Recommendations you can check.
German-British historian and author; wrote The Invention of Nature (2015), on Alexander von Humboldt, and Magnificent Rebels (2022), on the early German Romantics.
6 things
The Age of WonderBook Richard Holmes
My two favourite group biographies are Jenny Uglow’s Lunar Men and Richard Holmes’ The Age of Wonder.
Five Books interview: the best books on The Best Biographies of 18th-Century Figures
2026-05-18·fivebooks.com ↗
Marie AntoinetteBook Stefan Zweig
What has stuck with me is that Zweig’s Marie Antoinette is a human being, rather than a distant figure in a palace who eventually has her head chopped off.
Five Books interview: the best books on The Best Biographies of 18th-Century Figures
2026-05-18·fivebooks.com ↗
WedlockBook Wendy Moore
Wedlock reads like a crime story, an absolute page-turner.
Five Books interview: the best books on The Best Biographies of 18th-Century Figures
2026-05-18·fivebooks.com ↗
Landscape & MemoryBook Simon Schama
Books like Landscape & Memory came after I got interested but it was a book which expressed in black and white the hunch I had: it was there, laid out so beautifully, because Simon Schama has this talent for taking little stories and placing them in a broad context.
Five Books interview: the best books on Horticulture
2010-12-14·fivebooks.com ↗
The Arcadian FriendsBook Tim Richardson
For me The Arcadian Friends is a brilliant book because Richardson does two things.
Five Books interview: the best books on Horticulture
2010-12-14·fivebooks.com ↗
Founding BrothersBook Joseph J Ellis
Ellis wrote this quite small book, Founding Brothers, for which he won the Pulitzer, I think.
Five Books interview: the best books on Horticulture
2010-12-14·fivebooks.com ↗
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