Michael Harrop

Shopping for someone who knows more about Normandy than the tour guides? This list gathers gifts for WWII and military history buffs that go beyond another general history book: a narrative trilogy, a beginner Spitfire model kit, a museum-store puzzle, a period map for the wall and a tabletop game that replays real battles. Each note says who the gift suits and what to check before buying. Affiliate links; I may earn a commission at no cost to you.

Historical board games that replay real campaigns, sorted by how much time and rules the recipient will put up with. Start with quick scenario games like Memoir '44, step up to two-player classics like Twilight Struggle, or go big with Axis & Allies. Each note covers players, playing time and who it suits. Affiliate links; I may earn a commission at no cost to you.

Everyone knows the Somme. Far fewer know Tannenberg, the Carpathian winter of 1915 or the Brusilov Offensive, yet the Eastern Front broke three empires and made the Russian Revolution. If The Rest Is History's First World War episodes got you hooked, this is the half of the war the West forgot. The front moved hundreds of miles where the Western Front moved yards, so as a cartographer this is the war I find most fascinating to follow on a map: forests, marshes, mountain passes and endless railheads. Histories, a nurse's diary and the great novels of the Habsburg and Russian collapse, with two collector picks for the shelf.

The Balkans were the crucible of the Great War. It started on a street corner in Sarajevo, and some of its fiercest fighting happened in places most of us never learned about at school: the Serbian hills, the Alps above the Isonzo, Gallipoli and the Arabian desert. If The Rest Is History's episodes on the road to 1914 have you thinking about the Balkans, this is your next step. My number one pick is Mark Thompson's The White War, on the Italian front. As a cartographer I don't know a better book on how mountains, rivers and ridgelines shape a war. Fifteen histories, memoirs and novels, with a Folio Society collector pick for the shelf.

I love Ken Burns' 1990 documentary The Civil War: the slow pans across old photographs, Ashokan Farewell on the fiddle, Shelby Foote's voice, and the letters read over the top. This list is for anyone it hooked the same way. Five histories that read like novels, five of the diaries and memoirs the documentary brought to life, and five novels that put you on the firing line. As a cartographer I judge war books by whether the ground holds up, and these do: you can follow the ridges at Gettysburg, Grant's loop around Vicksburg and Sherman's march on a map. Plus two collector picks for the shelf.

The French Revolution is the ultimate power play: a bankrupt king, a hated queen, starving crowds, brilliant lawyers who became executioners, and a revolution that ended up devouring its own children. The Rest Is History podcast are deep into their French Revolution series, and it is well worth a lisyen, so I have pulled together the books they keep coming back to, plus the novels that bring the barricades to life. Expect plots, prison massacres, a royal escape that went horribly wrong and the long shadow of the guillotine. If you enjoyed Wolf Hall on my Power Plays list, start with Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety.

For me, fantasy works best when it is rooted in real history. These are the books where the real past is still there—the wars, the empires, the mud and the politics—but something older is moving underneath it. No farm boys with destinies, no glowing swords for the sake of it. Just 15 novels that take a period I already love and ask ‘what if the myths were true?’ If you have worked through my Rome, WWII or Power Play lists and want something with a little more shadow in it, start here.

Every war on my other lists started the same way—with people who were sure it could never happen, or sure it would be over by Christmas. With the headlines the way they are, I wanted a list that looks forward as well as back. This is a mix of the best histories on how great powers stumble into conflict, the sharpest ‘war-gamed’ fiction written by soldiers and analysts, and the books about what happens when it all comes home—including two practical guides to keeping your own household going if the power goes out for good. Not doom-scrolling—just the reading that helps you understand the world we are living in, and be ready for it.

Forget the horned helmets. The Viking Age was three hundred years of raids, shifting alliances and kingdoms built and lost in a single summer—and it gave us England. This collection follows that world from the shield wall to the mead hall to the last stand at Hastings. I have picked the novels that get the cold, the salt and the blood right, plus two histories that will change how you see the Norse completely. If you enjoyed The Burning Land on my Power Plays list, this is where you go next.

The Frontlines & Shadows This isn't your standard history class reading list. These are 16 visceral, high-stakes masterpieces that define the Second World War through the eyes of those who survived it. From the mud-soaked trenches of the Eastern Front to the cutthroat politics of the High Command, I’ve curated this collection for the reader who demands grit, tactical accuracy, and the raw reality of a world on fire

They call Korea ‘The Forgotten War’ and Vietnam ‘The Great Divide.’ I have always been a fan of the movies, and even my favourite Quantum leap episode is set in Vietnam, but only recently got around to reading more on it. This is a collection of stories that don't pull punches. Expect less John Wayne heroism and more of the raw, haunting reality of 20th-century warfare—the cold, the humidity, and the sheer human cost of it all

Welcome to the ancient world as you’ve never seen it—gritty, visceral, and deeply human. While history books give us dates and maps, these novels give us the heartbeat of the past. This curated collection brings together my absolute favorite historical epics from Ancient Rome and Greece. I’ve specifically chosen stories that move beyond the marble statues to show the dirt beneath a legionary’s fingernails, the crushing weight of a crown, and the quiet tragedies of those often left out of the history books. Whether you are looking for military strategy on the Roman frontier, reimagined Greek myths with modern emotional depth, or the lethal politics of the Senate, you’ll find it here. This list is updated for 2026 to include the latest standout releases alongside the timeless classics that defined the genre for me.

Most historical fiction feels like homework. These don’t, they’re about power, betrayal, ambition, and the decisions that shape who wins and who disappears