Don't Miss Lists and Other Reading Resources

Recommended History Books - 2005 to 2006

(Selections from the New York Times 100 Notable Books, Library Journal, Booklist's Best Non-fiction Books of the Year, Booklist's Editor's Choice, and ALA's Best Books) - see also recommended history books published in 2007

Africa

The Fate of Africa: from the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair: a History of Fifty Years of Independence. Martin Meredith. Public Affairs, 2005.
The Last Expedition: Stanley's Mad Journey Through the Congo. Daniel Liebowitz. W. W. Norton, 2005
Mandela : A Critical Life. Tom Lodge. Oxford University Press, 2006
My Battle Of Algiers : A Memoir. Ted Morgan. Collins/Smithsonian, 2005
A Prisoner In The Garden : The Nelson Mandela Foundation. Viking Studio, 2006
The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold. Frank T. Kryza. Ecco, 2006.

America

America Against The World : How We Are Different And Why We Are Disliked. Andrew Kohut.
Times Books, 2006.
America's Uncivil Wars: the Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon. Mark Hamilton Lytle. Oxford University Press, 2006.
American Protest Literature. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. (On Order)
The American Revolution: Ten Ideals that Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War. Neil Baldwin. St. Martin's Press, 2005
The Arab Americans : A History. Gregory Orfalea. Olive Branch Press, 2006.
At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68. Taylor Branch. Simon & Schuster,
c2006.
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts of Reclaiming the American Dream. Barack Obama. Crown, 2006.

The Big Oyster : History On The Half Shell. Mark Kurlansky. Ballantine Books, c2006.
Black Maestro : The Epic Life Of An American Legend. Joe Drape. Morrow, c2006.
Blood and Thunder: an Epic of the American West. Sides, Hampton. Doubleday, 2006
The Boy Who Fell Out Of The Sky : A True Story. Ken Dornstein. Random House, c2006.
The Bystander : John F. Kennedy And The Struggle For Black Equality. Nick (Nicholas Andrew) Bryant. Basic Books, c2006.

Captive Histories : English, French, And Native Narratives Of The 1704 Deerfield Raid
University of Massachusetts Press, c2006
Copperheads : The Rise And Fall Of Lincoln's Opponents In The North. Jennifer L. Weber.
Oxford University Press, 2006
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. Simon Winchester. HarperCollins, 2005
Crazy Horse : A Lakota Life. Kingsley M. Bray. University of Oklahoma, c2006.

Dangerous Nation. Robert Kagan. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006
The Death and Resurrection of Jefferson Davis. Donald E. Collins. Rowmann & Littlefield, 2005
Decade Of Nightmares : The End Of The Sixties And The Making Of Eighties America.
Philip Jenkins. Oxford University Press, 2006.
Dissent In America : Voices That Shaped A Nation. Pearson Education, c2006
The Divided Ground : Indians, Settlers And The Northern Borderland Of The American Revolution. Alan Taylor. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006

Early Cold War Spies : The Espionage Trials That Shaped American Politics. John Earl Haynes. Cambridge University Press, 2006
Epic Journeys Of Freedom : Runaway Slaves Of The American Revolution And Their Global Quest For Liberty. Cassandra Pybus. Beacon Press, c2006

Falling Through The Earth : A Memoir. Danielle Trussoni. Henry Holt, 2006.
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Shlaes, Amity. HarperCollins, 2007
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Mann, Charles C. Knopf, 2005.
4th of July, Asbury Park: a History of the Promised Land. Daniel J. Wolff. Bloomsbury, 2005.

George Washington: the Founding Father. Paul Johnson. Atlas Books/HaperCollins, 2005.
Gettysburg Requiem : The Life And Lost Causes Of Confederate Colonel William C. Oates. Glenn W. LaFantasie. Oxford University Press, 2006.
A Godly Hero : The Life Of William Jennings Bryan. Michael Kazin. Knopf , 2006.
Grant and Sherman: the Friendship That Won the Civil War. Charles Bracelen Flood, 2005.
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Douglas, Brinkley. Morrow, 2006
The Greatest Story Ever Told: the Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina. Frank Rich. Penguin, 2006

Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: the Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding. Darren Staloff, Hill and Wang, 2005.
House Of War : The Pentagon And The Disastrous Rise Of American Power. James Carroll. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006.

