From Churchill to the Romans, our recommendations offer a tour of world history.
History books make up an important genre in non-fiction. They help us understand the past so we can build a better future. From the American Civil War and two World Wars, to the Cold War and the Vietnam War, there is a vast selection of titles about the conflicts that have shaped our world. History books also provide a deep insight into key historical figures, from Genghis Khan to Ulysses Grant and Winston Churchill. World history is vast, and these 30 books are the tip of the iceberg. Our list of the best history books includes bestsellers, Pulitzer Prize winners and editor’s picks from distinguished historians and biographers.
Recommended history books
Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow – author of Hamilton, which inspired the musical – offers a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of America’s most compelling Civil War generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant. With lucidity, breadth, and meticulousness, Chernow finds the threads that bind Grant’s disparate stories together, shedding new light on the man whom poet Walt Whitman described as “nothing heroic…and yet the greatest hero.”
The Mandan Indians were the iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don’t we know more? In this extraordinary book, Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective.
Jared Diamond argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion – as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war – and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures.
In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. This history book busts numerous myths about Genghis Khan and his hordes.
On September 8, 1941, 11 weeks after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, his brutal surprise attack on the Soviet Union, the city of Leningrad was surrounded. The siege lasted for two and a half years, by which time some three quarters of a million Leningraders had died of starvation. Leningrad is a gripping, authoritative narrative history of this dramatic moment in the 20th century, interwoven with indelible personal accounts of daily siege life drawn from diarists on both sides.
An epic story of wasted opportunities and deadly miscalculations, Embers of War delves deep into the historical record to provide hard answers to the unanswered questions surrounding the demise of one Western power in Vietnam and the arrival of another. A gripping, heralded work that illuminates the hidden history of the French and American experiences in Vietnam.
Rites of Spring probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of WWI, from the premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. Recognizing that The Great War was the psychological turning point for modernism as a whole, Eksteins examines the lives of ordinary people, works of modern literature, and pivotal historical events to redefine the way we look at our past and toward our future.
A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own. Dozens of maps provide a clear geography of great events, while timelines give the reader an ongoing sense of the passage of years and cultural interconnection. Literature, epic traditions, private letters and accounts connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.