this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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History book that reads like a thriller (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by ta9876543205@alien.top to c/books@metacritics.zone
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I am reading Dongri to Dubai by S. Hussain Zaidi.

Growing up in Mumbai in the 1980s/90s, I remember reading news stories about the Mumbai gang wars.

This book covers that in great detail and as such qualifies as a genuine history book.

And yet, it reads like a potboiler. It is essentially unputdownable.

10/10

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[โ€“] Gimpalong@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh man, so many good suggestions here.

My recommendations:

Adam Higginbotham - Midnight in Chernobyl

  • Fantastic history of the Chernobyl disaster.

Michael Lewis - The Premonition

  • A story about the virology community reacting to a strange new illness emerging from China and trying to convince those in positions of authority to take the threat seriously.

Wade Davis - Into the Silence

  • The story of George Mallory's attempt to summit Mt. Everest in 1923. Did he make it? How did WWI shape the views of the legendary climbers who first tried to scale the world's tallest mountain?

Martin Middlebrook - The First Day on the Somme

  • July 1st, 1916 was the bloodiest day in British military history. Middlebrook's history examines that first day of the Battle of the Somme from the perspective of the ordinary soldiers who faced the daunting "race to the parapet" against their German counterparts.

Lastly I'd add Cornelius Ryan's classic WWII trilogy: The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far and The Last Battle. All absolutely brilliant narrative histories.

[โ€“] PMG47@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I agree with you about Dreadnought. And any of Martin Middlebrook's that I've read.