You might enjoy any of Mike Dash's writing, also. He walks the line between vivid history and nonfiction novels, but he's also a diligent researcher who's prett

You might enjoy any of Mike Dash's writing, also. He walks the line between vivid history and nonfiction novels, but he's also a diligent researcher who's pretty often covering material from unexamined primary sources. Single-story history is of course easier to make vivid than thesis-based writing, but he still stands out to me as way above the usual mark for density * readability.