Here are 100 books that The Perilous Frontier fans have personally recommended if you like
The Perilous Frontier.
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I am a New York Times bestselling author of six books, including The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. My works have been published globally in more than fifteen languages. I hold a PhD from the University of Oxford, served as an officer in the Canadian and British Armies, and have appeared in numerous documentaries, television programs, and podcasts. I am an associate professor of history (and, as a true Canadian, head coach of the hockey team) at Colorado Mesa University.
This book was a pertinent reminder of the prevailing yet misplaced, western-centric historical epicenter by realigning the map toward the East while providing a fresh, cosmopolitan perspective of our shared saga. Frankopan traverses the dynamic Eurasian Steppe and Silk Roads, which, for millennia, have connected and coupled people, products, pathogens, economies, armies, inventions, and ideas that shaped our global village.
The No. 1 Sunday Times and international bestseller - a major reassessment of world history in light of the economic and political renaissance in the re-emerging east
For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west - in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of adventure and riches. The region stretching from eastern Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia deep into China and India, is taking centre stage in international politics, commerce and culture - and is shaping the modern world.
This region, the…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a Professor Emeritus of Classical and Byzantine History, and I was fascinated by Attila and the Hun and Genghis Khan from early childhood when I decided that I would become a historian. I set out to write the history of the Eurasian nomads from their perspective, and so convey their neglected history to a wider readership.
This fast-paced, wide-ranging history of Genghis Khan and his successors is by an author with first-hand experience of living among the nomads of the Eurasian steppes.
This work is the best introduction for the general reader on the role of Genghis Khan as a conqueror and ruler as well as the impact of the Mongols on shaping the modern world.
The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback leading a ruthless band of nomadic warriors in the looting of the civilized world. But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologies, trade, and ideas. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford, the only Western scholar ever to be allowed into the Mongols’ “Great Taboo”—Genghis Khan’s homeland and forbidden burial site—tracks the astonishing story of…
I am a Professor Emeritus of Classical and Byzantine History, and I was fascinated by Attila and the Hun and Genghis Khan from early childhood when I decided that I would become a historian. I set out to write the history of the Eurasian nomads from their perspective, and so convey their neglected history to a wider readership.
Anthony has synthesized a vast literature on historical linguistics and archaeology to explain the origins of the first steppe nomads on the South Russian steppes in the fourth millennium B.C.
In my opinion, Anthony does an outstanding job of explaining the origins and distribution of the speakers of Indo-European languages whose migrations have defined the linguistic map from Ireland to India. Subsequent DNA analysis of the populations of Yamnaya steppe culture has confirmed his thesis based on linguistic evidence and archaeology.
I recommend this book as the fundamental work for any study of the early Indo-European-speaking nomads.
Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization. Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I am a Professor Emeritus of Classical and Byzantine History, and I was fascinated by Attila and the Hun and Genghis Khan from early childhood when I decided that I would become a historian. I set out to write the history of the Eurasian nomads from their perspective, and so convey their neglected history to a wider readership.
I recommend as a very readable account based on original research about the role played by Oghuz Turkish tribes in extending the range and importance of the international trade along the Silk Road between the tenth and eleventh centuries by breeding hybrid camels.
Bulliet has established his reputation as a scholar of vehicles and beasts of burden with his first groundbreaking book The Camel and the Wheel. While Bulliet’s arguments for an advent of colder climate as the stimulus for the breeding of the hybrid camels can be debated, his overall thesis is sound and explains why the Seljuk Turks emerged as the new military power in Eastern Islam in the eleventh century.
A boom in the production and export of cotton made Iran the richest region of the Islamic caliphate in the ninth and tenth centuries. Yet in the eleventh century, Iran's impressive agricultural economy entered a steep decline, bringing the country's primacy to an end. Richard W. Bulliet advances several provocative theses to explain these hitherto unrecognized historical events. According to Bulliet, the boom in cotton production directly paralleled the spread of Islam, and Iran's agricultural decline stemmed from a significant cooling of the climate that lasted for over a century. The latter phenomenon also prompted Turkish nomadic tribes to enter…
I am a historian of Russia and Eurasia at Hamilton College. I teach courses on Russian history, Central Asia, and the modern Middle East. We usually think of these as separate regions of the world, but in fact they are all connected across the vast Eurasian continent. Russians, Turks, Iranians, Mongols and more have been intertwined with each other throughout their histories. My formal research specialty is Soviet Central Asia. I have written on Stalin’s attempt to destroy Islam, on education and creating a historical narrative for Uzbekistan, and on cotton and manual labor under Khrushchev.
