🧲 Books like this
The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation
Mark Kurlansky · back to the book
What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Discovery of France
Graham Robb · 480 pages
"From maps, migration and magic, to linguistic differences and tribal disputes, The Discovery of France tells the whole story of this remarkable - and surprising - country."--Jacket.
In Search of the Indo-Europeans
J.P. Mallory · 288 pages
The True History of Chocolate
Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe · 280 pages
"The food of the gods": Delicious indulgence or cause of migraines? Aphrodisiac or medicinal tonic? Religious symbol or Mesoamerican currency? This tale of one of the world's favorite foods draws upon botany, archaeology, socioeconomics and culinary history to present for the first time a complete and accurate history of chocolate. The story begins some 3000 years ago in the jungles of lowland Mex
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
David W. Anthony · 568 pages
Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto · 258 pages
Journal of the American Oriental Society
American Oriental Society · 533 pages
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson · 560 pages
"As I stood on the roof of my house, taking in this unexpected view, it struck me how glorious it was that this was exactly how this land must have looked to centuries of people, quietly going about their daily business – eating, sleeping, having sex, endeavouring to be amused – and it occurred to me, with the forcefulness of a thought experienced in 360 degrees, that that's really what history mo
In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture
Alister E. McGrath · 352 pages
The King James Bible is the most familiar and widely read Bible translation in the world, recognized for centuries as both a religious and literary classic. But the origins of this masterpiece are far from what one might expect, and its beginnings lie in murder, deceit, bitter political feuds, and religious conflicts so intense they threatened the unity of England. The struggle to translate the Bi
God's Secretaries : The Making of the King James Bible
Adam Nicolson · 320 pages
A net of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson and Bacon; of the Gunpowder Plot; the worst outbreak of the plague England had ever seen; Arcadian landscapes; murderous, toxic slums; and, above all, of sometimes overwhelming religious passion. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than it had ever been, and the entire culture was
Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer
Maureen Ogle · 432 pages
An Edible History of Humanity
Tom Standage · 269 pages
A book putting a complex history of the world into a simple book. It is easy to read and the analogies make history extremely easy to learn and follow for everyday people.
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
Garry Wills · 320 pages
Examination of the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame breathing new life into the words and revealing much about the President.
Spice: The History of a Temptation
Jack Turner · 448 pages
"Spice: The History of a Temptation is a history of the spice trade told not in the conventional narrative of politics and economics, nor of conquest and colonization, but through the intimate human impulses that inspired and drove it. Here is an exploration of the centuries-old desire for spice in food, in medicine, in magic, in religion, and in sex - and of the allure of forbidden fruit lingerin
A History of German Jewish Bible Translation
Abigail Gillman · 357 pages
Between 1780 and 1937, Jews in Germany produced numerous new translations of the Hebrew Bible into German. Intended for Jews who were trilingual, reading Yiddish, Hebrew, and German, they were meant less for religious use than to promote educational and cultural goals. Not only did translations give Jews vernacular access to their scripture without Christian intervention, but they also helped show
The Devil's Cup: Coffee, the Driving Force in History
Stewart Lee Allen · 240 pages
A self-appointed social anthropologist of coffee, Stewart Lee Allen has written the definitive account of caffeine's impact on humankind. Beginning in Ethiopia where he sails a dhow along the same route that carried the first beans to Yemen 1500 years ago, Allen literally travels the world on his mission to prove his theory that coffee is the driving force in history. Refreshingly lateral, superbl
Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig
Mark Essig · 310 pages
The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu
Dan Jurafsky · 246 pages
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
Bart D. Ehrman · 256 pages
For almost 1,500 years, the New Testament manuscripts were copied by hand — — and mistakes and intentional changes abound in the competing manuscript versions. Religious and biblical scholar Bart Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself are the results of both intentional and ac
Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
Mark Pendergrast · 452 pages
From the Publisher: Uncommon Grounds is the definitive history of coffee-from its discovery on an Ethiopian mountainside to the age of Starbucks and the coffee crisis of the twenty-first century. A sweeping epic, Uncommon Grounds uses coffee production, trade, and consumption as a window through which to view broad historical themes: the clash and blending of cultures, slavery, the rise of brand m
Thomas Jefferson's Creme Brulee: How a Founding Father and His Slave James Hemings Introduced French Cuisine to America
Thomas J. Craughwell · 233 pages
In 1784, Thomas Jefferson struck a deal with one of his slaves, James Hemings. The founding father was traveling to Paris and wanted to bring James along to master the art of French cooking. In exchange for James's cooperation, Jefferson would grant his freedom. Thus began one of the strangest partnerships in United States history. As Hemings apprenticed under master French chefs, Jefferson studie
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester · 286 pages
Traces the history of the Oxford English Dictionary from its earliest inception through its long path to completion, describes the process of creating a dictionary, and includes anecdotes about its creators and their work.
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code
Margalit Fox · 363 pages
In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, *The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code* tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on
Breaking the Maya Code
Michael D. Coe · 304 pages
"The inside story of one of the great intellectual breakthroughs of our time - the last great decipherment of an ancient script - now revised and updated."--BOOK JACKET.