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The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years
- achow 7y agoHmm.. discovered couple of books, but not sure whether everyone would agree to this list. Just as an example, 'Guns Germs and Steel' (1997) is absent.
- bovermyer 7y agoAs a counter, I'd suggest that given the sheer volume of quality books produced in the last quarter-century, choosing only 50 of them is going to be an exercise in subjectivity.
- purephase 7y agoI like "Guns, Germs and Steel" but the book has received quite a bit of criticism over the years which may account for not including it in the list. Don't know for sure! Just my theory on why it might be excluded.
- woodandsteel 7y agoYes, it has received a lot of criticism, but I haven't seen any that really refutes it. In fact, much of it is based on misrepresenting the book's thesis.
- tasubotadas 7y agoWhat's the selection criteria?
- happytoexplain 7y agoAside from non-fiction and, perhaps, available in English - I don't think there is a well defined criteria. Personally, I wouldn't want one for this kind of list. The pure subjectivity of one or a few individuals can be a valuable resource.
- tasubotadas 7y agoI would really like that this would be pointed out. Something like "judged by the opinion of Mary Kate, John Smith and X Y". Then I could look up those people and take a look if there is a chance of having an overlapping taste.
- pge 7y agoA couple additions I would suggest (keeping with the theme of non-fiction interesting to the general reader, not industry-specific works): * Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling - Ross King * The Invention of Air - Steven Johnson * The Silk Roads: A New History of the World - Peter Frankopan Other suggestions?
- Fernicia 7y ago"Secondhand Time: Last of the Soviets" is an oral history of the USSR. Lots of interesting stories and perspectives. I really enjoyed it.
- ianleeclark 7y ago"Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life" Is an interesting book which covers the creation and maintenance of a concept of "race" in the United States. > Most people assume that racism grows from a perception of human difference: the fact of race gives rise to the practice of racism. Sociologist Karen E. Fields and historian Barbara J. Fields argue otherwise: the practice of racism produces the illusion of race, through what they call “racecraft.”
- unnouinceput 7y agoThe 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years...FROM USA There, I fixed the title for you
- tasubotadas 7y agoTo be honest, it's a really crappy list, because most of them focus on some kind of historical/documentary-like drama and/or injustice. Also, most of them cover topics and history from the US. These books might be fine (I just skimmed the descriptions and I haven't read them) but this definitely doesn't look like the best NONFICTION books.
- happytoexplain 7y ago>most of them focus on some kind of historical/documentary-like drama and/or injustice. Also, most of them cover topics and history from the US. Why on earth does this make the list crappy?
- tasubotadas 7y agoNon-fiction has a lot more to offer than drama.
- happytoexplain 7y agoOh, sorry - I agree. But it sounds more like you're criticising the title of the list.
- soniman 7y agoMany of these are memoirs, the books by Eggers, Finnegan and Carr, for instance. I don't really think of a memoir as non-fiction because it's from a first-person perspective. It would be better to separate out the memoirs from the rest of non-fiction, and also separate out the biographies, which are also basically memoirs.
- arrakeen 7y agoyou seem to have a bone to pick with this list despite admitting to having never read any of them. perhaps they are the best nonfiction but you wouldn't know. what, then, do you think are the best nonfiction books of the last 25 years?
- sn41 7y agoThe best non-fiction I have read in the past 25 years is * Longitude, by Dava Sobel.
- Luc 7y agoI guess it doesn't matter, after all that time, that poor Maskelyne's name gets destroyed for the sake of a good story.
- gomijacogeo 7y agoI preferred this to the Sobel book. More academic, but a lot more technical detail. The Quest for Longitude: The Proceedings of the Longitude Symposium Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts November 4-6, 1993 Hardcover – November, 1996 by William J. H. Andrewes http://www.amazon.com/The-Quest-Longitude-Proceedings-Massachusetts/dp/0964432900 http://www.amazon.com/The-Quest-Longitude-Proceedings-Massac...
- tokai 7y agoI have never understood the appeal of Into the Wild. Dying in the wilderness due to hubris and a lack of skill is so unnoteworthy to me. Is it a +upper middle-class metropolis dweller thing?
- happytoexplain 7y ago>+upper middle-class metropolis dweller This looks like an unnecessary dig (disclaimer: I am not defending any identity).
- tokai 7y agoHow? Non of those word are slurs. It was a genuine question. I was surprised to see a book I have a low opinion of on a best-of list. I'm trying to understand who the book appeals to.
- murdockq 7y agoI would say the appeal is for anyone who is longing for a sense of freedom. The themes are about rejecting norms like expectations of others and of society not wanting to live a "normal" life. There are many things that can strip us of our sense of freedom, and the groups that seems to embody this today is van life and digital nomads.
- jhbadger 7y agoI'm pleased to see that one of my favorite books, Richard Holmes' "The Age of Wonder" was there. This is a book that describes how in the 1700s and early 1800s the cultures of science and literature were much more merged than they are today -- you had poets like Wordsworth writing poems about Newton and actually reading the Principia themselves, and you had scientists like Humphrey Davy writing poems.
- purephase 7y agoAgreed. It's a great book.
- mikece 7y agoI would have expected more biographies (one or more from Walter Isaacson?) or historical books. One I would put on the list fors sure is Mike Duncan's "The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic" which is as much a history book as it is a reflection of human nature. To study the history of the Roman Republic and Empire is to realize that even if an enlightened genius sets up a perfect system today that it will unravel within three generations due to greed, laziness, excessive luxury, etc. I wonder how many parallels between the construction of an empire and the construction of an enterprise software system are valid an unavoidable and what the antidotes to counter them would be.
- baruchel 7y agoMay I add my two cents? I really enjoyed reading "Exact thinking in demented times" by Karl Sigmund. One of my favorite non-fiction books.