Editors Reads
World HistoryPolitical & Cultural HistoryAncient & Medieval HistoryModern History

Oliver Kane

73 books reviewed 12 articles written

History Editor, Editors Reads

Oliver Kane reviews books about the human past — how societies rose and fell, how ideas spread and were suppressed, how ordinary people lived through extraordinary times. As History Editor at Editors Reads, he covers world history, political history, cultural history, and narrative accounts that illuminate how the present came to be. He is drawn to historians who resist the temptation to make the past look inevitable, and to books that find the universal in the specific.

73 Books Reviewed

An Immense World book cover
BestsellerEditor's Pick
4.8

Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Ed Yong explores the concept of Umwelt — the unique sensory world each animal species inhabits — and reveals how different creatures perceive colours we cannot see, sounds we cannot hear, electric fields we cannot feel, and magnetic compasses we cannot sense.

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Say Nothing book cover
Editor's Pick

Say Nothing

by Patrick Radden Keefe

4.8

The story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, told through the abduction and murder of Jean McConville and the lives of IRA members Dolours Price and Gerry Adams.

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The Power Broker book cover
Bestseller

The Power Broker

by Robert Caro

4.8

Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Moses, the unelected master planner who shaped New York City for four decades and accumulated more power than any other American in the 20th century.

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War and Peace book cover
Editor's Pick

War and Peace

by Leo Tolstoy

4.8

Tolstoy's vast panorama of Russian society during Napoleon's invasion, following five aristocratic families across fifteen years of war, love, loss, and transformation.

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1984 book cover
BestsellerEditor's Pick

1984

by George Orwell

4.7

In the totalitarian super-state of Oceania, Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to serve The Party. His secret rebellion — and its consequences — is one of the most important political novels ever written.

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Alexander Hamilton book cover
Bestseller

Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

4.7

The definitive biography of Alexander Hamilton — orphan immigrant, Revolutionary War hero, first Secretary of the Treasury, and the Founding Father who built the American financial system.

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Band of Brothers book cover
Bestseller

Band of Brothers

by Stephen E. Ambrose

4.7

Stephen Ambrose follows Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division from training through D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the fall of Hitler's Eagle's Nest.

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Darkness at Noon book cover
Editor's Pick

Darkness at Noon

by Arthur Koestler

4.7

Nicolas Rubashov, a veteran of the Revolution and Old Bolshevik, is arrested by the Party he helped create and subjected to interrogation — a psychological unravelling that forces him to confront the logical endpoint of the ideology he has spent his life serving.

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Dead Lions book cover
Bestseller

Dead Lions

by Mick Herron

4.7

When a retired spy is found dead on an Oxford coach, Slough House is ordered to stay out of the investigation. Jackson Lamb ignores this instruction entirely, suspecting the man's death connects to an old Cold War operation that was never properly closed.

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Team of Rivals book cover
Bestseller

Team of Rivals

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

4.7

Doris Kearns Goodwin examines Lincoln's political genius through the lens of the three rivals he defeated for the 1860 Republican nomination — whom he then appointed to his cabinet.

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The Iliad book cover
Editor's Pick

The Iliad

by Homer

4.7

The final weeks of the Trojan War, focusing on Achilles's wrath, his withdrawal from battle, the death of Patroclus, and his return to fight — and to mourn — with devastating consequence.

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Animal Farm book cover
Bestseller

Animal Farm

by George Orwell

4.6

The animals of Manor Farm overthrow their human farmer, establish a democracy, and watch helplessly as the pigs gradually become indistinguishable from the humans they replaced.

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Dawn book cover
Editor's Pick

Dawn

by Octavia Butler

4.6

Lilith Iyapo awakens from suspended animation on an alien ship to find that two hundred and fifty years have passed, that humanity has nearly destroyed itself in nuclear war, and that the aliens who rescued Earth's survivors want something from humanity in return — something that Lilith will have to help them get.

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John Adams book cover
Bestseller

John Adams

by David McCullough

4.6

David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Adams, the principled, irascible, and frequently underestimated second president of the United States.

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Sapiens book cover
Bestseller

Sapiens

by Yuval Noah Harari

4.6

From the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa to the 21st century, Harari traces the full sweep of human history, asking why our species conquered Earth while others failed.

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Slow Horses book cover
BestsellerEditor's Pick

Slow Horses

by Mick Herron

4.6

When a young man is kidnapped and threatened with beheading on live television, the disgraced spies of Slough House — MI5's dumping ground for agents who have blundered their way out of the Service's good graces — find themselves unexpectedly at the centre of a crisis no one saw coming.

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Showing top 24 of 73 reviewed books.

Articles by Oliver Kane

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Authors Like Leigh Bardugo: 6 Fantasy Writers to Read

Authors like Leigh Bardugo for fans of Six of Crows and the Grishaverse — Sarah J. Maas, Holly Black, Sabaa Tahir, V.E. Schwab, and more, with where to start for each.

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Red Rising vs The Hunger Games: Which to Read First?

Red Rising and The Hunger Games are two landmark dystopian sagas. Here's how they differ, what each does best, and which to read first.

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Mistborn vs Stormlight Archive: Which to Read First?

Mistborn (The Final Empire) and The Stormlight Archive (The Way of Kings) are Brandon Sanderson's two biggest series. Here's how they differ and which to read first.

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Where to Start with Anne Frank: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Anne Frank — how to approach The Diary of a Young Girl, the most widely read Holocaust document in history. A complete reading guide.

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Where to Start with Chris Miller: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Chris Miller — how to approach Chip War, his history of semiconductors as the defining strategic resource of the twenty-first century. A complete reading guide.

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Where to Start with David Graeber and David Wengrow: A Reading Guide

Where to start with David Graeber and David Wengrow — how to approach The Dawn of Everything, their revisionist history of human social organisation. A complete reading guide.

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Where to Start with Doris Kearns Goodwin: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Doris Kearns Goodwin — whether to begin with Team of Rivals, No Ordinary Time, or Leadership. A complete reading guide to the presidential biographer.

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Where to Start with Heather Morris: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Heather Morris — whether to begin with The Tattooist of Auschwitz or Cilka's Journey. A complete reading guide to the New Zealand historical novelist.

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Where to Start with Laura Hillenbrand: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Laura Hillenbrand — how to approach Unbroken, her essential account of Louis Zamperini's impossible survival story. A complete reading guide.

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Where to Start with Naomi Klein: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Naomi Klein — whether to begin with The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything, or No Logo. A complete reading guide to the activist-journalist.

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Where to Start with Peter Frankopan: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Peter Frankopan — how to approach The Silk Roads, his sweeping revisionist history that reorients world civilisation away from Europe and toward the trade routes linking East and West. A complete reading guide.

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Where to Start with Ron Chernow: A Reading Guide

Where to start with Ron Chernow — whether to begin with Alexander Hamilton, Washington: A Life, or Grant. A complete reading guide to the American presidential biographer.

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