Is there a book akin to Tony Judt’s Postwar for contemporary African history, particularly discussing the emergence of structures like the African Union?

Looking for good books on the Indian independence movement!

I don't have an ask for a book today. But it's more about the process of consuming books or journal articles.

I have noticed I do not get bored when I am gutting it. And to be honest, I learned it here first. I will always be thankful for that post.

So I annotate the important items. And maintain a Zettelkasten kind of a framework of the notes. Which has been working for me. Until I get hold a dense book.

I know about the 'gutting a book' process. But I am kind of struggling with history books which involve a lot of characters. The book I am reading now is 'Pursuit of Power' by Richard Evans. It is a thick and dense book of about 900 pages. And the characters being talked about is super vast. In short, I am unable to gut the book. I am literally crawling instead of zooming ahead which normally happens during the 'gutting' process. Even the gutting process is now boring to me. But I want to gather as much knowledge as I can from the book. How do I tackle books like this?

Do you guys have any tips on consuming books which are dense without getting bored?

Curious about the nine years war this week. Something on that would be cool.

Can anyone recommend me a book about life (preferably daily life-type stuff, but also political events) in Egypt under Achaemenid rule?

I'm curious if there are any books that go really deep into the structure of the political system in a feudal society. I would love sort of a top down telling of everything...how the peerage worked, how the economics worked, how the kingdom/emperor's society was structured, really the more detail on the structure and the relationships between parts the better.

Ideally, I'd love that about any Chinese emperor's court Ming or earlier. Things like how the imperial bureaucracy was organized are also of particular interest. In Mandarin preferred but not necessary.

I'd also be interested in this for feudal Japan at more or less any point pre-Meiji restoration. In Japanese preferred but not necessary.

But if there happens to be a really thorough look at the feudal system of some random other country, I wouldn't complain!

Does anyone have any recommendations for general histories of pre-modern Britain and Ireland, and especially Ireland? I've been trying to learn a little modern Irish recently and have been realizing how little I know of pre-modern Irish and pre-Germanic (i.e. broadly Celtic-speaking) British history.