World History

[ItalianStereotype]

world history is indeed too vast a topic to accurately put into one book, or at least one book of decent size. you need to break it down and study particular periods or regions. here are some of my favorites:

Russia and the Russians: a History

Europe: a History

Anchor Atlas of World History (the English translation of DTV-Atlas zur Weltgeschichte) by Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, translated by Ernest Menze.

Age of Louis XIV by Will and Ariel Durant

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

Peter the Great by Robert Massie

Dreadnought by Robert Massie

The Price of Admiralty by John Keegan

The Heike Story by Eiji Yoshikawa

The History of Byzantium by Georg Ostrogorsky

The Cousins' Wars by Kevin Phillips

Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor

Conquest of Mexico by William Hickling Prescott

Commentaries on the Gallic War

The Blood of Kings by Linda Schele

Like Hidden Fire: the Plot to Bring Down the British Empire by Peter Hopkirk

The Rise of the West by William H. McNeill

History of Britain by Simon Schama

History of Warfare by Keegan

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon

Genghis Khan by R. P. Lister

Germania by Tacitus

The Art of War by Sun Tzu (most modern translations have quite a bit of Chinese military history in them)

Tai Kung's Secret Teachings

Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill

A History of Civilizations by Fernand Braudel

Alexander to Actium by Peter Green

The History of Government by S. E. Finer

The Prince by Macchiavelli

Empire: How Spain Became a World Power 1492-1763

that is all I can think of right now, I will add more later after I have browsed my collection.