its attitude to the West to this day.
NEXT WEEK
We pick the year’s best memoirs and biographies, literature, poetry, gardening, pop, stage and screen, thought and children’s books
Settle down with the best books of the year, from history and cooking to music and politics. To see more of our comprehensive guide, go to sundaytimes.co.uk/christmasbooks2018
