History and Current Events

Discover new releases in history and current events.

Updated November 27, 2023
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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder
David Grann
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager...
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
Heather Cox Richardson
New York Times Bestseller "Engaging and highly accessible."--Boston Globe "A vibrant, and essential history of America's unending, enraging and utterly compelling struggle since its founding to live up to its own best ideals... It's both a cause for hope,...
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
Peter Frankopan
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: A revolutionary new history that reveals how climate change has dramatically shaped the development--and demise--of civilizations across time *Detailing many years of extensive research, endnotes for this edition run to more than 200...
Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump
Miles Taylor
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The author behind the "eye-popping" (CNN) #1 New York Times bestseller A Warning presents an urgent look at how our deeply divided nation is setting the stage for "The Next Trump." Donald Trump will be...
Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
Anderson Cooper
A NPR Best Book of the Year The number one New York Times bestselling authors of Vanderbilt return with another riveting history of a legendary American family, the Astors, and how they built and lavished their fortune. The story of the Astors...
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
Jeff Goodell
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! NATIONAL BESTSELLER Most Anticipated Book by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times * A Next Big Idea Book Club...
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts
Bill O'Reilly
The Instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller! Killing the Witches revisits one of the most frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What...
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Timothy Egan
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "With narrative elan, Egan gives us a riveting saga of how a predatory con man became one of the most powerful people in 1920s America, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, with a plan to rule the country-and how a grisly murder of a woman...
The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future
Robert P. Jones
A New York Times Bestseller Taking the story of white supremacy in America back to 1493, and examining contemporary communities in Mississippi, Minnesota, and Oklahoma for models of racial repair, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy helps chart a...
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
Ned Blackhawk
Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction * A National Bestseller   A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Best Book of 2023 * Named to New York Times' list of "100 Notable Books of 2023"   A...
Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II
Lena S. Andrews
National Bestseller "An ingenious look at WWII." --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) A groundbreaking new history of the role of American servicewomen in WWII, illuminating their forgotten yet essential contributions to the Allies' victory. Valiant Women is the story of the...
Opinions
Roxane Gay
From beloved and bestselling author Roxane Gay, "a strikingly fresh cultural critic" (Washington Post) comes an exhilarating collection of her essays on culture, politics, and everything in between. Since the publication of the groundbreaking Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has...
The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History
Serhii Plokhy
Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war--and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows increasingly...
American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress
Wesley Lowery
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An NPR Best Book of the Year * Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year Longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence "American Whitelash is indispensable. Really. It is." - Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist<...
Poverty, By America
Matthew Desmond
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a "provocative and compelling" (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. "Urgent and accessible...
Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization
Kenneth W. Harl
A narrative history of how Attila, Genghis Khan and the so-called barbarians of the steppes shaped world civilization. The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have...
Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II
Evan Thomas
A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan--a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history--with you-are-there immediacy by the New York Times bestselling author of Ike's Bluff and Sea of Thunder. ...
Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
Simon Winchester
"A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished...
Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849
Christopher Clark
New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * From the bestselling author of The Sleepwalkers comes an epic history of the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe, and the charismatic figures who propelled them forward   "Refreshingly original . . . Familiar...
Black AF History : the un-whitewashed story of America
Michael Harriot
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America's backstory...
Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close
Hannah Carlson
"Who knew the humble pocket could hold so much history? In this enthralling and always surprising account, Hannah Carlson turns the pocket inside out and out tumble pocket watches, coins, pistols, and a riveting centuries-long social and political history." ―Jill Lepore, author...
The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689
Jonathan Healey
A fresh, exciting, "readable and informative" history (The New York Times) of seventeenth-century England, a time of revolution when society was on fire and simultaneously forging the modern world. * "Recapture[s] a lost moment when a radically democratic commonwealth seemed...
Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America
Will Sommer
"Punchy and well-reported....Sommer is the perfect person to tell this story." --New York Times "A story so bizarre, only Will Sommer could report it." --Molly Jong-Fast The definitive book on QAnon from the reporter knows them best; Will Sommer explains what it is, how it has...
The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
Loren Grush
In the bestselling tradition of Hidden Figures and Code Girls, the remarkable true story of America's first women astronauts--six extraordinary women, each making history going to orbit aboard NASA's Space Shuttle. When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the...
A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South
Peter Cozzens
The story of the pivotal struggle between the Creek Indians and an insatiable, young United States for control over the Deep South--from the acclaimed historian and prize-winning author of The Earth is Weeping The Creek War is one of the most tragic episodes in American...
How to Survive History: How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History's Deadliest Catastrophes
Cody Cassidy
A detailed guide to surviving history's most challenging threats, from outrunning dinosaurs to making it off the Titanic alive History is the most dangerous place on earth. From dinosaurs the size of locomotives to meteors big enough to sterilize the planet, from famines...
Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right Wing Extremism
Jeffrey Toobin
The definitive account of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the enduring legacy of Timothy McVeigh, leading to the January 6 insurrection--from acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin. Timothy McVeigh wanted to start a movement. Speaking to his lawyers days after the...

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