sm, National Socialism, (New York, 1969); Charles P. Kindelberger, The World in Depression, 1929—1939 (Berkeley, Cal., 1986); 和Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, rev.ed. (1977).
为了理解那些转变公共事务的思想趋势，最好是阅读原著。下面是一些最有影响的著作：Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifeto (1848 and available in numerous reprints)是短小精悍的；Afolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York, 1939)是极其冗长而不着边际的，但是“法西斯主义”一文最初发表在Encyclopedia Italiana，而且经常被重印——例如，在本尼凡托·墨索里尼, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions (New York, 1968)——就是比较简短而清晰的。Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (初版于1899年；1987年纽约重印)，既简短又有趣；Albert Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity, 5th ed. (New York, 1956) 非常成功地把抽象的物理学变得普通读者也能理解。有帮助的二手著作包括：Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society: the Reorientation of European Social Thought, 1890—1930, rev. ed. (New York, 1977); James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New York, 1980); 和Jim Sampson, ed., The Late Romantic Era: From mid-Nineteenth Century to World War I (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1991).
第二次世界大战驱使战胜国编纂了大量的官方史学论著。最令人印象深刻的是Samuel Morrison’s History of U. S. Naval Operations in World War II, 15 vols. (Boston, 1947—62). J. V. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (New York, 1945) 带来了完全不同的观点。较早的综合性分析现在被Gerhand L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge, 1994)抛弃了。对于那些被Weinberg1178页大作吓倒的读者来说，Gordon Wright的富有洞见的 The Ordeal of Total War,1939—45 (New York,1966)也许值得推荐。Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York, 1970)提供了内部人员对纳粹战争的叙述；Alan S. Milward, War, Economy and Society, 1939—45 (Berkeley, Cal., 1977) 是一部内容广阔、学术性强的对战争动员如何影响参战国的著作。