Many people are fascinated by the ancient Silk Road, but don’t know much about how we got from there to the “Stans” that emerged out of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. These books showcase the most recent scholarship on how Central Asia was gradually taken over by the Russian and Chinese empires, and how the republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were created, as well as Xinjiang Province in the People’s Republic of China.
The Kazakhs suffered a devastating famine 1928–1932 that was caused by Stalin’s collectivization campaign. Because the Kazakhs were nomadic herders, the first step was to “modernize” them by forcing them to become settled farmers. Cameron uses Russian- and Kazakh-language sources to show how Soviet communism’s obsession with creating modern nations led to near-genocide.
The Hungry Steppe examines one of the most heinous crimes of the Stalinist regime: the Kazakh famine of 1930-33. More than 1.5 million people, a quarter of Kazakhstan's population, perished. Yet the story of this famine has remained mostly hidden from view. Sarah Cameron reveals this brutal story and its devastating consequences for Kazakh society.
Through extremely violent means, the Kazakh famine created Soviet Kazakhstan, a stable territory with clear boundaries that was an integral part of the Soviet economy; and it forged a new Kazakh national identity. But ultimately, Cameron finds, neither Kazakhstan nor Kazakhs themselves integrated into Soviet…
I’m a science fiction and fantasy author with an obsession with outer space and dragons. I grew up on those genres and managed to convince my college professors to let me write about dystopian science fiction for my senior thesis. I’ve always loved sci-fi and fantasy because of their unique ability to take imagined worlds that seem so distant and show how, actually, those worlds can be within reach. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s for better or for worse.
Brandon Sanderson hardly needs an introduction as one of the modern-day heavy hitters of sci-fi and fantasy. This book, though, has a wonderfully creative setting, with a world plagued by sunlight so intense it’s only livable in the thin band of twilight that preludes the dawn.
One of my favorite things about science fiction is when an author creates a fantastical world that has deeply impacted the shaping of its society, from the rulers to the rebels and everyone in between. Sanderson delivers on this front, and I love how integral its setting is to its plot and the development of its characters.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson―creator of The Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn Saga, and countless bestselling works of science fiction and fantasy―comes this standalone novel showing a rare glimpse of a future Cosmere universe.
Running. Putting distance between himself and the relentless Night Brigade has been Nomad’s strategy for years. Staying one or two steps ahead of his pursuers by skipping through the Cosmere from one world to the next.
But now, his powers too depleted to escape, Nomad finds himself trapped on Canticle, a planet that will kill anyone who doesn’t keep moving. Fleeing the fires…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I am an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University and my interest in the Mongols first began many years ago during my MA at Royal Holloway University. I had always been interested in the historic relationships between nomadic and agricultural societies, but what I found fascinating about the Mongols was the sheer speed and range of their expansion—how could they have conquered the greater part of the Asia within only a few decades? Exploring how the Mongols grappled with the realities of ruling such a vast imperium remains a very thought-provoking issue, so too is the question of how the peoples they overthrew accommodated themselves to Mongol rule.
The Mongols only form one part of Nomads in the Middle East which paints on a far broader canvas, looking at the long-term history of relations between nomads and agricultural societies in the Middle East. Spanning from the seventh century all the way up to the modern era, and discussing peoples as diverse as the Bedouin, the Seljuk Turks, and of course the Mongols, Beatrice Forbes Manz provides an incredible overview of the role played by nomadic societies in shaping this region. For those interested in the Mongols, this book helps us to take a step back and a take panoramic view of their actions within a much longer timeline.
