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BEST BOOKS TO UNDERSTAND XX CENTURY'S HISTORY

Rank Title Author Added

1

The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

577 members

3 reviews

4.1

2 Members: Sciubba, raperper

2

Memoirs of the Second World War

by Winston S. Churchill

850 members

10 reviews

4.2

2 Members: Bretzky1, raperper

3

From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life

by Jacques Barzun

3,765 members

38 reviews

4.1

2 Members: Bretzky1, raperper

4

Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties

by Paul Johnson

1,152 members

16 reviews

4.1

Member: raperper

5

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom

by Conrad Black

497 members

4 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: Bretzky1

6

We Now Know: rethinking Cold War history

by John Lewis Gaddis

343 members

4 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: Bretzky1

7

by George Orwell

82,451 members

1,276 reviews

4.2

Member: Sciubba

8

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

13,013 members

202 reviews

4

Member: Bretzky1

9

La prima guerra mondiale

by Pierre Renouvin

62 members

1 review

2.9

Member: raperper

10

The World of Yesterday

by Stefan Zweig

2,583 members

77 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: raperper

11

Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended

by Jack Matlock

98 members

1 review

½ 4.3

Member: Bretzky1

12

Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

by David Remnick

1,272 members

16 reviews

4.2

Member: Bretzky1

13

The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936: Origins of the Civil War

by Stanley G. Payne

57 members

1 review

4.2

Member: raperper

14

The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991

by Eric Hobsbawm

3,018 members

35 reviews

4.1

Member: raperper

15

The Revolt of the Masses

by José Ortega y Gasset

1,836 members

29 reviews

3.9

Member: raperper

16

An American Life: The Autobiography

by Ronald Reagan

966 members

12 reviews

4

Member: Bretzky1

17

27,812 members

575 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: Bretzky1

18

The Road to Serfdom

2,808 members

35 reviews

4.2

Member: raperper

19

by Henry Kissinger

2,389 members

17 reviews

4.1

Member: Bretzky1

20

America's Great Depression

by Murray Rothbard

338 members

3 reviews

4.2

Member: raperper

21

The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000

by Niall Ferguson

536 members

6 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: Bretzky1

22

Centesimus Annus: On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum

by John Paul II

308 members

11 reviews

3.9

Member: raperper

23

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

by Margaret MacMillan

3,268 members

56 reviews

4.1

Member: Bretzky1

24

by Vasily Grossman

3,454 members

89 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: raperper

25

The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities

by Mancur Olson

295 members

3 reviews

3.9

Member: Bretzky1

26

Darkness at Noon

by Arthur Koestler

5,408 members

101 reviews

4

Member: raperper

27

Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die

by Garrett M. Graff

256 members

8 reviews

3.8

Member: Bretzky1

28

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

by Samuel P. Huntington

3,370 members

37 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: raperper

29

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty

by Daron Acemoglu

2,373 members

54 reviews

3.8

Member: Bretzky1

30

Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967

by William B. Quandt

80 members

½ 3.3

Member: Bretzky1

31

Del buen salvaje al buen revolucionario

by Carlos Rangel

31 members

2 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: raperper

32

The Abolition of Man

6,650 members

65 reviews

4

Member: raperper

33

A world transformed

by George H. W. Bush

243 members

1 review

3

Member: Bretzky1

34

The Nineties: A Book

by Chuck Klosterman

636 members

31 reviews

4

Member: Bretzky1

35

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

by Paul Kennedy

2,948 members

20 reviews

4

Member: raperper

36

Miracle Cure: The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine

by William Rosen

74 members

2 reviews

4.1

Member: Bretzky1

37

India: From Midnight to the Millennium

by Shashi Tharoor

325 members

2 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: Bretzky1

38

Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age

695 members

3 reviews

3.9

Member: Bretzky1

39

"One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964

by Aleksandr Fursenko

247 members

4 reviews

4

Member: Bretzky1

40

Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin

108 members

2 reviews

½ 4.6

Member: Bretzky1

41

A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

by Ian J. Bickerton

67 members

½ 3.4

Member: Bretzky1

42

Butter and Guns: America’s Cold War Economic Diplomacy

by Diane B. Kunz

10 members

4

Member: Bretzky1

43

The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

1,181 members

6 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: Bretzky1

44

The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan

283 members

3 reviews

3.8

Member: Bretzky1

45

Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War

71 members

1 review

3.9

Member: Bretzky1

46

American Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century

by Robert D. Schulzinger

35 members

4

Member: Bretzky1

47

Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century

by Benjamin A. Valentino

41 members

3.9

Member: Bretzky1

48

by Mikhail Gorbachev

148 members

2.8

Member: Bretzky1

49

Reagan: The Life

by H. W. Brands

382 members

6 reviews

4

Member: Bretzky1

50

Deciding to Intervene: The Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy

by James M. Scott

8 members

4

Member: Bretzky1

51

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

2,464 members

33 reviews

4.2

Member: Bretzky1

52

The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB

by Milton Bearden

287 members

4 reviews

4

Member: Bretzky1

53

Gaza: A History (Comparative Politics and International Studies)

by Jean-Pierre Filiu

67 members

1 review

½ 2.5

Member: Bretzky1

54

Double Cross : The True Story of the D-Day Spies

by Ben Macintyre

1,069 members

45 reviews

3.9

Member: Bretzky1

55

Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam

651 members

17 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: Bretzky1

56

Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times

by George Crile

1,628 members

32 reviews

4

Member: Bretzky1

57

Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988

by James G. Blight

13 members

1 review

½ 4.5

Member: Bretzky1

58

Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran

by Elaine Sciolino

288 members

2 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: Bretzky1

59

On the Brink: The Dramatic, Behind-the-Scenes Saga of the Reagan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War

50 members

½ 3.5

Member: Bretzky1

60

The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945 to the Present

by William I. Hitchcock

175 members

4

Member: Bretzky1

61

A History of Russia, Vol. 1: To 1917 (Anthem Series on Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies)

by Walter G. Moss

85 members

3.8

Member: Bretzky1

62

One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945 (The Global Century Series)

by David Reynolds

127 members

1 review

½ 3.3

About This List

Started: raperper
August 2013
Type: Numbered and unnumbered

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