Microhistories

Microhistory focuses on a single specific place, person, or event, and uses that to explore larger historical themes. Try these microhistories out!
Updated September 19, 2022
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Salt: A World History
Mark Kurlansky
Audiobook
The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance--salt, the only rock humans eat--and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning. Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece...
Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography Of Cancer
Mukherjee, Siddhartha.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 100 BOOK OF THE CENTURY * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A TIME ALL-TIME 100 NONFICTION BOOK Updated with FOUR NEW MAJOR CHAPTERS illuminating the new developments in cancer...
The golden thread : how fabric changed history
St. Clair, Kassia
Paper Book
** A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK ** 'Fascinating . . . The history of the world through the eye of a needle . . . I recommend this book to anyone' THE SPECTATOR 'A charming, absorbing history that takes us on a journey from the silk roads to sportswear, from ruffs to...
Land : how the hunger for ownership shaped the modern world
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
From the bestselling author Simon Winchester, a human history of land around the world: who mapped it, owned it, stole it, cared for it, fought for it and gave it back. In 1889, thousands of hopeful people raced southward from the Kansas state line and westward from the Arkansas boundary...
The wood age : how wood shaped the whole of human history
Ennos, Roland
Paper Book
When our ancestors came down from the trees, they brought the trees with them and remade the world. 'A stunning book on the incalculable debt humanity owes wood...' John Carey, The Sunday Times How did the descendants of small arboreal primates manage to stand on our...
About time : a history of civilization in twelve clocks
Rooney, David
Paper Book
One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best History Books of 2021 A captivating, surprising history of timekeeping and how it has shaped our world. For thousands of years, people of all cultures have made and used clocks, from the city sundials of ancient Rome to the...
Endless forms : why we should love wasps
Sumner, Seirian
Paper Book
'A funny and beautifully written welcome to the enigmatic, weird and wonderful world of wasps' DAVE GOULSON, author of SILENT EARTH There may be no insect with a worse reputation than the wasp, and none guarding so many undiscovered wonders. Where bees and ants...

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