The Reading List

These are the books that come up most often in our research and conversations. Not a comprehensive bibliography — just the ones that have genuinely changed how we think about the past.

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars — still the most readable account of the early imperial period, and still the source that requires the most critical scrutiny.

Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics — essential for anyone interested in how historical documents are authenticated, disputed, and occasionally fabricated.

Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror — the best single-volume account of the fourteenth century, and a model for how to write history that takes ordinary people seriously.

Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms — a microhistory of a sixteenth century miller's cosmological beliefs, and a demonstration of what close reading of inquisition records can reveal.

Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre — on the cultural history of early modern France, and on why the things that strike us as bizarre about the past are often the most revealing.

John Keegan, The Face of Battle — not strange history, but essential for understanding what military history looks like when you stop writing about commanders and start writing about the people doing the fighting.