History and Current Events

Discover new releases in history and current events.

Updated March 2, 2026
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Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
John Green
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...
Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again
Jake Tapper
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...
History Matters
David McCullough
Paper Book
In this posthumous collection of thought-provoking essays--many never published before--Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and bestselling author David McCullough affirms the value of history, how we can be guided by its lessons, and the enduring legacy of American ideals. ...
Abundance
Ezra Klein
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
Laura Spinney
America, América: A New History of the New World
Greg Grandin
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,...
Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Recreating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations
Sam Kean
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2026 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award | LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER | INDIE BESTSELLER | The New Yorker's Best Books of 2025 From "one of America's smartest and most charming writers" (NPR), an archaeological romp...
Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire
Barry S. Strauss
Paper Book
A new history of two centuries of Jewish revolts against the Roman Empire, drawing on recent archeological discoveries and new scholarship by leading historian Barry Strauss. Jews vs. Rome is a gripping account of one of the most momentous eras in human history: the two...
Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America
Elie Mystal
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...
The Romans: A 2,000-Year History
Edward J. Watts
An acclaimed scholar tells the full, breathtaking history of Rome, from its emergence in the Iron Age to the capture of Constantinople in the thirteenth century "A sweeping historical survey that spans two millennia...Those intrigued by the ebb and flow of political...
Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service
Michael Lewis
"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 ...
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Scott Anderson
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION * KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER * From the author of the landmark bestseller Lawrence in Arabia comes a stunningly revelatory narrative history...
Ring of Fire: A New History of the World at War: 1914
Alexandra Churchill
Paper Book
The dramatic story of 1914--the start of World War I--presenting an expansive, dynamic history of the start of this truly global conflict. Most countries did not know what they were getting into during the precarious days of 1914. Global citizens believed they were going to get a...
The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West
Paul Andrew Hutton
New York Times Bestseller A Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of the Year A True West Magazine Best Historical Non-Fiction Book and Best Author of the Year Western Heritage Award for "Outstanding Nonfiction Book" From the author of The Apache...
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
Garrett M. Graff
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Magisterial...A stunning account that brings to the fore the nuclear saga's surreal combination of ingenuity, fate, and terror." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) * "If you are an intelligent person, or at the very least think you are, you have to...
Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and the Birth of American Empire
Joe Jackson
This immersive epic reveals the origins of the American empire and the lives of those who promoted it and those who resisted it. In 1898, the United States gained an empire, and--many allege--lost its soul. In just a few dramatic weeks, American forces wrested Cuba, Puerto Rico...
The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild
Bryan Burrough
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of 2025 by Bloomberg "One hell of a good read." --The New York Times "One of the most important books written on the American West in many years." --True West Magazine From the New York Times bestselling author...
Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS
Lisa Rogak
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...
The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler's All-Female Concentration Camp
Lynne Olson
Paper Book
The extraordinary true story of a small group of Frenchwomen, all Resistance members, who banded together in a notorious concentration camp to defy the Nazis--from the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade's Secret War "At once heartbreaking and...
Lincoln’s Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War
Gerri Willis
Paper Book
A thrilling, cinematic saga of a Southern belle whose espionage for Abraham Lincoln and the Union helped win the Civil War. Wealthy Southern belle Elizabeth Van Lew had it all. Money, charm, wit--the biggest mansion in Richmond. So why risk everything to become the Civil War...
Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse
Luke Kemp
Paper Book
"In the modern tradition of Big Books of human history like Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens and David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything, Goliath's Curse provides a novel theory of civilizational development. . . . [It] feels something like reading the French...
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
Walter Isaacson
Running Deep: Bravery, Survival, and the True Story of the Deadliest Submarine in World War II
Tom Clavin
A Library Journal Best Book of 2025 The true story of the deadliest submarine in World War II and the courageous captain who survived torture and imprisonment at the hands of the enemy. There was one submarine that outfought all other boats in the...
