Andelman, David A. A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today. 2007. Clearly written study of the Paris Peace Conference and how it has shaped world history to the present day.

Camus, Albert. The Stranger and The Plague. 1942 and 1947. The greatest existential novelist at his unforgettable best.

Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age. 1989. An imaginative cultural investigation that has won critical acclaim.

Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924. 1996. Massive but accessible, this masterful synthesis traces the revolution from its origins to Lenin’s death in 1924.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution, 3d ed. 2008. A concise history that incorporates previously inaccessible Russian archives and the latest research. Fitzpatrick argues that the revolution only ended with the Stalinist purges in the late 1930s.

Fromkin, David. Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War? 2004. Well-argued, compulsively readable discussion of responsibility for the war by a master historian.

Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, 2d ed. 2009. A brilliant account of the Middle East in the critical years between 1914 and 1922.

Gay, Peter. Modernism: The Lure of Heresy. 2007. A personal perspective on twentieth-century high culture by a leading intellectual and cultural historian.

Gilbert, Martin. The First World War: A Complete History. 1994. Comprehensive study in one volume by a major military historian.

Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. 2007. Well-received introduction to Einstein’s life and work.

Macmillan, Margaret. Paris, 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. 2001. A masterful account of the negotiations and issues at the Paris Peace Conference.

Morrow, John H., Jr. The Great War: An Imperial History. 2003. A global perspective on the war and its place in the context of imperialism.

Reed, John. Ten Days That Shook the World. 1919. The classic eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution by a young, pro-Bolshevik American.

Smith, Bernard. Modernism’s History: A Study in Twentieth-Century Thought and Ideas. 1998. Admirably straightforward with a global perspective.

Young, Louise. Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. 1998. A fascinating pioneering work on Japanese imperialism.