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Series: Top 10sPrevious | Next | IndexSimon Schama's top 10 history booksShare 5

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0Emailguardian.co.uk, Friday 10 December 1999 00.00 GMTSimon Schama studied history at Cambridge University. Among his books are The Embarassmentof Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Cultures in the Golden Age (1987); Citizens: A Chronicle of theFrench Revolution (1989); the historical novel Dead Certainties (1991) and Landscape and Memory(1995). He presented History of Britain and The Power of Art documentary series for BBCtelevision.1. The Police and the People: French Popular Protest 1789-1820 by Richard CobbCobb has the ability to inhabit the world he describes, and in this book he brings together archivalsources with amazing literary power.2. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward GibbonPredictable, I'm afraid. Not for historical truth, but for the jokes and the fantastic footnotes - and themusic of Gibbon is utterly wonderful.3. The The Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Garrett Mattingly

An incredible piece of writing. From the very first line it takes you on an amazing literary adventure.4. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson by Bernard Bailyn

A very unlikely book about a man in paradoxical torment. An incredible book about a loyalist, andthe ultimate biography of a loser, which simultaneously puts you in hisposition and makes youincredibly glad you're not him. He's demanding andrepulsive at the same time: it's an incrediblehistory of an impossible man in an impossible situation.5. London: A Social History by Roy Porter

Roy is a Londoner, like me, and his book lives and breathes the story of the city.6. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II by Fernand BraudelIn a way he's doing natural history, history and geography all married together, and the prose iswonderful. I love it for its Rabelaisian lists - of, say, an entire cargo dropped off at Aleppo. Cobb waslike that too - he was a huge listperson.7. The Face of Battle by John Keegan

A stunning, extraordinary, fantastic book. It has a wonderful opening. He attempts a different kind of

military history and concentrates on three battles: Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. No bookuntil this one had put you right in the middle of the action and asked questions like "Why didn'teverybody run away?" It stopped old-style military history, with shaded triangles facing each other, inits tracks.

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8. The French Revolution by Thomas CarlyleI love this for its craziness. There are parts of the politics which are repulsive - parts of Carlyle whichare repulsive - but the sheer volcanic literary eruptions are stunning. Carlyle tried to face up to evil -an issue we grew up thinking was embarrassing - and you have to admire his honesty. I like the madway he charges towards his subject.9. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg

How can you not love a book which takes the cosmology of a heretical 16th-century miller whobelieves that God created the world as a kind of indeterminate cheese from which came angelicworms, and makes you believe in its plausibility? This is a very great book, written entirely fromInquisition documents.10. Annals and Histories by TacitusI love Tacitus: I think he has the most subtle, understated jokes. He's also very underrated as aprose painter: there are moments that are just jaw-droppingly powerful, whether in Latin or English.