Inhuman Bondage : The Rise And Fall Of Slavery In The New World. David Brion Davis. Oxford University Press, 2006.
The Island Of Seven Cities : Where The Chinese Settled When They Discovered America. Paul Chiasson. St. Martin's Press, 2006

Jack Kennedy : The Education Of A Statesman. Barbara Leaming. W.W. Norton, c2006
James Madison And The Struggle For The Bill Of Rights. Richard E. Labunski. Oxford University Press, 2006
Jamestown : The Buried Truth. William M. Kelso. University of Virginia Press, 2006.
John Tyler : The Accidental President . Edward P. Crapol. The University of North Carolina Press, c2006

The Kennedy Assassination Tapes. Lyndon B. Johnson. Knopf, 2005.
Kingfish : The Reign Of Huey P. Long. Richard D. White. Random House, c2006.

LBJ--Architect Of American Ambition. Randall Bennett Woods. Free Press, c2006.
Let Every Nation Know : John F. Kennedy In His Own Words. Robert Dallek. Sourcebooks MediaFusion, c2006
Life of Benjamin Franklin. Vol. 1: Journalist, 1706-1730; Vol. 2: Printer and Publisher, 1730-1747. J.A. Leo Lemay, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery , Secession, and the President's War Powers. James F. Simon. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. Joshua Wolf Shenk, Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Lawrence Wright. Knopf, 2006 .

Mayflower: a Story of Courage, Community, and War. Nathaniel Philbrick. Viking, 2006
Middle Passages : African American Journeys To Africa, 1787-2005. James T. Campbell. Penguin Press, 2006
The Mighty And The Almighty : Reflections On America, God, And World Affairs. Madeleine Korbel Albright. HarperCollins, 2006.
Moral Minority : Our Skeptical Founding Fathers. Brooke Allen. Ivan R. Dee, c2006.

1973 Nervous Breakdown : Watergate, Warhol, And The Birth Of Post-Sixties America. Andreas Killen. Bloomsbury, 2006.
New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan. Jill Leporte Knopf, 2005, 

102 Minutes: the Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. Jim Dwyer. Times Books, 2005.
Operation Homecoming : Iraq, Afghanistan, And The Home Front, In The Words Of U.S. Troops And Their Families. Random House, c2006.
Our Town : A A Heartland Lynching, A Haunted Town, And The Hidden History Of White America. C. Carr. Crown Publishers, c2006.

Patriotic Fire : Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans. Winston Groom. Knopf, 2006
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. Megan Marshall. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
The People's Machine : Arnold Schwarzenegger And The Rise Of Blockbuster Democracy. Joe Mathews. Public Affairs, c2006 .
A Pickpocket's Tale : The Underworld Of Nineteenth-Century New York. Timothy J. Gilfoyle. W.W. Norton, c2006

Redemption: the Last Battle of the Civil War. Nicholas Leman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006 .
Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. Sean Wilentz. Norton, 2005.
River Run Red: the Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War. Andrew Ward. Viking, 2005.

1776. David G. McCullough. Simon & Schuster, 2005
The Sea Captain's Wife : A True Story Of Love, Race, And War In The Nineteenth Century.  Martha Elizabeth Hodes. W.W. Norton, c2006
She Got Up Off The Couch : And Other Heroic Acts From Mooreland, Indiana. Haven Kimmel. Free Press, c2006.
Six Frigates : The Epic History Of The Founding Of The U.S. Navy. Ian W. Toll. W.W. Norton & Co., c2006

Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution. Alfred W. Blumrosen. Sourcebooks, 2005.
Slavery in New York. ed. by Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris, New Press, 2005.
Something Happened : A Political And Cultural Overview Of The Seventies. Edward D. Berkowitz. Columbia University Press, c2006
State of Denial. Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, 2006
Steel Drivin' Man:  John Henry, The Untold Story of an American Hero.  Scott Reynolds Nelson. Oxford, 2006.
Struggle For A Vast Future : American Civil War. Osprey, 2006.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kearns Goodwin. Simon & Schuster, 2005
Them: a Memoir of Parents. Francine du Plessix Gray. Penguin Press, 2005.
A Thousand Miles Of Dreams : The Journeys Of Two Chinese Sisters . Sasha Su-Ling Welland. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers ; Distributed by National Book Network, c2006.

The Unknown American Revolution: the Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. Gary B. Nash. Viking, 2005.
Upon The Altar Of The Nation : A Moral History Of The American Civil War. Harry S. Stout. Viking, 2006.