A history of pastoral nomads in the Islamic Middle East from the rise of Islam, through the middle periods when Mongols and Turks ruled most of the region, to the decline of nomadism in the twentieth century. Offering a vivid insight into the impact of nomads on the politics, culture, and ideology of the region, Beatrice Forbes Manz examines and challenges existing perceptions of these nomads, including the popular cyclical model of nomad-settled interaction developed by Ibn Khaldun. Looking at both the Arab Bedouin and the nomads from the Eurasian steppe, Manz demonstrates the significance of Bedouin and Turco-Mongolian contributions…
I’m a former indoor kid and big-city girl, and I never imagined I’d wind up spending months of each year pooping in the woods—by choice! But walking all day every day on footpaths through the wilderness has become one of the greatest loves of my life, and I’m so glad to have books by other adventurous folks to keep me company when I’m back at home. I’ve written two of these books myself: How To Be Alone and What We Owe to Ourselves. I also write a weekly newsletter called Wild Letters, where I share honest stories of self-exploration both on and off the trail.
Hiking isn’t the only way to escape to the mountains, of course.
After spending three years living part-time in a 20-square-foot van myself, it was such a joy to revisit that particular flavor of wanderlust through Noami’s story—particularly since she doesn’t gloss over the harder aspects of an unconventional, nomadic life on the road.
Discover what it's really like to live and work on the road in a camper van full time from eco-vanlifer and founder of the Diversify Vanlife movement, Noami Grevemberg.
Feeling dissatisfied with her office job and her "stationary home," in 2016 Noami Grevemberg took a bold step. She quit her job, sold her belongings, and set out in her 1985 VW Vanagon to pursue a life of simplicity and travel with her husband and German Shepherd by her side.
In her years living fulltime on the road, Noami has become an expert in the many aspects of vanlife. In her…
Keith Foskett has hiked around 15,000 miles on classic hiking trails including the Pacific Crest Trail, El Camino de Santiago, and the Appalachian Trail. He has written four books, and contributes to various outdoor publications. Having once been described as an anomaly (it was apparently a compliment), he now divides his time between walking, cycling, and delving into the merits of woollen underwear.
The first line of the description roused my curiosity with this one: "Richard Grant has never spent more than twenty-two consecutive nights under the same roof." Curious about his own wanderlust, and theorising that America is full of wanderers, he went out to prove it. Delving into the whys of nomads and travellers, I now understand my own nomadic tendencies.
Richard Grant has never spent more than 22 consecutive nights under the same roof. Motivated partly by his own wanderlust and partly by his realisation that America is a land populated by wanderers, he set out to test his theory and this book is the result. Grant follows the trails of the first European to wander across the American West (a failed conquistador); joins a group of rodeo-competing cowboys (and gets thrown by a mechanical bull); tells the story of the vanishing nomadic Indians and links up with 300,000 "gerito gypsies" - old people who live and travel in their…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve always been an avid reader. At school, during recess, I would find places to hide so the teachers wouldn’t find me and insist on sending me out to play. Exploring other countries also fascinated me but, growing up, we did not have the money to travel the world. Books became my means of travel. I especially love books written by authors who have lived or grown up in that setting. It’s why I find writing stories in an Indian setting easy and satisfying. The highest compliment from my readers is when they feel immersed in my stories and come away feeling like they’ve been to India and now want to eat an Indian meal.
This story of a young girl, Aisulu, who bucks tradition to become an eagle hunter is simply heart-wrenching and a fabulous read. The research is thorough, and I was steeped in the Kazakh (a nomadic tribe in the mountains of Mongolia), even as the plot advanced with emotional twists and turns for the main characters. The voice of Aisulu is spot on. All the supporting characters but especially her brother Serik, and her aunt and uncle are richly drawn.
Erin spent a summer with the Kazakh eagle hunters and had sensitivity readers review her work for authenticity. This book won the Governor General Award (the highest in Canada) in 2019 and totally deserves it!
2019 Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award? An exquisitely written, uplifting middle grade debut by acclaimed author, Erin Bow, about a young girl who defies her family's expectations in order to save her brother and become an eagle hunter, perfect for fans of PAX. It goes against all tradition for Aisulu to train an eagle, for among the Kazakh nomads, only men can fly them. But everything changes when Aisulu discovers that her brother, Serik, has been concealing a bad limp that risks not just his future as the family's leader, but his life too. When her parents leave…
