How to identify some of the most popular works on history

“A country without a memory is a country of madmen.”
George Santayana

When Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History and the Last Man, most people wondered about the phrase in itself: that with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it literally brought socio-cultural evolution to a standstill. Most debate on the infamous time when the iron curtain was pulled down in the rest of Eastern Europe. Yes, the Eastern Bloc was disintegrated; however history has dexterously chronicled a lot of other events since then. It has also revealed socio-cultural evolution at its very best continuing to the present times. The Arab Spring took the world by surprise and several nations are still fighting for social and political reforms and democracy.

Over the centuries, history has also nourished and left a marked impact on several other topics such as anthropology, psychology, geography, demography, sociology, music, fiction, and culture. The adage that ‘history is written by the victors’ can no longer be held as the truth; there are two sides of the same coin. Jon Swain’s  River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia is a moving and brilliant journalistic and historical account of the Khmer Rouge regime. It shows the Communist Khmer Rouge’s brutal and tumultuous rise to power against the American-backed government in Phnom Penh.

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown is a revelation of the massacre of American Indians at Wounded Knee. This book also brings to light the legendary warriors such as Sitting Bull, Cochise, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo. It is a stark portrayal of the Native Americans’ plight at false promises, forced displacement, injustice, and massacres. It was an eye-opener to the world of the exploitation faced by the indigenous people of America and made the world aware of the stereotypes that the Native Americans were sketched as.

The Diary of Anne Frank posthumously published by her father, Otto Frank reveals years of hiding during the Holocaust. Every time one reads it, one is angered at the plight of the numerous people who had done no wrong, were lied about, and forced to die in concentration camps. It also chronicled Anne entering adolescence, falling in love, and experiencing chagrin and confusion.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon has been a most-widely read historic account of the Roman Empire. Edited by David Womersley, it presents a thought-provoking insight into the downfall of the Roman Empire in the East and the West. The methodology followed by Gibbon based on primary resources has become a popular method among modern-day historians. No wonder, he is referred to as the first ‘modern scholar of ancient Rome’.

Romila Thapar’s A History of India Volume One and Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 is a well-researched account of Ancient India and Medieval times that is a wonderful read.

The list of works on history is endless. Bipin Chandra’s India's Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947 and Nationalism and Colonialism in Modern India are brilliant readings on India’s stance on economics, politics, and ideologies. Similarly, there are works by William Dalrymple that provide travel and historic readings on the Middle East and India. All of it goes on to add that socio-cultural evolution continues. And the list goes on!