the 100 best history books of all time

The 100 Best History Books of All Time

The 100 Best History Books of All Time list contains a mixture of the greatest classical, earlymodern and contempary works. Ranging from Thucydides to Livy, Gibbon to Macaulay, andToynbee to E. P. Thompson, nearly all the greats are covered and there's definitely somethinghere for everyone.

1. A Study of History

By Arnold J. Toynbee

Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History has been acknowledged as one of thegreatest achievements of modern scholarship. A ten-volume analysis ofthe rise and fall of human civilizations, it is a work of breath-takingbreadth and vision. D.C. Somervell's abridgement, in two volumes, of this... More »

2. The Making of the English Working Class

By E. P. Thompson

"Thompson's book has been called controversial, but perhaps only becauseso many have forgotten how explosive England was during the Regencyand the early reign of Victoria. Without any reservation, The Making of theEnglish Working Class is the most important study of those days since theclassic ... More »

3. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean Worldin the Age of Philip II

By Fernand Braudel

The focus of Fernand Braudel's great work is the Mediterranean world inthe second half of the sixteenth century, but Braudel ranges back in historyto the world of Odysseus and forward to our time, moving out from theMediterranean area to the New World and other destinations ... More »

4. The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (4 VolumeSeries)

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By Eric Hobsbawm

This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, thetriumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences,and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Partof Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, alongwith The Age of Capitalism, The ... More »

5. The Radicalism of the American Revolution

By Gordon S. Wood

In a grand and immemsely readable synthesis of historical, political,cultural, and economic analysis, a prize-winning historian depicts muchmore than a break with England. He gives readers a revolution thattransformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whoseemerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its ... More »

6. The Rise of the West

By William H. McNeill

The Rise of the West, winner of the National Book Award for history in1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeillchallenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separatecivilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues insteadthat human cultures interacted ... More »

7. The Sources of Social Power

By Michael Mann

Distinguishing four sources of power in human societies - ideological,economic, military, and political - The Sources of Social Power traces theirinterrelations throughout human history. In this first volume, Michael Mannexamines inter-relations between these elements from neolithic times,through ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the classical Mediterranean ...More »

8. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

By Edward Gibbon

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a book ofhistory written by the English historian Edward Gibbon, which traces thetrajectory of the Roman Empire and Western civilization as a whole fromthe late first century AD to the fall of the ... More »


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9. What Is History?

By E. H. Carr

The George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures delivered at the University ofCambridge January - March 1961. New York Times Book Review: "... awork of rare distinction which nobody can afford to miss." More »

10. The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750

By Peter Brown

This remarkable study in social and cultural change explains how and whythe Late Antique world, between c. 150 and c. 750 A.D., came to differfrom "Classical civilization."These centuries, as the author demonstrates,were the era in which the most deeply rooted of ancient institutionsdisappeared for ... More »

11. The Contours of American History

By William Appleman Williams

William Appleman Williams was one of America’s greatest critics of USimperialism. The Contours of American History, first published in 1961,reached back to seventeenth-century British history to argue that therelationship between liberalism and empire was in effect a grandcompromise, with expansion abroad containing class and ... More »

12. The Origins of The Second World War

By A.J.P. Taylor

A.J.P. Taylor's bestselling "The Origins of the Second World War" overturnspopular myths about the outbreak of war. One of the most popular andcontroversial historians of the twentieth century, who made his subjectaccessible to millions, A.J.P. Taylor caused a storm of outrage with thisscandalous bestseller. ... More »

13. The Peloponnesian War

By Thucydides

"The greatest historian that ever lived." Such was Macaulay's assessmentof Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) and his history of the Peloponnesian War,the momentous struggle between Athens and Sparta that lasted for


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twenty-seven years from 431 to 404 BC, involved virtually the whole ofthe Greek world, and ... More »

14. A People's History of the United States

By Howard Zinn

“It’s a wonderful, splendid book—a book that should be read by everyAmerican, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, itstrue history, and its hope for the future.” —Howard Fast, author ofSpartacus and The Immigrants“[It] should be required reading.” —EricFoner, New York Times ... More »

