History and Current Events

Discover new releases in history and current events.

Updated January 31, 2026
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Everything is tuberculosis : the history and persistence of our deadliest infection
Green, John
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestseller * #1 Washington Post bestseller * #1 Indie Bestseller * USA Today Bestseller John Green, award-winning author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world's...
Abundance
Klein, Ezra
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 * NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2025 * KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * NPR BOOKS WE LOVE 2025 "A must-read for progressives who want a blueprint for reforming...
Proto : how one ancient language went global
Spinney, Laura
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of 2025 by the Guardian and Scientific American "The story of how one language left the steppes of Ukraine and became the earth's dominant language family has become clearer and more exciting than ever before. Hooray for a book where the...
Inventing the Renaissance : the myth of a golden age
Palmer, Ada
Paper Book
A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 An irreverent new take on the Renaissance, which reveals it as anything but Europe's golden age. From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we're told) heralds the dawning of a new...
America, Amřica : a new history of the New World
Grandin, Greg
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller * A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, 2025 Kirkus Prize, 2025 Cundill History Prize, and 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker,The New Republic,...
Summer of fire and blood : the German peasants' war
Roper, Lyndal
Paper Book
Winner of the Cundill Prize From a prize-winning historian, the definitive account of the sixteenth-century uprising that revolutionized Europe "A balanced, comprehensive survey of the uprising, gripping in its narrative and perceptive in its...
Bad law : ten popular laws that are ruining America
Mystal, Elie
Paper Book
In this New York Times bestseller, Elie Mystal offers a brilliant takedown of ten shocking pieces of legislation that continue to perpetuate hate, racial bias, injustice, and inequality today--an urgent yet hopeful read for our current political climate "Mystal is a grassroots...
Who is government? : the untold story of public service
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
"Perhaps never before has there been a book better timed or more urgent." --Washington Post One of President Obama's 2025 Summer Reads As seen on CBS Mornings, CNN Anderson Cooper, ABC News Live, MSNBC Morning Joe, and many more ...
Original sin : President Biden's decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again
Tapper, Jake
Paper Book
THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Financial Times, Kirkus Reviews, and The Associated Press "Superbly reported . . . Reads like a Shakespearean drama on steroids." -- Los Angeles Times...
Why nothing works : who killed progress--and how to bring it back
Dunkelman, Marc J.
Paper Book
A provocative exploration of the forces that keep us from getting things done, and how we can restore confidence in government. "Dunkelman summarizes the history perfectly." --David Brooks, The New York Times Named a Best Book of...
The fifteen : murder, retribution, and the forgotten story of Nazi POWs in America
Geroux, William
Paper Book
The revelatory true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown. "In the pantheon of American history, it...
The Mesopotamian riddle : an archaeologist, a soldier, a clergyman, and the race to decipher the world's oldest writing
Hammer, Joshua
Paper Book
An "adventure tale for puzzle lovers and Indiana Jones fans alike" (The Washington Post) following three free-spirited Victorians on their twenty-year quest to decipher cuneiform, the oldest writing in the world--from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bad-Ass...
Lincoln's peace : the struggle to end the American Civil War
Vorenberg, Michael
Paper Book
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2025 . One historian's journey to find the end of the Civil War-and, along the way, to expand our understanding of the nature of war itself and how societies struggle to draw the line between war and peace LOS ANGELES TIMES "TOP TEN BOOKS TO...
Red Scare : blacklists, McCarthyism and the making of modern America
Risen, Clay
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and Kirkus Reviews From an award-winning historian and New York Times reporter comes the timely story about McCarthyism that both "lays out the...
The ride : Paul Revere and the night that saved America
Kennedy, Kostya
Paper Book
USA Today Bestseller Timed for the 250th anniversary of America's revolution and founding: Paul Revere's heroic ride, newly told with fresh research into little-known aspects of the story Americans have heard since childhood but hardly understood On...
Propaganda girls : the secret war of the women in the OSS
Rogak, Lisa
Paper Book
The incredible untold story of four women who spun the web of deception that helped win World War II. Betty MacDonald was a 28-year-old reporter from Hawaii. Zuzka Lauwers grew up in a tiny Czechoslovakian village and knew five languages by the time she was 21. Jane...
There is no place for us : working and homeless in America
Goldstone, Brian
