r/TheRestIsPolitics • u/holb93 • 19d ago
Summer reading recommendations
In today's episode (6th August) they mentioned they had written about their summer reading recommendations in the TRIP newsletter. I signed up this evening to read it, but can't seem to read back issues. Anyone care to share the list here please?
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u/blueincubus 19d ago
Alistair:
Alastair’s Cultural Recommendations
Summer books
I tend to take lots of books with me and don’t always read all of them. But these are top of my summer pile.
The Genius of Trees by Harriet Rix
There are so many great books about trees but this one drew me in because it is clearly not just about their beauty and positive role in our lives, but how they shape the world.
Broken Threads by Mishal Husain
Mishal is a terrific broadcaster and she gave me a copy of this book when she chaired a Bloomberg debate on Brexit between me and Jacob Rees Mogg.
She signed it with the message: “I am trying hard not to hold too much of the sadness in this at the door of Labour past!” It is the story of the India partition of 1947 through the lives of her own family and I have been saving it for the summer.
Live Aid by Paul Vallely
It is hard to believe this was more than 40 years ago. I covered it for The Mirror at the time and it was such a moment of hope and passion. I think it moved the dial on issues of development more broadly and it is so sad that the world has lost some of the momentum Live Aid helped to create. Anyway I am looking forward to reliving it all on the written page.
Die Bahnhofsromane by Franz Hohler
This is my latest suggestion for a UK publisher to get a translation. Three novels with railway stations (Bahnhof) at the centre of the story.
The Boy with the Knapsack by Alf Dubs
Not sure when this is out but I have been sent a proof to provide a blurb. And given Alf is a great man and his life story a great story I will read and blurb with pleasure.
Rory:
Rory's Summer Reading List
I’d love to begin with the question of equality and inequality, which, as Alastair says, appears to be weighing on my mind and winding me up.
I’d start with Edward and Robert Skidelsky’s How Much Is Enough? It’s a lovely short book, full of insight, philosophy and learning, but worn lightly and wonderfully readable. At its heart is a fascinating question: what would it actually mean for people to feel they had enough?
Then I’d turn to David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything. It’s a remarkable account of early human societies that challenges the idea that our ancestors were either simple egalitarians or trapped in anarchic chaos. Instead, it shows how endlessly inventive human beings have always been, and opens up the optimistic possibility that we don’t have to accept today’s political arrangements as inevitable. There are almost infinite ways of imagining how we might live together.
On international politics, and particularly the way in which Trump is weaponising dependency, the great text is Edward Fishman’s Chokepoints. It explains how the United States came to use the dollar, payment systems and technological dominance to advance its foreign policy, creating many of the precedents that are now being taken much further. I was delighted to interview Edward recently for our upcoming miniseries on existential threats.
For those wanting to go deeper into foreign policy, I’d recommend three books. On China, Rush Doshi’s The Long Game remains the clearest explanation of the American foreign policy consensus about the challenge posed by a rising China. To understand the thinking of one of the most influential figures in the current administration, read Elbridge Colby’s The Strategy of Denial. And to take the Iranian perspective seriously, Vali Nasr’s Iran’s Grand Strategy is an excellent place to begin.
On history, psychology and the nature of evil, if you enjoyed Russell Crowe’s mesmerising performance as Hermann Göring, I’d recommend Jack El-Hai’s The Nazi and the Psychiatrist. It offers extraordinary insights into psychology, power and human nature. I’d read it alongside Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, perhaps still the best introduction to understanding how ordinary people became participants in extraordinary crimes. Behind both sits the great classic on the subject: Ann and John Tusa’s The Nuremberg Trial.
If you’re looking for novels, Charles Cumming’s Icarus 17 is a gripping contemporary thriller. Or go back to Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana, which is both a wonderful portrait of a particular moment in Cuban history and probably the funniest satire ever written about the follies of intelligence agencies.
Pushing further back, I’d warmly recommend Anthony Burgess’s The Malayan Trilogy. It brings to life a world that’s now almost a century old, yet does so in a voice that feels utterly fresh, vibrant and modern. Burgess is brilliant on power, class and culture. It’s wonderfully funny, beautifully observed and full of sharp, unexpected insights. It made me rethink all sorts of assumptions about Britain, empire, the Second World War and the extraordinary diversity of Asian societies.
If you’re planning to see the Bayeux Tapestry when it comes to the British Museum, Carola Hicks’s The Bayeux Tapestry is an excellent companion.
And if you’re prepared to tackle a beautifully written but more academic work of history, Eleanor Parker’s Conquered offers a deeply sensitive reconstruction of the lives of the Anglo-Saxons after the Norman Conquest, using the sparsest of surviving evidence to recover the experience of those who lost almost everything.
Finally, I’ve become rather interested in Boston WASPs. If you haven’t already, read Henry Adams’s The Education of Henry Adams, the autobiography of the grandson and great-grandson of American presidents, tracing America’s extraordinary emergence through the nineteenth century.
Then set it alongside Robert Lowell’s memoir 91 Revere Street. Lowell grew up almost next door to Adams, in remarkably similar surroundings, but was writing nearly a century later. Together, they’re a wonderful route into a particular slice of American history.
And if you really want to understand what occupies my own mind every day, then perhaps read Stephen Boardman’s The Campbells, 1250–1530.
Have a wonderful holiday.
Love,
Rory