15. The Black Jacobins

By C.L.R. James

A classic and impassioned account of the first revolution in the ThirdWorld.This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account ofthe Haitian Revolution of 1794-1803, a revolution that began in the wakeof the Bastille but became the model for the Third World liberationmovements from ... More »

16. The Great Transformation: The Political andEconomic Origins of Our Time

By Karl Polanyi

In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyianalyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the "greattransformation" of the Industrial Revolution. His analysis explains not onlythe deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire socialconsequences of untempered market ... More »

17. Liberty before Liberalism

By Quentin Skinner

This extended essay by one of the world's leading historians seeks, in itsfirst part, to excavate, and to vindicate, the neo-Roman theory of freecitizens and free states as it developed in early-modern Britain. Thisanalysis leads on to a powerful defence of the nature, purposes and ...More »

18. Gender and the Politics of History

By Joan Scott


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Winner, in the original edition, of the 1989 Joan Kelly Prize of the AmericanHistorical Association, this landmark work from a renowned feministhistorian is a trenchant critique of women's history and gender inequality.Exploring topics ranging from language and gender to the politics of workand family, ... More »

19. Search for Modern China

By Jonathan Spence

[Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.] [Read by Frederick Davidson]*A 1990 New York Times Book Review Book of the Year The history ofChina is as rich and strange as that of any country on earth. Yet for many,China's history remains unknown, or ... More »

20. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

By James M. McPherson

Filled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths andchallenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably becomethe standard one-volume history of the Civil War.James McPherson'sfast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and militaryevents that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of ... More »

21. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and theMaking of the Modern World Economy

By Kenneth Pomeranz

The Great Divergence brings new insight to one of the classic questions ofhistory: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe,despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and EastAsia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels betweenthese two parts of ... More »

22. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the GreatWest

By William Cronon

Awarded the 1992 Bancroft Prize and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Awardfor Best Nonfiction Book of 1991.In this groundbreaking work, WilliamCronon gives us an environmental perspective on the history ofnineteenth-century America. By exploring the ecological and economicchanges that made Chicago America's most ... More »


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23. The Strange Death of Liberal England:1910-1914

By George Dangerfield

This book focuses on the chaos that overtook England on the eve of theFirst World War. Dangerfield weaves together the three wild strands of theIrish Rebellion (the rebellion in Ulster), the Suffragette Movement and theLabour Movement to produce a vital picture of the ... More »

24. Religion and the Decline of Magic

By Keith Thomas

Witchcraft, astrology, divination and every kind of popular magic flourishedin England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the beliefthat a blessed amulet could prevent the assaults of the Devil to the use ofthe same charms to recover stolen goods. At the same time the ... More »

25. Greece

By Michael Rostovtzeff

Greece is a companion volume to the paperback edition of Rome, and withit comprises the greater part of Rostovzeff's major work, A History of theAncient World. From the appearance of prehistoric Aegean settlements,through the rise of the city states, to the diffusion of Hellenistic culture ...More »

26. Rome

By Michael Rostovtzeff

First published in 1927 this monumental book has long been out of print.Brilliantly written, it stands on its own merits and has not been outdatedby new discoveries or research. Rostovtzeff's narrative begins in the fourthcentury B.C. and concludes with `the social and political catastrophe of ...More »

27. The Guns of August

By Barbara Tuchman

In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historianBarbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty daysin the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the


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century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral ofEdward VII, Tuchman ... More »

28. Hidden From History: 300 Years of Women'sOppression and the Fight Against It

By Sheila Rowbotham

In this study of women from the Puritan revolution to the 1930s, theauthor shows how class and sex, work and family, personal life and socialpressures have shaped and hindered women's struggles for equality. More»

29. The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714

By Christopher Hill

There is an immense range of books about the English Civil War, but onehistorian stands head and shoulders above all others for the quality of hiswork on the subject. In 1961 Christopher Hill first published what hascome to be acknowledged as the best concise history ... More »

30. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

By Tony Judt

Named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times BookReview Almost a decade in the making , this much-anticipated grandhistory of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemedhistorians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the ...More »

