History

The story of the past: ancient civilizations, world wars, empires and the ordinary people who lived through them. Get the main events and why they still matter today.

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Editor's Picks

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Charles C. Mann

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present

Howard Zinn

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Jack Weatherford

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates Of Human Societies

Jared Diamond

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the

Daniel James Brown

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

Erik Larson

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women

Kate Moore

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Peter Frankopan

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Erik Larson

Latest from History

A Biography of Loneliness: The History of an Emotion

Fay Bound Alberti

Agent Sonya: The Spy Next Door

Ben Macintyre

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes

Adam Rutherford

Alexander Hamilton

Ron Chernow

A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next

Tom Standage

Alexander the Great

Philip Freeman

A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Karen Armstrong

A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind

Michael Axworthy

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Tom Standage

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah

A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From the Stone Age

Greg Jenner

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and Creation of the

David Fromkin

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present

Howard Zinn

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

William J. Bernstein

A Spy Among Friends: Philby and the Great Betrayal

Ben Macintyre

A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of

John Preston

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win

Sonia Purnell

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Charles C. Mann

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599

James Shapiro

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--and How It

Andrew Ross Sorkin

War

Agent Sonya: The Spy Next Door

Ben Macintyre

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Daniel Ellsberg

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Erik Larson

The Peloponnesian War

Donald Kagan

On War

Carl von Clausewitz

Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans

James Stavridis

The American War in Afghanistan: A History

Carter Malkasian

The Trial of Henry Kissinger

Christopher Hitchens

The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity

Timothy C. Winegard

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age

Walter Scheidel

ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror

Michael Weiss

Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Joby Warrick

Alexander the Great

Philip Freeman

The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066

Marc Morris

On Grand Strategy

John Lewis Gaddis

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction

Robert J. McMahon

War: How Conflict Shaped Us

Margaret MacMillan

Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam

Mark Bowden

Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017

Ian Black

Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War

Nathaniel Philbrick

Civilizations

Alexander the Great

Philip Freeman

War: How Conflict Shaped Us

Margaret MacMillan

The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of

William Dalrymple

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes

Tamim Ansary

Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction

Ian Shaw

The Twelve Caesars

Suetonius

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

Islam: A Short History

Karen Armstrong

The Peloponnesian War

Donald Kagan

Mythos

Stephen Fry

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and Creation of the

David Fromkin

The Romanovs: 1613-1918

Simon Sebag Montefiore

The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire

Kyle Harper

Arabs: A 3,000 Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires

Tim Mackintosh-Smith

Salt: A World History

Mark Kurlansky

The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name

Brian C. Muraresku

Civilization: The West and the Rest

Niall Ferguson

Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention

Ben Wilson

Jerusalem: The Biography

Simon Sebag Montefiore

A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind

Michael Axworthy

Geopolitics

Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

Graham Allison

World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of

Henry Kissinger

The Peloponnesian War

Donald Kagan

Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History

Vali Nasr

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a

Jonathan Blitzer

Why The West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the

Ian Morris

The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill

Brad Meltzer

Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World

Nicholas Griffin

Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West

Andrew Wilson

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction

Robert J. McMahon

Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Joby Warrick

Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

Jared Diamond

The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis

George Stephanopoulos

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates Of Human Societies

Jared Diamond

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Lawrence Wright

The Trial of Henry Kissinger

Christopher Hitchens

ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror

Michael Weiss

Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans

James Stavridis

Principles For Dealing With the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail

Ray Dalio

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and Creation of the

David Fromkin

Economic History

America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve Act

Roger Lowenstein

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the

Marc Levinson

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World

Niall Ferguson

Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey

Reid Mitenbuler

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

Niall Ferguson

One Summer: America, 1927

Bill Bryson

Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future

Johan Norberg

Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

Bhu Srinivasan

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

Ron Chernow

Civilization: The West and the Rest

Niall Ferguson

Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay: The (Dodgy) Business of Popular Music

Simon Napier-Bell

Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age

James Suzman

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

Mark Kurlansky

Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

Dan Jones

Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream

David Leonhardt

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

William J. Bernstein

The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity

Timothy C. Winegard

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--and How It

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Principles For Dealing With the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail

