Library
This library is a record of books that I’ve read, with a written response to each. There are no ratings here. I limit recommendations, and I do not write with the aim of reviewing. A book might make me think about something else, I may engage extensively with one passage, or I might evaluate the argument of the text as a whole. The texture of my responses will shift depending on the text.
One caveat: the write-ups from before 2024 read more like book reviews, because that’s what they were. Most started life on Goodreads, a few in graduate seminars, back before this site existed.
Some of my responses are short (perhaps a few paragraphs) while others may be entire essays. The amount written is a reflection not of the quality of the book, but of my own thinking.
My books are listed in reverse-chronological order by when I completed them. Each entry is listed in full bibliographic form, with a short annotation below. Some of these I own, others I do not.
2020
Loved it: more nuanced than the first volume, and Neoplatonism is completely my thing.
Critically important on Egyptian state-building; impossible to overestimate its value.
Mackintosh-Smith, Tim. Yemen: The Unknown Arabia. New York: The Overlook Press, 1999.
Not the history I expected but a travelogue; the meandering style makes it rewarding.
Despite the bombast, broadly correct that evidence should construct theory; worth reading, not worth accepting wholesale.
Highly readable, but he spends too much time exoticizing Basque people into something “other.”
Patently wrong: precisely the opposite of what the historical record shows.
Honestly the definitive starting point for all things Ukraine; utterly excellent.
Crouch, Blake. Dark Matter. New York: Crown, 2016.
A well-thought-out concept and a good read, though characterization and dialogue are a bit weak.
Long the English starting point on modern Algeria, since surpassed by A History of Algeria.
Claims neutrality, then blames Qaddafi; I mostly agree with him anyway.
Good on the diplomacy, but a study of the Middle East without Middle Easterners.
The strategic claim holds, but the PRC and Rwanda show killers who were by no means small.
Stavrianos, Leften Stavros. Global Rift. New York: William Morrow, 1981.
Dependency Theory distilled, 1400 to 1980; worth skimming as a blueprint, not worth much as a historical study.
Hoganson, Kristin L. The Heartland: An American History. New York: Penguin Press, 2019.
No: the Midwest deserves to be taken seriously in its own right; this feels almost like an insult.
A bit of a disappointment: as a general history of the 90s, a great deal is missing.
The gold standard on the Confederacy as a state; a dense slog, but illuminating.
A bit disappointing: the five 1979 stories stay discrete, never a true comparative “counterrevolution.”
A history-of-medicine take on the Spanish Flu; the social and cultural side stays a minority.
A good counterweight to the classroom 1930s; an excellent starting point, old-hat for those who know the period.
Four rules kept: don’t break the chain, write every morning, write before knowing your thesis, get accountability partners.
The Southern-oligarchy case lands, the Western-replication claim doesn’t; easy to read but unconvincing.
A decent, ambitious overview of Islamic history, though with some problems and too much Europe.
Gombrich, E.H. A Little History of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
Really a history of Europe with occasional glances elsewhere; fault the readers who praise it as world history.
Good on modern uses and misuses of Ibn Khaldun, severely lacking on his own work.
Really kaleidoscopic, zooming from individuals to whole societies; the Tunisia chapter is largely right.
Aderin-Pocock, Maggie. Book of the Moon: A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor. Abrams, 2019.
Not terribly impressed: good trivia, but the text lacks substance.
Manton, E. Lennox and Lennox Manton. Roman North Africa. Seaby, 1988.
Hardly a reliable source; a decent primer, but once grounded, move on to something else.
Not outstanding, but a manageable entry point; ISIS’s break with al-Qaeda is strategic, not scriptural.
Parsons, Frederick V. The Origins of the Morocco Question, 1880-1900. Duckworth, 1976.
A 650-page diplomatic narrative with no guideposts; Parsons is the definitive pre-Saidian orientalist.
Suraqah, Abdul Aziz and Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi. Refuting ISIS. Sacred Knowledge, 2016.
A fatwa, not a Western critique: ISIS as modern 5arawij; the imperfect parallel makes it less compelling.
McCullough, Brian. How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone. Liveright, 2018.
A really neat history that ends exactly where my own internet life began: designed specifically for me.
Truly one of the foundational works on North African history.
Good on Jewish life, sweeping and often incorrect elsewhere; best paired with other materials.
A whirlwind tour from counting’s invention to math with little to do with the world.
A powerful criticism of the colonial male gaze, but the uncensored photographs make it irresponsible.
More or less a country profile: nothing new for those familiar, but a decent reference for forgotten information.
The paleontology scaffolding is filler and the actual dinosaur content shallow and familiar.
Earle, Peter. Corsairs of Malta and Barbary. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1970.
Mostly quite good; its chief contribution is showing Mediterranean pirates weren’t all Muslim.
Interesting, dense study of the pre-Protectorate peasantry, memorable on food and daily life; I recommend it.
Provocatively traces Tunisia and Libya’s divergence to colonialism; bringing in Morocco would offer much more.
Little new if you’ve followed the exposés, but still worth the read.