31. A Preponderance of Power: National Security,the Truman Administration, and the Cold War

By Melvyn Leffler

This is the most comprehensive history to date of the TrumanAdministration's progressive embroilment in the cold war, and it presents astunning new interpretation of U.S. national security policy during theformative stages of the Soviet-American rivalry. Illustrated with 15halftones and 10 maps. More »

32. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History


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By Ibn Khaldun

The Muqaddimah, often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon," isthe most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by thegreat fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), thismonumental work laid down the foundations of several fields ofknowledge, including philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and ...More »

33. The Sinews of Power: War, Money and theEnglish State, 1688-1783

By John Brewer

This powerful interpretation of English history provides a completely newframework for understanding how Britain emerged in the eighteenthcentury as a major international power. Brewers brilliant analysis makesclear that the drastic increase in Britain's military involvement (andsuccess) in Europe and the expansion ... More »

34. Coercion, Capital and European States: AD990 - 1992

By Charles Tilly

In this pathbreaking work, now available in paperback, Charles Tillychallenges all previous formulations of state development in Europe.Specifically, Tilly charges that most available explanations fail becausethey do not account for the great variety of kinds of states which wereviable at different stages of European ... More »

35. The American Political Tradition: And the MenWho Made it

By Richard Hofstadter

The American Political Tradition is a 1948 book by Richard Hofstadter, anaccount on the ideology of previous U.S. presidents and other politicalfigures. The full title is The American Political Tradition and the ... More »

36. A History of the Arab Peoples

By Albert Hourani

Upon its publication in 1991, Albert Hourani’s masterwork was hailed asthe definitive story of Arab civilization, and became both a bestseller andan instant classic. In a panoramic view encompassing twelve centuries ofArab history and culture, Hourani brilliantly illuminated the people andevents that have fundamentally ... More »


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37. Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure andSocial Change in England

By J. M. Neeson

This is a paperback edition of one of the most important and originalcontributions to English rural history published in the past generation.Winner of the Whitfield Prize of the Royal Historical Society in 1994,Commoners challenges the view that England had no peasantry or that ithad ... More »

38. Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in theMiddle East

By Geoffrey Wawro

An unprecedented history of our involvement in the Middle East that tracesour current quandaries there-in Iraq, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, andelsewhere-back to their roots almost a century ago. Geoffrey Wawroapproaches America's role in the Middle East in a fundamentally newway-by encompassing the last ... More »

39. The Rise of Rome

By Livy

"The fates ordained the founding of this great city and the beginning of theworld's mightiest empire, second only to the power of the gods"Romulusand Remus, the rape of Lucretia, Horatius at the bridge, the saga ofCoriolanus, Cincinnatus called from his farm to save the state ... More »

40. The Peloponnesian War

By Donald Kagan

For three decades in the fifth century b.c. the ancient world was torn apartbya conflict that was as dramatic, divisive, and destructive as the worldwars of the twentieth century: the Peloponnesian War. Donald Kagan, oneof the world’s most respected classical, political, and military historians,here ... More »

41. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

By Jacob Burckhardt

For nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the ItalianRenaissance was nothing less than the beginning of the modern world - aworld in which flourishing individualism and the competition for fame


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radically transformed science, the arts, and politics. In this landmark workhe depicts the Italian city-states of ... More »

42. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the NewWorld

By David E. Stannard

For four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawakpeople of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the U.S. Army's massacre of SiouxIndians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of Northand South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During thattime ... More »

43. The Great Chain of Being

By Arthur O. Lovejoy

From later antiquity down to the close of the eighteenth century, mostphilosophers and men of science and, indeed, most educated men,accepted without question a traditional view of the plan and structure ofthe world. In this volume, which embodies the William James lectures for1933, Arthur ... More »

44. Ecological Imperialism: The BiologicalExpansion of Europe, 900-1900

By Alfred W. Crosby

People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of thetemperate zones of the world--North America, Australia and New Zealand.The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explainbecause in many cases they were achieved by using firearms againstspears. Alfred Crosby, ... More »

45. The American Age: United States ForeignPolicy at Home and Abroad 1750 to the Present

By Walter LaFeber

In this leading text, Walter LaFeber offers a comprehensive history ofAmerican foreign relations from the mid-eighteenth century to thepresent. His narrative account features several major themes: theconnections between U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics; the impactof American economic development on foreign policy interests; popular ...More »

