Nuremberg Diary, Gustave Gilbert

This is a fascinating and unique book.  It is an account of the Nuremberg war crimes trials written by the US Army psychologist who was assigned to watch over the defendants.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Karl Marx

"Hegel says somewhere that great historic facts and personages recur twice.  He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

"Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand."

The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

This is one of the foundational texts of the modern political left, first published in England in 1848.

Von Papen at Nuremberg

This is an abridged version of the testimony given by Franz von Papen to the international war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg.  Papen is one of history's great unknowns, and his testimony is interesting for a number of reasons.

The myth of the British religious right

Modern Britain is a secular country in which religious doctrines have little influence on public policy.  In the last few years, however, some parts of the media have begun talking about the existence of a British "religious right".  A new report from the think-tank Theos examines this alleged threat of theocratic extremism in British society and concludes that it is largely bollocks.  It seems to have been created mostly by journalists in search of sensationalist copy.

The Believing Brain, Michael Shermer

This is the latest book by Michael Shermer, a well-known American science writer and debunker of conspiracy theories and supernatural beliefs.  I don't share Shermer's rationalistic perspective, but I liked the book.

Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell

The Spanish Civil War was the making of Orwell - both by showing him what he thought was the real possibility of a functioning workers' regime and by showing him what happened when the Communists got into a position where they could persecute their fellow leftists.