Waiting 'Til The Midnight Hour : A Narrative History Of Black Power In America. Peniel E. Joseph. Henry Holt and Co., 2006.
Watching The World Change : The Stories Behind The Images Of 9/11. David Friend. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.
When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House. Patricia O'Toole. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
With Amusement For All : A History Of American Popular Culture Since 1830. LeRoy Ashby. University Press of Kentucky, c2006.
Without Precedent : The Inside Story Of The 9/11 Commission. Thomas H. Kean. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Worst Hard Time: the Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Timothy Eagan. Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Ancient

Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth. Norman F. Cantor. HarperCollins, 2005.
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq. Packer, George. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005.
Augustus : The Life Of Rome's First Emperor. Anthony Everitt. Random House, c2006.

Beneath The Seven Seas : Adventures With The Institute Of Nautical Archaeology. Thames & Hudson, 2005.

Hatshepsut : From Queen To Pharaoh. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yale University Press, c2005.

A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and the Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. Victor Davis Hanson, Random House, 2005.

Asia

Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945. John Glusman. Viking, 2005

The Lost Executioner: a Story of the Khmer Rouge. Nic Dunlop. Walker & Co. 2006.
Lucky Child: a Daughter of an Cambodian Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind. Loung Ung. HarperCollins, 2005.

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek : China's Eternal First Lady. Laura Tyson Li. Atlantic Monthly Press; c2006
Mao: the Unknown Story. Jung Chang. Knopf, 2005.
My Detachment: a Memoir. Tracy Kidder. Random House, 2005.

Oracle Bones: a Journey Between China's Past and Present. Peter Hessler . HarperCollins, 2006
Osman's Dream : The Story Of The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923. Caroline Finkel. Basic Books, 2006

Tiger Force : A True Story Of Men And War. Michael Sallah. Little, Brown, c2006.

Will The Boat Sink The Water? : The Life Of China's Peasants. Guidi Chen. Public Affairs, c2006.

Europe

The Accidental Empire : Israel And The Birth Of Settlements, 1967-1977. Gershom Gorenberg.
Times Books, 2006.
After Daybreak: the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen, 1945. Ben Sephard. Schocken, 2005.
Among the Dead Cities. A. C. Grayling, Walker & Co. 2005.
Auschwitz: a New History. Laurence Rees. Public Affairs, 2005.
Auschwitz: a History. Sybille Steinbacher. Ecco, 2005.

The Baltic : A New History Of The Region And Its People. Alan Warwick Palmer. Overlook Press, 2006.
The Battle: a New History of Waterloo. Alessandro Barbero. Walker & Co. 2005.
The Battlefields Of The First World War : The Unseen Panoramas Of The Western Front. Peter Barton. Constable in association with the Imperial War Museum, 2005.
Becoming Charlemagne : Europe, Baghdad, And The Empires Of 800 A.D. Jeff Sypeck. ECCO, 2006. (On Order)

Cruel World: the Children of Europe in the Nazi Web. Lynn H. Nicholas. Knopf, 2005.

A Day in a Medieval City. Chiara Frugoni. University of Chicago Press, 2005.

The English Civil War : Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers, And Witchfinders In The Birth Of Modern Britain. Diane Purkiss. Basic Books, c2006

Fatal Purity : Robespierre And The French Revolution. Ruth Scurr. Metropolitan Books, 2006.
The Few : The American "Knights Of The Air" Who Risked Everything To Fight In The Battle Of Britain. Alex Kershaw. Da Capo Press, c2006
Fire in the City : Savonarola and the Struggle for Renaissance Florence. Lauro Martine. Oxford University Press, 2006
Five Germanys I Have Known. Fritz Richard Stern. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

Great Tales from English History: Joan of Arc, the Princes in the Tower, Bloody Mary, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Isaac Newton, and More. Robert Lacey. Little, Brown & Co. 2005.

In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War. David Reynolds. Random House, 2005.
The Invisible Wall : Germans And Jews : A Personal Exploration. W. Michael Blumenthal. Counterpoint, c1998
Ivan's War : Life And Death In The Red Army, 1939-1945. Catherine Merridale. Metropolitan Books, 2006.

A Life In Secrets : Vera Atkins And The Missing Agents Of WWII. Sarah Helm. Nan A. Talese, c2005.
The Lost : A Search For Six Of Six Million. Daniel Adam Mendelsohn. HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.

1945: the War that Never Ended. Dallas Gregor. Simon & Schuster, 2005.

One Soldier's Story: a Memoir.  Robert J. Dole. HarperCollins, 2005.

Passionate Minds : The Great Love Affair Of The Enlightenment, Featuring The Scientist Emilie Du Chatelet, The Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings, Seditious Verse, And The Birth Of The Modern World. David Bodanis. Crown Publishers, c2006.
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Judt, Tony. Penguin Press, 2005.