46. The Blood Never Dried: A People's History ofthe British Empire


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By John Newsinger

The Blood Never Dried challenges the rising chorus of claims that theBritish Empire was a kinder, gentler force in the world of imperialism. JohnNewsinger sets out to uncover this neglected history of repression andresistance. To the boast that ""the sun never set on the British ... More »

47. Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis

By Raymond Garthoff

The Soviet response to the first edition of Reflections has been a primeexample of the new openness under glasnost in discussing previouslytaboo subjects. Using new revelations-- such as the fact that Moscow hadtwice as many troops in Cuba as the Kennedy administration believed--from key ... More »

48. The Landscape of History

By John Lewis Gaddis

What is history and why should we study it? Is there such a thing ashistorical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplishedhistorians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and otherquestions in this short, witty, and humane book. The Landscape ... More »

49. Imagined Communities

By Benedict Anderson

Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson’s brilliant book on nationalism,forged a new field of study when it first appeared in 1983. Since then it hassold over a quarter of a million copies and is widely considered the mostimportant book on the subject. In this greatly anticipated revised ... More»

50. The Destruction of the European Jews

By Raul Hilberg

A three-volume study of the Holocaust. First published in 1961, RaulHilberg's comprehensive account of how Germany annihilated the Jewishcommunity of Europe spurred discussion, galvanized further research, andshaped the entire field of Holocaust studies. This revised and expandededition of Hilberg's classic work extends the scope ... More »


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51. The First Emperor: Selections from theHistorical Records

By Sima Qian

"The following year Qin unified all under Heaven and the title of AugustEmperor was immediately adopted."The short-lived Qin dynasty unifiedChina in 221 BC and created an imperial legacy that lasted until 1911. Theextraordinary story of the First Emperor, founder of the dynasty, is told in... More »

52. Imperial China 900-1800

By F. W. Mote

This is a history of China for the 900-year time span of the late imperialperiod. A senior scholar of this epoch, F. W. Mote highlights the personalcharacteristics of the rulers and dynasties and probes the cultural theme ofChinese adaptations to recurrent alien rule. No ... More »

53. The Historian's Craft

By Marc Bloch

This work, by the co-founder of the "Annales School" deals with the usesand methods of history. It is useful for students of history, teachers ofhistoriography and all those interested in the writings of the Annalesschool. More »

54. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

By Walter Rodney

Before a bomb ended his life in the summer of 1980, Walter Rodney hadcreated a powerful legacy. This pivotal work, How Europe UnderdevelopedAfrica, had already brought a new perspective to the question ofunderdevelopment in Africa. His Marxist analysis went far beyond theheretofore accepted approach ... More »

55. African Perspectives on Colonialism

By Albert Adu Boahen

This history deals with the twenty-year period between 1880 and 1900,when virtually all of Africa was seized and occupied by the Imperial Powers


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of Europe. Eurocentric points of view have dominated the study of this era,but in this book, one of Africa’s leading historians reinterprets the ... More»

56. A History of Russia

By Nicholas Riasanovsky; Mark Steinberg

Now completely revised in this eighth edition, A History of Russia coversthe entire span of the country's history, from ancient times to thepost-communist present. Keeping with the hallmark of the text,Riasanovsky and Steinberg examine all aspects of Russia's history--political, international, military, economic, social, and cultural--with ...More »

57. The Discovery of India

By Jawaharlal Nehru

In conjunction with the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund in New Delhi,Oxford proudly announces the reissue of Glimpses of World History andThe Discovery of India, two famous works by Jawaharlal Nehru. One ofmodern day's most articulate statesmen, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a on awide variety of ... More »

58. Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side

By Leonard W. Levy

In the most controversial analysis ever written of the apostle of Americanliberty, the distinguished constitutional historian Leonard W. Levyexamines Jefferson’s record on civil liberties and finds it strikingly wanting.Clearing away the saintliness that surrounds the hero, Mr. Levy tries tounderstand why the “unfamiliar” Jefferson ... More »

59. The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization

By Bryan Ward-Perkins

Was the fall of Rome a great catastrophe that cast the West into darknessfor centuries to come? Or, as scholars argue today, was there no crisis atall, but simply a peaceful blending of barbarians into Roman culture, anessentially positive transformation?In The Fall of Rome, eminent ... More»

