BVBook Verdict

If you liked

Books like The Gilded Age

Loved The Gilded Age by Mark Twain? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from politics & society, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

10 books · ranked

  1. 1

    The New Jim Crow

    Michelle Alexander · 2010 · Politics & Society

    How mass incarceration recreates racial caste in America; a powerful, much-cited argument.

  2. 2

    Between the World and Me

    Ta-Nehisi Coates · 2015 · Politics & Society

    A letter to a son about being Black in America; urgent, lyrical and unflinching.

  3. 3

    The way we live now

    Anthony Trollope · 1875 · Politics & Society

    From a review of the Anthony Trollope canon in The Economist (2020/04/08 edition): *“The Way We Live Now” (1875) is as much a portrait of the last few decades as it is of the high Victorian age, and e

  4. 4

    Max Havelaar of de koffijveilingen der Nederlansche handelmaatschappij

    Multatuli · 1868 · Politics & Society

    Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Dutch: Max Havelaar; of, De koffi-veilingen der Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappy) is an 1860 novel by Multatuli (the pen name of Edu

  5. 5

    A Century Of Dishonor

    Helen Hunt Jackson · 1881 · Politics & Society

    Originally published over 100 years ago, A Century of Dishonor is Helen Jackson’s eye- opening sketch of the U.S. government’s often shameful mishandling of what was called the “Indian problem”. Using

  6. 6

    The works of Hubert Howe Bancroft

    Hubert Howe Bancroft · 1882 · Politics & Society

    Hubert Howe Bancroft (May 5, 1832 – March 2, 1918) was an American historian and ethnologist who wrote, published and collected works concerning the western United States, Texas, California, Alaska, M

  7. 7

    Romola

    George Eliot · 1863 · Politics & Society

    Eliot’s only historical novel, set in 15th century Florence under the rule of the Medicis, blends fact with fiction as the reader follows the almost saint-like Romola and the amoral and feckless Tito

  8. 8

    Imaginary portraits

    Walter Pater · 1887 · Politics & Society

    Walter Pater is best known for his Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) and for his first novel Marius the Epicurean (1885). His short fiction deserves a much wider audience. This edition

  9. 9

    Bel-Ami

    Guy de Maupassant · 1893 · Politics & Society

    .I Quand la caissiere lui eut rendu la monnaie de sa piece de cent sous, Georges Duroy sortit du restaurant. Comme il portait beau, par nature et par pose d'ancien sous-officier, il cambra sa taille,

  10. 10

    Life of George Washington

    Washington Irving · 1850 · Politics & Society

    Originally published in five volumes between 1853 and 1859, it is a treasure chest of information on Washington and the Civil War. This work is presumeably the most intimate and fascinating biography

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