Ray Dalio

Black and British: A Forgotten History

David Olusoga

Political Science

Common Sense

Thomas Paine

The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

Jon Meacham

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

Benedict Anderson

Fascism: A Warning

Madeleine Albright

The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust

Tom Segev

Presidents of War: The epic story, from 1807 to modern times

Michael Beschloss

The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New

Alexander Hamilton

Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe

Serhii Plokhy

World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of

Henry Kissinger

First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and

Thomas E. Ricks

The Prime Ministers: Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to May

Steve Richards

Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media

Jacob Mchangama

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century

Joya Chatterji

Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic

Michael Axworthy

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart

Rebecca Donner

When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the

John Ganz

Age of Anger: A History of the Present

Pankaj Mishra

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

David Graeber

Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America

Heather Cox Richardson

Maoism: A Global History

Julia Lovell

Sociology

Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace

Nikil Saval

Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage

Stephanie Coontz

Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea

Mitchell Duneier

The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy

William Strauss

The Souls of Black Folk

W.E.B. Du Bois

China In Ten Words: Essays

Yu Hua

Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing

Melissa Mohr

Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

Michel Foucault

The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil

Don Lattin

The Happiness Fantasy

Carl Cederström

A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next

Tom Standage

A Biography of Loneliness: The History of an Emotion

Fay Bound Alberti

The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History

Ibn Khaldūn

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy

Barbara Ehrenreich

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever

John McWhorter

Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention

Ben Wilson

Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune

Anderson Cooper

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century

Joya Chatterji

The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook

Niall Ferguson

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

Nancy Isenberg

Anthropology

Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

Neil Price

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates Of Human Societies

Jared Diamond

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy

Barbara Ehrenreich

The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the

Leonard Mlodinow

Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age

James Suzman

America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization

Graham Hancock

Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization

Edward Slingerland

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and

Charles King

Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time

Gaia Vince

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

Joseph Henrich

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes

Adam Rutherford

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Charles C. Mann

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past

David Reich

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat

Bee Wilson

Origin Story: A Big History of Everything

David Christian

Humankind: A Hopeful History

Rutger Bregman

A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From the Stone Age

Greg Jenner

The Atlas of Christmas: The Merriest, Tastiest, Quirkiest Holiday Traditions from Around the World

Alex Palmer

Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve

Ian Morris

The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way

Bill Bryson

Inequality

Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve

Ian Morris

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age

Walter Scheidel

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire

Akala

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

John Green

Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream

David Leonhardt

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

David Graeber

China In Ten Words: Essays

Yu Hua

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present

Howard Zinn

Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea

Mitchell Duneier

The Souls of Black Folk

W.E.B. Du Bois

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present

David Treuer

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

Sven Beckert

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

Nancy Isenberg

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Nikole Hannah-Jones

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Isabel Wilkerson

Women, Race and Class

Angela Y. Davis

Globalization

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

Sven Beckert

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the

Marc Levinson

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Jack Weatherford

Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy

Douglas A. Irwin

Open: How Collaboration and Curiosity Shaped Humankind

Johan Norberg

Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century

J. Bradford DeLong

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

William J. Bernstein

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Tom Standage

From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives

Jeffrey E. Garten

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

Steven Johnson

Why Taiwan Matters: A Short History of a Small Island That Will Dictate

Kerry Brown

Age of Anger: A History of the Present

Pankaj Mishra

Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond

Sonia Shah

Ethics

Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope

Sarah Bakewell

Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve

Ian Morris

Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and

Richard Preston

American Prometheus: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture OPPENHEIMER

Kai Bird

Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets

Luke Dittrich

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

Tom Holland

History Library

12 Years a Slave

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--and How It Shattered a Nation

A Biography of Loneliness: The History of an Emotion

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes

A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next

A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From the Stone Age to the Phone Age

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and Creation of the Modern Middle East

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

A Spy Among Friends: Philby and the Great Betrayal

A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of the Establishment

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599

Age of Anger: A History of the Present

Agent Sonya: The Spy Next Door

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander the Great

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler

America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization

America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve Act

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

American Prometheus: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture OPPENHEIMER

Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

Arabs: A 3,000 Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires

Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters from the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

Black and British: A Forgotten History

Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

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