60. The City in History


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By Lewis Mumford

The city’s development from ancient times to the modern age. Winner ofthe National Book Award. “One of the major works of scholarship of thetwentieth century” (Christian Science Monitor). Index; illustrations. More »

61. The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain

By Pierre Broue; Emile Temime

The tragic defeat of the Spanish Civil War has long fascinated those whocontinue to struggle for social justice. Pierre Broué and Émile Témine’slong-out-of-print history details the internal political dynamics that led thepopular front to hold back radical measures that would have galvanizedthe working class ... More »

62. The Great French Revolution 1789-1793

By Peter Kropotkin

The Great French Revolution is Peter Kropotkin's classic account of thehistory of the upheavels from 1789 to 1793. Although Kropotkin is bestknown as the chief theorist for the political theory of anarchism, he wasalso a highly educated man (a member of the Russian nobility), a ... More»

63. The Political Economy of Merchant Empires:State Power and World Trade, 1350-1750

By James D. Tracy

The Political Economy of Merchant Empires focuses on why Europeanconcerns eventually achieved dominance in global trade in the periodbetween 1450 and 1750, at the expense, especially in Asia, ofwell-organized and well-financed rivals. The volume is a companion to TheRise of Merchant Empires (1990), ... More »

64. The Rise of American Air Power: The Creationof Armageddon

By Michael S. Sherry

This prizewinning book is the first in-depth history of American strategicbombing. Michael S. Sherry explores the growing appeal of air power inAmerica before World War II, the ideas, techniques, personalities, andorganizations that guided air attacks during the war, and the devastatingeffects of American ... More »


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65. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the Worldof Arts and Letters

By Frances Stonor Saunders

In addition to being short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award uponpublication in 2000, Frances Stonor Saunders's The Cultural Cold War wasmet with the kind of attention reserved for books that directly hit a culturalnerve. Impassioned reviews and features in major publications such as the... More »

66. The Korean War: A History

By Bruce Cumings

A BRACING ACCOUNT OF A WAR THAT IS EITHER MISUNDERSTOOD,FORGOTTEN, OR WILLFULLY IGNORED For Americans, it was a discreteconflict lasting from 1950 to 1953. But for the Asian world the Korean Warwas a generations-long struggle that still haunts contemporary events.With access to new evidence and ... More »

67. The Idea of History

By R. G. Collingwood

The Idea of History is the best-known work of the great Oxfordphilosopher, historian, and archaeologist R.G. Collingwood. It wasoriginally published posthumously in 1946, having been mainlyreconstructed from Collingwood's manuscripts, many of which are nowlost. This important work examines how the idea of history has ... More »

68. A Short History of Byzantium

By John Julius Norwich

"Norwich is always on the lookout for the small but revealing details. . . .All of this he recounts in a style that consistently entertains." --The NewYork Times Book Review In this magisterial adaptation of his epic three-volume history of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich chronicles the ... More »

69. Age of the Democratic Revolution

By R. R. Palmer

From Preface: "There have been a great many works on the AmericanRevolution, the French Revolution, the beginnings of the parliamentary


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reform movement in Great Britain, and on Irish affairs, as also, thoughless known in the English-speaking world, on the several countries ofcontinental Europe during this ... More »

70. The Crowd in History

By George Rude

Who took part in the widespread disturbances that periodically shook18th-century London? What really motivated the food rioters who helpedto spark off the French Revolution? How did the movement of agriculturallaborers destroying new machinery spread from one village to another inthe English countryside? How did ... More »

71. History of the Russian Revolution

By Leon Trotsky

The classic account of the social, economic, and political dynamics of thefirst socialist revolution as told by one of its central leaders. Trotskydescribes how, under Lenin s leadership, the Bolshevik Party led theworking class, peasantry, and oppressed nationalities to overturn themonarchist regime of the ... More »

72. British Counterinsurgency: From Palestine toNorthern Ireland

By John Newsinger

British Counterinsurgency examines the insurgencies that have confrontedthe British State since the end of the Second World War, and at themethods used to fight them. It looks at the guerrilla campaigns inPalestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, South Yemen, Oman, and most recentlyin Northern Ireland, and ... More »

