Oh No! How could I forget these two books.

Thought I had done a good job of checking through my list. Nope. Left out two of my favorites so I will put them here, and you can decide which of the former twenty you want to drop to make space for them (after all, you are Time magazine's 'Man of the Year').

1. The Foreigner's Gift: the Americans, the Arabs and the Iraqis in Iraq, by Fouad Ajami. Simply a brilliant book by a man who knows the Middle East as both an insider and an outsider. Ajami, who grew up in a Shi'ite family in Lebanon spent considerable time in Iraq to write this book. Partly because of his friendship with both the Bushies and the Chalabi family he is often derided as a Neo-con flack, but attaching a glib label is neither an assessment nor an argument. Ajami writes of Iraq with deep sympathy and an air of pervasive sadness for all concerned. Whatever you think about Muslims, Iraq, or the war, this is at least one book you should read.

2. Barbarian Tides by Walter Goffart. Goffart is one of the best early medievalists in the world. Years ago he came up with a theory about the barbarian invasions that finished off the Roman Empire in which he argued that they were simply a real estate deal with the Romans, ‘an imaginative experiment that got slightly out of hand." Here he writes an equally brilliant book reconsidering his theory in the light of several decades of impassioned criticism. He says now that he didn’t go far enough! He was right the first time, and now he will reformulate his thesis and shore up the few weak points in it. Whether you agree with him or not, you cannot read this book and not be informed about the later Roman Empire and the coming of the Barbarian Kingdoms in ways you never imagined.

It is, I should point out, serious scholarship intended for scholars who have read all the sources and are prepared to listen to arguments entailing detailed examination of the Latin texts. Thus not for everyone. And when I say 'brilliant' I don't necessarilly mean he is right, but damn it is a good book.

In looking back over my list I realize that I must have left off several good books that I read over the last year. Still, I think these were the best.