The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany―and the Spy Who Betrayed Them
Jonathan Freedland
"An astonishing true story of courage, love, and betrayal, told with the verve of a thriller. Freedland is a master at weaving spellbinding entertainments drawn from forgotten corners of history."--Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow Horses From the New York Times bestselling...
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Scott Ellsworth
Paper Book
Told with a page-turning pace and eye-opening cast of characters, Ellsworth sets out to correct a pivotal moment of American history that we have gotten completely wrong-until now. Jam-packed with fresh, revelatory evidence, Ellsworth's research strongly infers that by the time that the house lights...
The Far Edges of the Known World: Life Beyond the Borders of Ancient Civilization
Owen Rees
Paper Book
When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his bleak and barbarous new surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of his world was where civilization ceased to exist. Our own fascination with the Greek and Roman world has for...
The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
Shaun Walker
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. ...
Women of War: The Italian Assassins, Spies, and Couriers Who Fought the Nazis
Suzanne Cope
Paper Book
From underground fighters to courageous spies, Women of War unearths the hidden history of the brave women who risked their lives to overthrow the Nazi occupation and liberate Italy. Using primary sources and recent scholarship, Cope sheds light on the roles played by women while Italians...
Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World
Tim Bouverie
Paper Book
An "enthralling and authoritative" (The Wall Street Journal) political history of World War II that opens a window onto the difficulties of holding together the coalition that ultimately defeated Hitler--by the acclaimed author of Appeasement "A fine reassessment...
We Survived the Night
Julian Brave NoiseCat
A stunning narrative from one of the most powerful young writers at work today, and the director of the Oscar®-nominated documentary, Sugarcane, We Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing...
Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America
Michael Luo
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.
The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda
Nathalia Holt
Paper Book
A New York Public Library Best Nonfiction Book of 2025 · A New York Times Book Review Critics' Pick · A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2025 · Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature "A thrilling work of history that's wilder than...
Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York
Andrew Lownie
On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization
Douglas Murray
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In his travels through Israel and Gaza, #1 International Bestselling author Douglas Murray has seen the best and the worst humanity has to offer, and he has no trouble choosing a side. Murray is not Jewish and before October 7, he had never lived...
Monopoly X: How Top-Secret World War II Operations Used the Game of Monopoly to Help Allied POWs Escape, Conceal Spies, and Send Secret Codes
Philip E. Orbanes
Paper Book
An amazing true story of World War II that reveals how British and American military intelligence successfully smuggled escape aids into German P.O.W. camps hidden inside Monopoly game boards, and also the game's surprising role in espionage. Monopoly X is the fascinating true story...
The Boston Way: Radicals Against Slavery and the Civil War
Mark Kurlansky
"Engrossing"--Wall Street Journal How do good people find the courage to resist and end the greatest evil in their country? An untold story of the Civil War Era: pacifists in Boston who led the fight to end slavery without violence and war. Has there...
Victory '45: The End of the War in Eight Surrenders
James Holland
Paper Book
On the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, two acclaimed historians chronicle the remarkable stories behind the surrenders that ended the world's most catastrophic global conflict In May 1945 and then again in August and early September, the seemingly endless World War II...
Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus
Elaine Pagels
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,...
The American Revolution and the Fate of the World
Richard Bell
In this revelatory and enthralling book, award-winning historian Richard Bell reveals the full breadth and depth of America's founding event. The American Revolution was not only the colonies' triumphant liberation from the rule of an overbearing England; it was also a cataclysm that pulled in...
When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel's Enemies Don't Want You To Know
Doron Spielman
Paper Book
This is the untold story of the rediscovery of the ancient City of David in Jerusalem and the powerful evidence that proves the Jewish people's historical and indigenous connection to the Holy Land. Since the founding of Israel in 1948, the Jewish people have faced nine wars against...
The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990
Jonathan Mahler
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * A sweeping chronicle of four tumultuous years in 1980s New York that changed the city forever--and anticipated the forces that would soon divide the nation--from the bestselling author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning
Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses (Embers)
M.G. Sheftall
Paper Book
On August 6, 1945, the United States unleashed a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen. Then, just three days later, when Japan showed no sign of surrender, the United States took aim at Nagasaki. Rendered in harrowing detail, this historical narrative is the second and final volume in M.G....
Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future
Alan Weisman
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...

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