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Can anyone recommend some good non-fiction history books?

I have two requirements: they must be both scholarly and readable. The following list will give you some idea of my tastes. Thanks, fellow history buffs! David McCullough--The Great Bridge, A Path Between the Seas, Truman, 1776, etc. Stephen Ambrose--Band of Brothers, etc. Joseph Ellis--Founding Brothers, American Sphinx, etc. Antonia Fraser--Cromwell; Mary Queen of Scots, etc. H.W. Brands--bios of FDR, Franklin, Jackson, etc. Alison Weir--Queen Elizabeth I; Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc. Will and Ariel Durant--History of Western Civilization Series, 11 vols. Thomas Costain--History of the Plantagenets, 4 vols. John Toland--The Rising Sun, The Last Hundred Days, etc. Cornelius Ryan--Longest Day; A Bridge Too Far John Keegan--Face of Battle, Mask of Command, etc. Martin Gilbert--Churchill; The Holocaust, etc. Robert Remini--Andrew Jackson, 3 vols,; Henry Clay; Daniel Webster, etc. Shelby Foote--The Civil War, 3 vols. Bruce Catton--Army of the Potomac, 3 vols; Centennial History of the Civil War, 3 vols. Douglas Southall Freeman--R.E. Lee, 4 vols.; Lee's Lieutenants, 3 vols; Geroge Washington, 7 vols. Dumas Malone--Jefferson and His Time, 6 vols. W. Bruce Lincoln--The Romanovs Robert K. Massie--Peter the Great; Nicholas and Alexandria Simon Sebag-Montefiore--Prince of Princes: Potemkin; Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar Robert Aspery--Frederick the Great C.V. Wedgwood--The Thirty Years War; The King's Peace, The King's War, A Coffin for King Charles Thomas Pakenham--The Boer War; The Scramble for Africa Martin Meredith--The Fate of Africa; Diamonds, Guns & War John Julius Norwich--The Normans in Sicily; A History of Byzantium, 3 vols. Lord Kinross--The Ottoman Centuries; Ataturk John Glubb--The Great Arab Conquests, etc. New Cambridge Modern History, 11 vols. David chandler--Campaigns of Napoleon Frank McLynn--Villa and Zapata; Richard and John: Kings at War W.L. Warren--Henry II Allan Nevins--Ordeal of the Union, Emergence of Lincoln, etc. JB Wolf--Louis XIV Jared Diamond--Guns, Germs & Steel Christopher Hibbert--The Borgias and Their Enemies, etc. Ross King--Michelangelo & The Pope's Ceiling John Rewald--History of impressionism Eamon Duffy--Saints & Sinners: History of the Popes John Hemming--Conquest of the Incas R.J. Knecht--Renaissance Warrior and Patron: Francis I Howard Zinn--A People's History of the United States English Historical Documents Series Michael Grant--The Rise of the Greeks, etc. Of course I've read the primary materials such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, Procopius, Eusebius, Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Pan Ku, Froissart, Saint-Simon, etc. etc. I'm looking here for recommendations of secondary source histories and biographies that you have enjoyed and profited from. I may have already read it, but I appreciate any sharing of the love of history.

Public Comments

1. um i don't really know if its non-fiction but it's at least realistic. i have a few and i didn't see if you wanted it to just be historical or if it was historical biography but there is the Da Vinci Code series which i just finished and wow. theres also this other one i just read that is like early 1900's called The Sons of Adam.
2. I'm into Chicago history so I would recommend "City of the Century" by Donald Miller. It's THE Chicago history text in my opinion. A great book on the Great Depression is "The Great Depression" by Robert McElvaine. A few others I didn't' see on your list: Bernard DeVoto - "The Year of Decision 1846" James McPherson - "Battle Cry of Freedom" Roger Crowley - "1453" Biographical: Philip Caputo - "A Rumor of War" Ted Lawson - "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" Hope this is helpful to you.