History and Current Events

Discover new releases in history and current events.

Updated January 1, 2026
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
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...
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
"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 author's curiosity, diligence, and literary craft gets it all down in what will stand as the go-to...
Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age
Ada Palmer
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, 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,...
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 ...
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War
Lyndal Roper
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...
The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
Joshua Hammer
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...
The Fifteen: Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America
William Geroux
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 Thistle and The Rose
Linda Porter
Paper Book
Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of her more famous brother Henry VIII, is the single most important Tudor figure of this era that historians have consistently overlooked. Married at thirteen to the charismatic James IV of Scotland, a man more than twice her age, she would learn the skills of...
The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History
Laurence Rees
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...
Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress and How to Bring It Back
Marc J. Dunkelman
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 Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
Kostya Kennedy
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
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...
Lincoln's Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War
Michael Vorenberg
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...
Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful
David Enrich
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller "Authoritarian governments abroad have long used legal threats and lawsuits against journalists to cover up their disinformation, corruption, and violence. Now, as master investigative journalist David Enrich reveals, those tactics have arrived in America." --...
Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left
Eoin Higgins
Paper Book
 A "devastating" (Nation) examination of how a cabal of tech-billionaires is colluding with once-idealistic journalists to create an entirely new media landscape Owned is the story of the underreported and growing collusion between new wealth and...
The World After Gaza: A History
Pankaj Mishra
"Courageous and bracing, learned and ethical, rigorous and mind-expanding." --Naomi Klein "This profoundly important and urgent book finds Mishra, one of our most intellectually astute and courageous writers, at the peak of his powers." --Hisham Matar "A triumphant...
Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America
Clay Risen
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...
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.
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America
Brian Goldstone
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...
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families
Judith Giesberg
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,...
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,...
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...
Paris Undercover: A Wartime Story of Courage, Friendship, and Betrayal
Matthew Goodman
Paper Book
Two women in Nazi-occupied Paris created a daring escape line that rescued dozens of Allied servicemen. With one still in a German prison camp, the other wrote a book about it-a memoir built on fabrications. Now the bestselling author of Eighty Days shares their incredible, never-before...
The Crossing: El Paso, the Southwest, and America's Forgotten Origin Story
Richard Parker
Paper Book
A radical work of history that re-centers the American story around El Paso, Texas, gateway between north and south, center of indigenous power and resistance, locus of European colonization of North America, centuries-long hub of immigration, and underappreciated modern blueprint...
Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning
Peter Beinart
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....
Presidents at War: How World War II Shaped a Generation of Presidents, from Eisenhower and JFK through Reagan and Bush
Steven M. Gillon
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 Rebel Romanov: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had
Helen Rappaport
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...
The Woman Who Knew Everyone: The Power of Perle Mesta, Washington’s Most Famous Hostess
Meryl Gordon
Paper Book
A TOWN & COUNTRY MUST READ BOOK OF 2025 AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH - BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIR A deeply researched biography of the socialite, political hostess, activist and United States envoy to Luxembourg, Perle Mesta, from New York Times...
Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
Eve L. Ewing
Paper Book
Why don't our schools work? Ewing tackles this question from a new angle- what if they're actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America's classrooms were designed to do the opposite- to maintain our inequalities. It's a task at which they...
Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe
Natasha Hakimi Zapata
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...
In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space
Irvin Weathersby Jr.
Paper Book
Longlisted for the 2026 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction "An awe-striking masterpiece of love." --Jason Reynolds, #1 New York Times bestselling author "The sentences alone in In Open Contempt make it one of the most memorable books of...
Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
Mary Annette Pember
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 A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, TIME, Smithsonian, The History Channel "With a...
The Stained Glass Window: A Family History as the American Story, 1790-1958
David Levering Lewis
Paper Book
"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 David Levering Lewis's own family history that...
All the President's Money: Investigating the Secret Foreign Schemes That Made the Biden Family Rich
James Comer
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Joe Biden made less than $200,000 a year for most of his life, but as soon as he left office, he bought his second multimillion-dollar mansion. In All the President's Money, Congressman James Comer takes readers on a captivating journey...
Seven Social Movements That Changed America
Linda Gordon
Paper Book
How do social movements arise, wield power, and bring about meaningful change? Renowned scholar Linda Gordon investigates these and other salient questions in this "visionary, cautionary, timely, and utterly necessary book" (Nicole Eustace), narrating how some of America's most influential twentieth...
Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel
Loretta J. Ross
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...
Saints and Liars: The Story of Americans Who Saved Refugees from the Nazis
Deborah Dwork
Paper Book
Long before their country officially joined the war, American aid workers were active in rescue efforts across Europe. Two such Americans were Martha and Waitstill Sharp, who were originally sent to Prague as part of a relief effort but turned immediately to helping Jews and dissidents after the...
Disposable: America's Contempt for the Underclass
Sarah Jones
Paper Book
In this "barn burner of a book" (The New York Times Book Review) New York magazine senior writer Sarah Jones blends personal stories and in-depth reporting to expose the harsh reality of America's culture of inequality and the devastating impact of the pandemic on our...
Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
Imani Perry
Paper Book
A "vast, multifaceted and enchanting" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) meditation on the color blue and its fascinating role in Black history and culture, from National Book Award winner Imani Perry, "the most important interpreter of Black life in our time" (Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.) Throughout...
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...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.