73. A History of Sub-Saharan Africa

By James M. Burns; Robert O. Collins

In a trawl through the entire sweep of sub-Saharan history, the authorshave written an accessible introduction for students and general readers.The opening chapter on geography and climate frames the discussion,demonstrating how the environment has shaped the societies and culturesof those living in the region. ... More »

74. The Conquest of the Incas


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By John Hemming

“Distinguished by an extraordinary empathy, a feeling of one’s way intothe minds of the sixteenth-century Spaniards and Indians . . .Provocative.” — New York Times “An extraordinary book. Combiningrigorous historical research and profound analysis with stylistic elegance,this work allows the reader ... More »

75. Hiroshima

By John Hersey

"At, exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945,Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed aboveHiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of theEast Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in ... More »

76. American Slavery: 1619-1877

By Peter Kolchin

The single best short survey in America, now updated.Includes a NewPreface and AfterwardIn terms of accessibility and comprehensivecoverage, Kolchin's American Slavery is a singularly importantachievement. Now updated to address a decade of new scholarship, thebook includes a new preface, afterword, and revised ... More »

77. The Battle For Homestead, 1880-1892: Politics,Culture, and Steel

By Paul Krause

Paul Krause calls upon the methods and insights of labor history,intellectual history, anthropology, and the history of technology to situatethe events of the lockout and their significance in the broad context ofAmerica’s Guilded Age. Utilizing extensive archival material, much of itheretofore unknown, he reconstructs ... More »

78. Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

By John Womack

Zapata and the Mexican RevolutionJohn Womack, Jr.". . . It is certainly thedefinitive study of Emiliano Zapata, and it places him in his propercontext."â€”Frank Jellinek, The New York Times Book Review"A feat ofhistorical writing . . . Womack has an uncanny feeling for the infinitely ...More »


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79. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas BeforeColumbus

By Charles C. Mann

In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, CharlesC. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before thearrival of Columbus in 1492. Contrary to what so many Americans learn inschool, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristinewilderness; rather, there were ... More »

80. The Politics of War: The World and UnitedStates Foreign Policy, 1943-1945

By Gabriel Kolko

A major work of narrative history that brings together diplomatic,economic, and military decisions from the last years of the Second WorldWar to show how the stage was set for many of the postwar conflicts. More»

81. Inventing the People: The Rise of PopularSovereignty in England and America

By Edmund S. Morgan

"The best explanation that I have seen for our distinctive combination offaith, hope and naiveté concerning the governmental process." —MichaelKamman, Washington PostThis book makes the provocative case here thatAmerica has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathersinvented the idea of the American people and ... More »

82. The Great War and Modern Memory

By Paul Fussell

The year 2000 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of TheGreat War and Modern Memory, winner of the National Book Award, theNational Book Critics Circle Award, and recently named by the ModernLibrary one of the twentieth century's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books. Fussell'slandmark study ... More »

83. The Second World War

By A.J.P. Taylor

Provides an overview of World War II from the invasion of Poland to V-Jday, and covers major campaigns and battles. More »


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84. The Honourable Company: A History of theEnglish East India Company

By John Keay

During 200 years the East India Company grew from a loose association ofElizabethan tradesmen into "the grandest society of merchants in theuniverse". As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world'strade and as a political entity it administered an embryonic empire.Without it ... More »

85. Industry and Empire: The Birth of the IndustrialRevolution

By Eric Hobsbawm

An updated edition of the classic study of the Industrial Revolution by "oneof the few genuinely great historians of our century" (The New Republic).Premier historian Eric Hobsbawm's brilliant study of the IndustrialRevolution, which sold more than a quarter of a million copies in itsoriginal ... More »

86. Kingdoms and Communities in WesternEurope 900-1300

By Susan Reynolds

This wide-ranging and perceptive book focuses on the collective values andactivities of lay society over several centuries, from trade guilds andmanor courts to the development of parliaments and the rule of feudalmonarchs. It offers a new approach to the history of medieval Europe. Thesecond ... More »

87. Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt: 1320-1450

By George Holmes

This book provides a classic introduction to a key period in the history ofEurope - the transition from medieval to Renaissance Europe.In thisupdated edition, Professor Holmes traces the main political events as wellas describing broader changes in social structure and culture. He revealsthe interactions ... More »

88. Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revivalof Trade


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By Henri Pirenne

Henri Pirenne is best known for his provocative argument--known as the"Pirenne thesis" and familiar to all students of medieval Europe--that itwas not the invasion of the Germanic tribes that destroyed the civilizationof antiquity, but rather the closing of Mediterranean trade by Arabconquest in the ... More »

89. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

By Ilan Pappe

The renowned Israeli historian revisits the formative period of the State ofIsrael. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages weredeliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred, and around a millionmen, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint.Denied for almost six decades, had ... More »

90. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World

By Avi Shlaim

"Fascinating. . . . Shlaim presents compelling evidence for a revaluation oftraditional Israeli history."—New York Times Book ReviewAs it celebratedits fiftieth anniversary, the State of Israel could count many importantsuccesses, but its conflict with the Palestinians and the Arab world at largecasts a long ... More »

91. Last Reflections on a War

By Bernard B. Fall

8-page b/w photo section 6 x 9 "Last Reflections on a War stands as a finerepresentative sample of Fall's work as a whole; as such, it is nearly aspersonal as an autobiography. . . . That the collection includes an excellentoutline of ... More »

92. Killing Hope

By William Blum

Is the United States a force for democracy? From China in the 1940s toGuatemala today, William Blum presents a comprehensive study ofAmerican covert and overt interference, by one means or another, in theinternal affairs of other countries. Each chapter of the book covers a year... More »


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93. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries ofthe Pillage of a Continent

By Eduardo Galeano

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a newstandard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also anoutstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highestquality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulationsince Marx.Rather ... More »

94. The History of England

By Thomas Babington Macaulay

The History of England from the Accession of James the Second (1848) isthe full title of the five volume work by Lord Macaulay (1800 - 1859) moregenerally known as The History of England. It covers the period from 1685to 1702, encompassing the reign of James ... More »

95. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation

By Barry J. Kemp

Completely revised and updated to reflect the latest developments in thefield, this second edition of Barry J. Kemp's popular text presents acompelling reassessment of what gave ancient Egypt its distinctive andenduring characteristics. Ranging across Ancient Egyptian material culture,social and economic experiences, and the mindset of its people, ... More »

96. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution:1891-1924

By Orlando Figes

It is history on an epic yet human scale. Vast in scope, exhaustive inoriginal research, written with passion, narrative skill, and humansympathy, A People's Tragedy is a profound account of the RussianRevolution for a new generation. Many consider the Russian Revolution tobe the most ... More »

97. The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structureand Economic Development in Pre-industrialEurope

By T. H. Aston; Robert Brenner; C. H. E. Philpin


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Few historical issues have occasioned such discussion since at least thetime of Marx as the transition from feudalism to capitalism in WesternEurope. The Brenner Debate, which reprints from Past and Present variousarticle in 1976, is a scholarly presentation of a variety of points of view, ...More »

98. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical IdeasDuring the English Revolution

By Christopher Hill

Within the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century whichresulted in the triumph of the protestant ethic - the ideology of thepropertied class - there threatened another, quite different, revolution. Itssuccess 'might have established communal property, a far widerdemocracy in political and legal institutions, might ... More »

99. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine PoliticalThought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition

By J. G. A. Pocock

The Machiavellian Moment is a classic study of the consequences formodern historical and social consciousness of the ideal of the classicalrepublic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy.J.G.A. Pocock suggests that Machiavelli's prime emphasis was on themoment in which the republic confronts ... More »

100. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain andSpain in America 1492-1830

By John H. Elliott

This epic history compares the empires built by Spain and Britain in theAmericas, from Columbus’s arrival in the New World to the end of Spanishcolonial rule in the early nineteenth century. J. H. Elliott, one of the mostdistinguished and versatile historians working today, offers us ... More »

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Jim Paris

So where are Francis Parkman and William H. Prescott?

Reply � Like � September 25 at 11:24am


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the 100 best history books of all time

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