Dominic Sandbrook

Alexander Watson’s account of the battle for an AustroHungarian citadel, The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemysl, (Allen Lane), is brilliantly researched and superbly written. This was one of the turning points in modern European history: had the Russians broken through earlier, the story of the last century might have been very different. Even more importantly, Przemysl offered a bleak preview of what was coming: nationalism, antiSemitism and a whirlwind of hatred. Grim stuff, but magnificently done.

Jonathan Wilson’s The Names Heard Long Ago (Blink) might initially seem like a book about Hungarian football – but it’s more than that. Wilson recreates the vanished world of the Budapest coffeehouse at the turn of the last century, the chaos of the interwar years, the tragedy of the Hungarian Uprising and the doomed romance of the Mighty Magyars. In Wilson’s own words, it’s a book about “courage and tragedy, about survival and death” – and you don’t have to like football to find it a fascinating read.

The bravest history book of the year is undoubtedly Tom Holland’s Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (Little, Brown), in which the swashbuckling popular historian argues that our modern world was shaped by Christianity. Taking in everything from Augustine and Martin Luther to John Lennon and Harvey Weinstein, it’s exciting, erudite, amusing and provocative – but above all, immense fun. I can’t recommend it too highly.

Dominic Sandbrook’s latest book is Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979–1982 (Allen Lane)