100 Books Like Sovereign Necropolis

I love this book because it is a bold and incredibly insightful ethnography of Thai migrant workers in Israel and their integration into the Israeli farming sector. This migrant population from the Isaan region in northeastern Thailand skillfully navigated relations with the settlers and adapted to their exclusion from Israeli society while maintaining ties to their families back home.

Matan Kaminer provides a brilliant, eloquent, and piercing analysis of labor and capitalist relations in this insightful ethnography.   

I love this book because it is a refreshing look at the trade in artifacts through the experiences of the artisans who produce them. Frederick Wherry tells us how handicraft artisans are able to utilize their special skills and creative talents, their personal and social connections, and their resourcefulness to their advantage while protecting their livelihood and their craft.

I love Wherry’s acute observations that are colorfully captured in his book, which allows us to see how authenticity gets generated in different situations and how it has protected some artisans from competition.

I love this book because it is a moving, powerful, and remarkable account of the life stories of sixteen women who fought and lived in the dense tropical jungles bordering Malaysia and Thailand during the forty-year guerilla war against the British and Japanese occupation of Malaya.

Through these accounts, we learn who these women are, why they joined the CPM army, and why they stayed so loyal to the movement and its ideals even to this day. Agnes Khoo’s retelling of their stories is accompanied by illuminating excerpts and photographs of women in both civilian dress and combat gear.

We get to learn about the harsh conditions of living in the humid, mosquito-infested jungle, sleeping with giant caterpillars and leeches crawling on their bodies, the constant pangs of hunger, the strange illnesses and diseases that killed many of their comrades, and how the women learned to cope with these… show more.

I love this book because it features ten original ethnographies by ten graduate students at UC Berkeley that examine a diverse array of groups, schools, and communities in America. The book is an excellent source for ethnographic researchers who uncover a surprising, unexpected twist or turn in their research and want to know what to do next.

I love how each author shares their experiences in the field as a participant and as an observer and the intellectual journey of thinking about how to make sense of their findings by offering a refreshing explanation. 

I love this book because it’s an inspiring story of selfless patriotism, of six men of great wealth and accomplishment who set aside their private careers and personal ambitions to serve their country at a time of awesome need.

Averell Harriman, Robert Lovett, Dean Acheson, John McCloy, George Kennan, Charles Bohlen–as America emerged victorious in World War II but uncertain about the future, these friends and colleagues crafted the policies that created what later became known as the “American Century.”

This book is a deeply researched, fast-paced story of unsung heroes that left me nostalgic about the nation’s glorious past and, even after 741 pages, thirsting for more.

As The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Muggeridge exposed Stalin’s man-made famine in 1933; in the 1940s, he became one of Orwell’s closest friends. In between the two, he conducted this caustic post mortem on a catastrophic decade. Some of it still feels timely, like his observation that a cultural obsession with information perversely incentivises the manipulation and fabrication of data. All of it is deliciously quotable: he compares the human rights activists who whitewashed Stalinism to “vegetarians undertaking a pious pilgrimage to a slaughterhouse because it displayed a notice recommending nut-cutlets.”

During the first decades of the Cold War, the export of American popular culture – and in particular, music – played an important role in projecting soft power abroad.

Fosler-Lussier’s deeply researched and beautifully written book tells the story of the musicians who travelled abroad as part of State Department programs, and how they negotiated an image of the United States in – and through – the musical encounters they had worldwide. An essential Cold War history of how certain sounds became American. 

I am sometimes put off by ‘big’ sprawling works of history, that cover hundreds of years in hundreds of pages and may end up sitting on my shelf both goading and embarrassing me for my failure to do them the courtesy of finishing them. (Although admittedly, maybe looking good when people pop around!).

Paul Bew’s engaging examination of over 200 years of Irish history is an exception to this. Written by one of Ireland’s most eminent historians, it manages to combine academic rigor with accessibility (no mean feat). Bew offers a survey of the development and course of conflict in Ireland as well as an analysis of the decisions (and mistakes) made by key leaders along the way.

It covers a period much longer than the years Northern Ireland has existed as a political entity, but I found the analysis helpful in explaining its emergence and development.

I found this book utterly engrossing. The subject of Sir Thomas Roe’s embassy to India from 1616 to 1619 interested me in part because of my interest in cross-cultural exchanges and partly because of my own visit to some of the places previously trodden by Roe.

I liked the fact that the book had a clear argument, namely that Roe’s previous personal and political experiences influenced his perceptions and conduct in India.

Above all, I found the writing a joy. Despite its undoubted scholarship, the book reads as a novel. Das brings colour to all the descriptions, whether of people, places, or events. I wish I could write like that. 

The authors are three of the best analysts of Chinese affairs in Washington today. Bush is the leading authority on Taiwan, having been responsible for relations between the U.S. and Taiwan for many years when in government service. 

He and Bonnie Glaser are long-time friends whose judgments have served me well in my own work over the last 20-30 years, especially with recent editions of my book. Glaser is widely regarded to have the best sources in Beijing and her predictions of PRC behavior are constantly on the mark. Hass served on the National Security Council during the Obama years and is now at Brookings.