Remembering, Voices Of The Holocaust : A New History In The Words Of The Men And Women Who Survived. Lyn Smith. Carroll & Graf, 2006

Sailing From Byzantium : How A Lost Empire Shaped The World. Colin Wells. Delacorte Press, c2006.
The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna Under Hitler. Thomas Weyr. Oxford University Press, 2005
Sex With The Queen : 900 Years Of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, And Passionate Politics. Eleanor Herman. W. Morrow, c2006.
Ship Of Ghosts : The Story Of The USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser, And The Epic Saga Of Her Survivors. James D. Hornfischer. Bantam Books, 2006.
Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble.   Roger Cohen, Knopf, 2005.
Stalin's Folly: the Tragic First Ten Days of World War 11 on the Eastern Front. Konstantin Pleshakov. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Stranger to Myself: the Inhumanity of War: Russia 1941-1944. Peter Willy Reese. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2005.
Sword And Blossom : A British Officer's Enduring Love For A Japanese Woman. Peter Pagnamenta. Penguin Press, 2006.

The Terror : The Merciless War For Freedom In Revolutionary France. David Andress. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006.

Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue : Iwo Jima And The Photograph That Captured America. Hal Buell. Berkley Pub. Group/Penguin Group, c2006

The War Complex: World War 11 in Our Time. Marianna Torgovnick. University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Warlords : An Extraordinary Re-Creation Of World War II Through The Eyes And Minds Of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, And Stalin. Simon Berthon. Da Capo Press, 2006, c2005
What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany: an Oral History. Eric A. Johnson. Basic books, 2005.

Your Death Would Be Mine : Paul And Marie Pireaud In The Great War. Martha Hanna. Harvard University Press, 2006.

Latin America

Fulgencio Batista. Volume 1: From Revolutionary To Strongman. Frank Argote-Freyre. Rutgers University Press, c2006.

Jubana!: The Awkwardly True and Dazzling Adventures of a Jewish Cuban Goddess. by Gigi Anders. Rayo, 2005.

River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey. Candice Millard. Doubleday, 2005.

Middle East

Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq. Riverbend. the Feminist Press at City University of New York, 2005.

Dangerous Knowledge : Orientalism And Its Discontents. Robert Irwin. Overlook Press, 2006.
Democracy In Iran : History And The Quest For Liberty. Ali Gheissari. Oxford University
Press, 2006.
Dying For Jerusalem : The Past, Present And Future Of The Holiest City. Walter Laqueur. Sourcebooks, c2006.

Fiasco: the American Military Adventure in Iraq. Thomas E. Ricks. Penguin, 2006

A Hundred and One Days: a Baghdad Journal. Asne Seierstad. Basic Books, 2005.

Imperial Life in the Emeral City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. Rajiv Chandrasakaran. Knopf, 2006.
Inherting the Holy Land: an American's Search for Hope in the Middle East. Jen Miller. Ballantine Books, 2005.

The Lemon Tree : An Arab, A Jew, And The Heart Of The Middle East. Sandy Tolan. Bloomsbury Pub. : Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2006.

The Occupation : War And Resistance In Iraq. Patrick Cockburn. Verso, 2006.
The Osama Bin Laden I Know : An Oral History Of Al Qaeda's Leader. Peter L. Bergen. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Over There: From the Bronx to Baghdad. Alan Feuer. Counterpoint Press, 2005.

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Jimmy Carter. Simon and Schuster, 2006.

Shane Comes Home. Rinker Buck. Morrow, 2005.

The Torture Papers: the Road to Abu Ghraib. ed. by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Datel. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Understanding Iraq: the Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan's Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupations. William Roe Polk. HarperCollins, 2005.

World

A History of the Jews in the Modern World. Howard Morley Sachar. Knopf, 2005.

I Wish I'd Been There : Twenty Historians Bring To Life Dramatic Events That Changed America. Doubleday, c2006.

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: the Life of William Dampier. by Diana Preston. Walker & Company, 2005.

Second Drafts of History: Essays. Lance Morrow. Basic Books, 2006.

Trickster Travels : A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds. Natalie Zemon Davis. Hill and Wang, 2006.

The War Of The World : Twentieth-Century Conflict And The Descent Of The West. Niall Ferguson. Penguin Press, 2006 .

 

Compiled by B. Williams, 2004; Updated by K Kube and R. Dais, January/ February 2007

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