Best book for 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. 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. 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 freedo...

When the Nazis bombed Bari, a Mediterranean port city central to the Allied war effort, on December 2, 1943, hundreds of sailors sustained horrific injuries. Within days of the attack, writes The Great Secret, the wounded started American medical officer Stewart Francis Alexander, who’d been called in to investigate the mysterious maladies, soon realized that the sailors had been exposed to mustard gas. Allied leaders were quick to place the blame on the Germans, but Alexander found concrete evidence sourcing the contamination to an Allied shipment of mustard gas struck during the bombing. Though the military covered up its role in the disaster for decades, the attack had at least one positive outcome: While treating patients, Alexander learned that mustard gas rapidly destroyed victims’ blood cells and lymph nodes—a phenomenon with wide-ranging ramifications for cancer treatment. The first chemotherapy based on nitrogen mustard was approved in 1949, and several drugs based on Alexander’s research remain in use today. Read that ran in the September 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine. Nine years after Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code popularized the theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, Harvard historian Smithsonian—published a piece in the Atlantic that called the authenticity of King’s “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” into question. Shortly after, King publicly stated that the papyrus was Veritas presents the full story of Sabar’s seven-year investigation for the first ti...

And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 22 War Heroes And The Superhuman Stories That Put Them In The History Books 25 Reconstruction Era Images That'll Change Your View Of American History Inside Dr. Seuss' History Of Racism That Explains Why Six Of His Books Were Discontinued British art historian Neil MacGregor wrote and presented a 100-part radio series for the BBC, in conjunction with the British Museum, discussing historic objects he believed illustrated a greater story of humanity as a whole. Here are the objects in a hefty, glossy, heavily-pictured side-table collection. Buy it Amazon Edward Gibbon’s 18th-century, six-volume masterpiece begins with the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "five good emperors of Rome" in the second century A.D., and details the more-than-a-millennium-long demise of the Roman Empire in a blow-by-blow account of the struggles between emperors both good and depraved. Buy it Amazon Philosopher, general, and military strategist Sun Tzu was like the Ulysses S. Grant of ancient China. His thesaurus of Chinese military maneuvers and strategies still mystifies historians who aren't even sure that Sun Tzu was one man, but rather a conglomeration of wise philosophers of yore. The book became a bestseller in 2001 when Tony Soprano mentioned it to his therapist on the eponymous HBO. Buy it Amazon More than 600 years ago, a tireless book hunter recovered a first-century B.C. poem, On the Nature of Thi...

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST: NPR's Book Concierge brings together some of the year's best books in a handy, searchable guide - hundreds of books this year, more than 380 new recommendations, which is a lot. So we asked some of our colleagues to help narrow it down to four books that may satisfy the history buffs out there. To kick it off, I'll start with one of the books I wrote about. It's called "Race Against Time." It's by Jerry Mitchell. He's a Mississippi investigative journalist, and I've been a longtime fan of his. And his memoir doesn't disappoint. It's a page-turner that really reads more like a mystery novel, but it's frighteningly real. It recalls his reporting over the years that ultimately resulted in justice for some of the most notorious murders carried out by the Ku Klux Klan. Mitchell takes readers inside the investigations and prosecutions that decades later held Klansmen to account for killing civil rights leaders and workers in Mississippi and for killing four Black girls dynamited in a Birmingham church. Now, I covered most of those trials for NPR. But Jerry's memoir recreates those historic events in riveting detail that even I didn't remember. EMIKO TAMAGAWA, BYLINE: I'm Emiko Tamagawa, arts producer for Here & Now, and I'm recommending "Roadside Americans" by Jack Reid. The title says it all. This is a book about hitchhiking. So why should you care about it? - because Reid uses the practice to examine shifts in American culture during the 20th century, fro...

There's also a manuscript that details the entire history of the city of Chicago. Captivating History works to detail different aspects of American history with nuance. It talks about the Native Americans who lived in the country first, as well as detailing the horrors of slavery and the Trail of Tears. It's an excellent account if you want a book that isn't afraid to shed light on not just the achievements of the American government, but the mistakes as well. A People's History of the United States is a book written by the historian Howard Zinn. Rather than teaching history the same way most American curriculums do, this book focuses on the voices that are often forgotten in American history. It chronicles the history of America for the average individual. As such, you'll learn about the struggles of Native Americans, African Americans, factory workers, women, immigrants, and poor individuals. These people are often forgotten when talking about the achievements of the American government. This is a comprehensive history of the US that begins with the arrival of Columbus and continues up until Bill Clinton's first term as president. Spanning more than 700 pages, the book's prose gives you good insight into what different events meant for people. It dispels many common misconceptions about American history, and it also delves deep into the last century. The Virginia Dynasty is a book that focuses on the four first presidents to come from Virginia: James Monroe, James Madiso...

Looking for the best history books on the market? From world history to Black history to histories of specific regions and beyond, we’ve got all the best books on history below! “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana A firm grasp of history is a very important part of a well-rounded education, as you might imagine. Understanding our collective past helps us to make sense of our present, and, in turn, it’ll allow us to make better decisions for our future. We prepared this list of the best history books of all time to cover a wide variety of subjects and epochs, from the history of ancient civilizations to more specific topics, such as the history of Japan in the 20th century or the history of women who changed the course of science. Unfortunately, this list will of course be incomplete, perhaps missing whole swaths of time or groups of people, and for that we sincerely apologize! However, we did our best to be as inclusive and wide-ranging as possible, and we will continue to add to this list in an effort to make it more and more complete. Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we? Here are our picks for the best history books to read: 1. A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor If you feel like you need to brush up on your knowledge of history, but feel intimidated or bored by thick textbooks with countless descriptions of battles, A History of the World in 100 Objects might just be your new best friend! What started as a ...

Proper nonfiction history books, not historical fiction, about any period, event, area or topic you like. Just well-written, well-researched, informative and interesting books for historians, history students and history enthusiasts. I didn't mean this to be a list of pop history, but I think it's too late now, so you might as well go ahead.

Share Share this page on Facebook Share this page on Twitter History is doomed to repeat itself if we don’t learn from it, right? History is doomed to repeat itself … oh wait. We already said that. While history can be repetitive, our best history books of 2022 list isn’t, spanning a wide range of time, historical events, and historical figures. For any history buff in your life, prepare to make their holidays with one of these amazing titles to give them a fresh look at history … and don’t make us repeat ourselves. From the legendary historian who wrote To End All Warscomes a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties. This period, which was threatened by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration and labor rights, rattled the foundations of American democracy providing a framework to guide a fractured country even to this day. Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln with his trademark journalist style that is both accessible and engaging. Charting how and why Lincoln confronted secession, threats to democracy and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America, this book is unlike any previous Lincoln biography. In the pack of well-known founding fathers, Samuel Adams, second cousin to President John Adams, has remained an enigma. In The Revolutionary, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Stacy S...