Paper Book
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE ATLANTIC'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR * Through the "revelatory and gut-wrenching" (Associated Press) stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of journalism exposes a new and troubling...
The Nazi mind : twelve warnings from history
Rees, Laurence
Paper Book
From an award-winning historian, a fresh analysis of the rise of Nazi extremism, how such thinking gained popularity, and why it is vital to fight burgeoning extremist movements today "Extremely timely....Rees divides his book into 'Twelve Warnings,' or red flags to...
The illegals : Russia's most audacious spies and their century-long mission to infiltrate the West
Walker, Shaun (Journalist)
Paper Book
ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * The definitive history of Russia's most secret spy program, from the earliest days of the Soviet Union to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and a revelatory examination of how that hidden history shaped both Russia and the West. ...
Strangers in the land : exclusion, belonging, and the epic story of the Chinese in America
Luo, Michael
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION * From New Yorker writer Michael Luo comes a masterful narrative history of the Chinese in America that traces the sorrowful theme of exclusion and documents their more than century-long struggle to belong.
Last seen : the enduring search by formerly enslaved people to find their lost families
Giesberg, Judith Ann
Paper Book
"[A] meticulously excavated tribute to the formerly enslaved mothers, fathers, siblings, and kin who published 'last seen' advertisements in search of loved ones stolen from them in bondage...a vital work of recovery." --Ilyon Woo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master, Slave,...
Another world is possible : lessons for America from around the globe
Hakimi Zapata, Natasha
Paper Book
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book Real-world solutions to America's thorniest social problems--from housing to retirement to drug addiction--based on original reporting from around the world A new generation of Americans has declared that another...
Miracles and wonder : the historical mystery of Jesus
Pagels, Elaine H.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . From a renowned National Book Award-winning scholar, an extraordinary new account of the life of Jesus that explores the mystery of how a poor young man inspired a religion that reshaped the world. "This is a brilliant and necessary book. Sober,...
Calling in : how to start making change with those you'd rather cancel
Ross, Loretta J.
Paper Book
From a pioneering Black feminist and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow, this urgent and exhilarating memoir-manifesto-handbook provides bold, practical new ways to transform conflicts into connections, even with those we're tempted to walk away from. In 1979, Loretta Ross was a single...
Hope dies last : visionary people across the world, fighting to find us a future
Weisman, Alan
Paper Book
One of Heatmap's 18 Climate Books to Read in 2025 The award-winning environmental journalist's extraordinary, long-awaited portrait of hope and resilience as we face a fractured and uncertain future In this profoundly human and moving narrative, the...
Medicine River : a story of survival and the legacy of Indian boarding schools
Pember, Mary Annette
Paper Book
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life FINALIST FOR THE PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, TIME,...
Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza : a reckoning
Beinart, Peter
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most important issues of our time "At this painful moment, Peter Beinart's voice is more vital than ever....
The rebel Romanov : Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the empress Russia never had
Rappaport, Helen
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes the story of a courageous young Imperial Grand Duchess who scandalized Europe in search of freedom. In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia was in search of a bride for her grandson...
Integrated : how American schools failed Black children
Rooks, Noliwe
Paper Book
A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF 2025 * A powerful, incisive reckoning with the impacts of school desegregation that traces four generations of the author's family to show how the implementation of integration decimated Black school systems and did much of the Black community a...
Presidents at war : how World War II shaped a generation of presidents, from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and Bush
Gillon, Steven M.
Paper Book
Steven M. Gillon, historian and New York Times bestselling author, is back with the story of how WWII shaped the characters and politics of seven American presidents. World War II loomed over the latter half of the twentieth century, transforming every level of...
The stained glass window : a family history as the American story, 1790-1958
Lewis, David Levering
Paper Book
A Top 100 Book by the Schomburg Library "At once narrative history, family chronicle and personal memoir... [a] luminous work of investigation and introspection." -Wall Street Journal National Humanities Medal recipient and two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize...

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