A few good books (non-fiction, arranged roughly in chronological order of subject matter):
- New Rome: The Roman Empire in the East, by Paul Stephenson
- The Inheritance of Rome, by Chris Wickham
- The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, by John Kelly
- A History of Venice, by John Julius Norwich
- The Story of Russia, by Orlando Figes
- The Ottoman Age of Exploration, by Giancarlo Casale
- The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, by William Dalrymple
- Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, by William Dalrymple
- The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, by William Dalrymple
- King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, by Adam Hochschild
- Lawrence in Arabia, by Scott Anderson
- The Smartest Guys in the Room, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
- Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe