Books of the Year - 2025
It’s that time of year when I reveal my top ten books and hopefully give a bit of help to late present buyers. Lists from previous years are here: 2024, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019. In 2023 I did a special on my top British politics books of all time. And earlier this year I did one on the top ten books that help explain the world right now.
This is also when I remind readers that you can buy gift subscriptions to this substack for the politico in your life who has everything. You can time the gift to activate on Christmas morning (or any other time). Just click the link below.
If you’re in the US you can also buy Dad’s new book of essays, including some from this substack. It’s out in the UK in March and we hope to be doing an offer for subscribers here.
On to this year’s list. Some were released this year but others are older. I’ve even managed to squeeze in some fiction this time.
Carrère is one of the greatest living writers and I’ll read anything he publishes. In previous lists I’ve included his wonderful biography of Philip K. Dick and his unclassifiable “The Kingdom” in which he uses a fictionalised history of the early church as a parable for his own life.
V13 is probably his most straightforward and accessible book. In it Carrère follows the vast, complex, nine month trial of those involved in the Paris terror attacks of the 12th November 2015, at the Bataclan theatre, the Stade de France and a group of cafes and bars in the city centre. 130 people were killed.
He mixes reporting of the trial with the stories of the defendants, witnesses and victims. The first part of the book, which focuses on survivors’ testimony is harrowing, and impossible to read without tearing up. There are stories of extreme bravery and resilience but also of victims unable to cope and whose lives fell apart. His discussion of those on trial offers some of the best insights into the confusion and weirdness of the terrorist mindset I’ve read. He’s exceptional at capturing odd details and incongruences. Survivors are given green or red ribbons to wear to indicate willingness to talk to journalists. Some are unsure so put both on.
The overarching message of the book is best captured in a quote he borrows from Simone Weil: “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating.”
This is one of the older books on the list, first published in 2005, and one of the best known – it’s widely considered to be a classic and has appeared on a few “best books of the 21st century” lists. It covers the history of Europe from 1945 to the early 2000s in extraordinary detail, and with more focus on Eastern Europe than other books of similar scope.
I read it not long after it came out, but went back to it this year for some perspective on Europe’s current challenges and it didn’t disappoint. It’s particularly strong on how the economic conditions of postwar Europe drove the almost accidental creation of what would eventually become the EU, as well as the importance of selective remembering and forgetting about the war.
Judt was in Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and writes beautifully about the background to communism’s collapse and the struggles of emancipated nations in the 1990s. Inevitably with a book that covers so much there are a few errors and sections I disagree with (he’s just wrong about the impact of grammar schools being scrapped in England). It also isn’t sourced, which means you can’t check some of the eyebrow raising stats. But these are minor niggles.
Judt died in 2010, and I spent much of the final section – which is cautiously optimistic about Europe’s future – wondering how he would update it given everything that’s happened since. With France, Germany, and the UK all in weakened states, Russia increasingly aggressive and populists winning power it’s hard to be positive. But it’s valuable to be reminded how bleak things felt in 1946 and again in the 1970s, and how resilient the continent proved both times.
This one was published this year, and is a superb overview of US politics in the early 1990s, showing how it foreshadowed the rise of Trump and MAGA. It starts with the successful campaign of former Klu Klux Klan leader, David Duke, for the Louisiana House of Representatives, before turning to the 1992 election. Much of the focus is on Pat Buchanan’s campaign for the Republican nomination which merged anti-globalisation rhetoric about jobs and left behind manufacturing towns, with barely veiled racism, posing a genuine threat to George H. W. Bush’s renomination. Ganz also spends time on Ross Perot’s idiosyncratic third party campaign, built on the strange mix of folksy populism and techno-futurism that is apparent in today’s Republican party.
Some of the most interesting material is about the libertarian economist Murray Rothbard and political strategist Sam Francis, who were both advisers to Buchanan, and were big influences on the alt-right that emerged in the 2000s. There’s a clear path from that campaign to where the US is now.
I interviewed John about the book earlier in the year. As well as digging into the history we also talked about Trump, who briefly features in the final chapter. An architect building one of his casinos tells him he’d have been a good mafia boss and Trump replies: “yeah, one of the best”. John’s take on how that mafioso image has helped the President was particularly acute:
“There’s a certain kind of ideological aspect of the mafia, maybe not in how the mafia conceives of itself, but in how people perceive the mafia as an order retaining force, or even something efficient and preferable to the annoying red tape of politics. You can just make somebody an offer you can’t refuse, or you threaten somebody, and that’s the way to get things done. So people view the mafia with a certain amount of nostalgia or a certain belief that they’ll get things done, or they can protect you, or will make things easier. There’s a pop cultural ideology around the mafia in the United States that looks at those figures with a lot of affection. And Trump speaks the ’anguage of the mafia. He sounds like a gangster. He speaks in the regional accent, and people associate that with strength and intelligence and being a no bullshit guy and a tough guy.”
Spohr, a Professor at the LSE, is an expert on modern German history and the Cold War. This is a masterful overview of global history during the pivotal years 1989-1992, covering the collapse of East European communism, the breakup of the USSR, German reunification, the Maastricht Treaty, Tiananmen Square and China’s crackdown on dissidents, the Gulf War, the Balkan Wars, and Somalia.
It’s not just a brilliant synthesis, but also includes lots of original archival research allowing Spohr to recreate critical meetings between the protagonists. The key figures are George H. W. Bush, Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev – and one of the conclusions of the book is that, while broader economic and social trends created the conditions for the dramatic events of these years, things could have looked very different with different people in charge. The irrelevance of the UK is also notable - Thatcher’s fear of German unification and EU empire building meant she found herself on the fringes of events and largely ignored by Bush.
The contrast with China is well drawn, as is the interaction between Tiananmen and the fall of the Berlin wall (which happened within months of each other). The hardline East German leadership visited China and considered their own Tiananmen, only to backdown as they realised they did not have Moscow’s support. Equally the Chinese were horrified by Gorbachev’s passivity and saw the collapse of his country as vindication for their stance. Meanwhile, Bush was trying to keep everyone onside as he built a “new world order” that briefly looked realisable in the Gulf War coalition but was already falling apart as he left office.
I read this wonderful book, about how Japanese pop culture conquered the world, while travelling around Kyoto and Tokyo in April. It starts with the postwar development of the Japanese toy industry which, by selling American nostalgia (e.g. in the form of miniature cars) back to Americans helped kickstart Japan’s extraordinary export-driven boom. We then get histories of Karaoke, the Walkman, Nintendo and the creation of the Mario Bros, anime, Pokémon, Hello Kitty, as well as sections on the influence of Japanese film and music. It’s a nerd’s paradise.
But there’s a more serious side to the book too, covering the psychological impact of Japan’s financial collapse in the early 1990s and the increasing desire to escape into other worlds. Alt discusses the idea of “otaku” – or obsessive fandom/interest to the exclusion of everything else – associated with the rise of cosplay and comic conventions. The online message board 2chan was originally set up as a site for anime obsessives and was copied by a 15 year-old American as the basis for 4chan. This morphed into the home of the online alt-right and became a site of political radicalisation for many of the young men now running the Republican party. Likewise the “Hello Kitty” obsession with cuteness (kawaii) has it’s sinister, sexualised, side.
A rare book that’s both really fun and genuinely useful in understanding the world.
The premise of this book sounds ridiculous – Klein was constantly being confused with Naomi Wolf and became obsessed with the “other Naomi” to the point of writing 300 pages about it. But it works because Wolf’s journey from feminist author to anti-vaxxer conspiracist crackpot is a fascinating story in itself and a way in to discussing the wider problems of radicalisation. There’s also an element of memoir as Klein weaves in struggles with her own neuroses and the failure of her left-wing politics to enthuse the masses.
It’s particular good on the attractions of conspiracism – both to help make sense of a disordered world and regain control (there’s a section on the wider “wellness” movement) – and as a response to the failures of mainstream politics. One doesn’t have to agree with all of Klein’s views to appreciate that the cumulative impact of liberal politicians’ dishonesty is enough to make anyone question reality. As Klein notes the rest of us can often be quick to dismiss claims that turn out to have an element of truth, just because they seem to energise cranks.
It’s a book I referenced in the post I wrote over the summer on elite radicalisation because elements of Wolf’s journey are commonplace amongst those in the UK who’ve taken an extreme rightwards turn: including a moment of extreme professional embarrassment and an underlying tendency towards a defensive narcissism born of low self-esteem.
Another older, and multi-award winning, book that I’m sure many subscribers have already read but I only got around to this year. It’s a superb overview of the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis.
The explanation of the market breakdowns that led to the crash, and the bailouts, are clear and thorough. In amongst a sea of failures, the ratings agencies completely missing the huge risk building up in financial instruments based on sub-prime mortgages stands out. European banks, who ended up far more exposed than their American counterparts, come a close second.
But where the book really triumphs is in its exploration of the longer-term impacts, particularly the Eurozone crisis which ran until the mid-2010s and almost ripped apart the EU. It’s excoriating on the institutional inability to deal with Greece’s debts and German attempts to enforce austerity on the rest of the continent as well as the ECB and EU’s interference in democratic elections. There’s also analysis of the wider geopolitical consequences from Ukraine to the Middle East and China.
As I wrote in my post from the summer on the “financial crash theory of everything”, Tooze considers the crisis and its aftermath as comparable to the chaos caused by the end of World War One (which he’s also written about in “The Deluge”).
“As in 1914, the crash marked a moment of total system failure, when an architecture designed to avoid a calamity helped create it, and after which numerous assumptions had to be discarded. As with the war it is easy to see, after the event, the complacency and failures that led to disaster….Just as World War One led inexorably to the rise of extremist parties, the resurrection of trade barriers and tariffs, and geopolitical tensions, so has the financial crisis.”
Slobodian, a Canadian historian, is one of the best chroniclers of the oddities of modern capitalism. I included his book “Crack-Up Capitalism” – which shows how libertarians have increasingly sought to subvert democracies by carving out their own states or economic zones – in my “ten books to explain the world we’re in”.
Hayek’s Bastards came out this year and looks at the mutation of modern libertarianism away from the original vision of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises into a weird nationalist/racist hybrid led by characters like Murray Rothbard (again) and his disciple Hans-Herman Hoppe who formed an alliance with the leaders of the American alt-right like Richard Spencer.
As Slobodian shows the anti-immigrant fixation of the modern right is built around a “scientific” racism that has been used by a faction of libertarians to justify harsh restrictions on movement. It’s now explicit in the arguments made by Elon Musk and his fellow travellers. For many of them Hoppe’s belief that populism could be used to undermine democracy so as to protect property rights and racial communities is evident.
I wrote a post earlier in the year with the same title as Slobodian’s book, looking at these ideas in more detail, but also at how they’ve infiltrated the radical right in the UK, US and Germany.
I’ll finish the list with a couple of novels. Binet is probably the best and most innovative writer of historical fiction around. I’ve recommended his debut novel “HHhH” – a metafiction about the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich – to more people than any other book and no one’s ever been disappointed.
This new novel is set in renaissance Italy and is structured as a closed room murder mystery. An artist is killed in an apparently empty church while working on his masterpiece for the Duke of Florence. The Duke recruits the great art historian Giorgio Vasari to solve the case, while his cousin Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France, tries to use the ensuing mess to play geopolitics.
It’s an epistolary novel, the conceit is the “author” found a cache of letters between all the key protagonists in an antiques shop, and beautifully done. The theme of perspectives in art and life isn’t subtle but doesn’t grate, and the narrative is gripping enough that I read in one day of summer holiday. Very enjoyable.
I started re-reading the Culture series when writing this article about how the worldview of tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel stems from misunderstanding the sci-fi and fantasy books they claim to love. (Thiel’s company Palantir is named after all-seeing stones that are mainly used by the bad guys in Lord of the Rings).
It reminded me how much I love the books, which beautifully subvert so many of the conventions of sci-fi, being short on grand plans or simple moral platitudes. It’s also full of jokes. The names of the Culture civilisation’s spaceships can keep you entertained for hours (my favourite is “Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall”).
Musk is a huge fan of the series (he tends to name SpaceX equipment after Culture ships) which helps illustrate my thesis. Banks was a left-winger who often uses the series to argue against the kind of rapacious capitalism that the Tesla owner represents. The whole point of the Culture is that it’s a post-scarcity society which is not driven by economic greed, though Banks is far too interesting a writer to create a wholly utopian civilisation – it does plenty of ethically dodgy stuff. I guess Musk was just captivated by the prescient explorations of AI represented by the Culture’s Minds.
Consider Phlebas is the first book of the series, and while it’s not considered the very best (probably “The Player of Games”), I think it’s a good place to start as it gives an overview of the series’ themes and ideas and has a wonderfully dark and gripping final 100 pages.
I've read the Tony Judt book many times and I'll often dip back into sections. I shall definitely be adding many of these books to my reading list.
Thanks for the suggestions Sam. They are all going on the list!