Don't Miss Lists and Other Reading Resources

Recommended History Books - 2008

(Selections from the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year, Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, and starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist) - see also recommended history books published 2007

Africa

• Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation. John Carlin. Penguin, 2008.
• The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur. Daoud Hari. Random House, c2008.
• World War I: The African Front: An Imperial War on the Dark Continent . Edward Paice. W W Norton & Co., Inc., 2008.

 

America

• Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Michael Burlingame. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2008.
• The Age of American Unreason. Susan Jacoby. Pantheon Books, c2008.
• American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Jon Meacham. Random House, c2008.
• Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. Barton Gellman. Penguin Press, 2008.

• The Beautiful Struggle. Ta-Nehisi Coates. Spiegel & Grau, 2008.
• The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Bill Bishop. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008.
• Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War. David Williams. New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2008.

• Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen. Philip Dray. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008.
• Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart. Jeffry D. Wert. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
• Champlain's Dream. David Hackett Fischer. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
• Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural . Jim Steinmeyer. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2008.
• Clinton in Exile: A President out of the White House. Carol Felsenthal. William Morrow, c2008.
• Condoleezza Rice: An American Life: A Biography. Elisabeth Bumiller. Random House, 2007.
• Crossing the Continent, 1527-1540:Tthe Story of the First African-American Explorer of the American South. Robert Goodwin. Harper, 2008.

• Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Jane Mayer. Doubleday, c2008.
• Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!: From the Minnesota Governor's Mansion to the Baja Outback: Reflections and Revisionings. Jesse Ventura. Skyhorse Pub., c2008.

• The Enders Hotel: A Memoir. Brandon R. Schrand. University of Nebraska Press, c2008.

• Family Bible. Melissa J. Delbridge. University of Iowa Press, c2008.
• Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War. Edwin G. Burrows. Basic Books, 2008.
• Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life. Joseph E. Persico. Random House, c2008.

• The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Home. Sadia Shepard. The Penguin Press, 2008.

• The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Annette Gordon-Reed. W.W. Norton & Co., c2008.
• The Hudson: America's River. Frances F. Dunwell. Columbia University Press, c2008.

• Ida: A Sword among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. Paula Giddings. Amistad, c2008.
• In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography. John D. Gartner. St. Martin's Press, 2008.
• In the Country of Brooklyn: Inspiration to the World. Peter Golenbock. William Morrow, c2008.

• The Last Fish Tale : the Fate of the Atlantic and Survival in Gloucester, America's Oldest Fishing Port and Most Original Town. Mark Kurlansky. Ballantine Books, c2008.
• Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer. Fred Kaplan. HarperCollins Publishers, c2008.
• Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America. Allen C. Guelzo. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
• Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War. Craig L. Symonds. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession. Russell McClintock. University of North Carolina Press, c2008.
• Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861. Harold Holzer. Simon & Schuster, c2008.
• Looking for Lincoln: The Making of an American Icon. Philip Kunhardt. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

• Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An Amercian Tragedy. Ronald W. Walker. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved out of Slavery and into Legend. Gretchen Gerzina. Amistad, c2008.
• The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation. Nancy Rubin Stuart. Beacon Press, 2008.

• Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Rick Perlstein. Scribner, 2008.
• Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War. Robert Roper. Walker, 2008.

• One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. Michael Dobbs. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
• Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World. W.W. Norton & Co., c2008.

• The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. David E. Kaiser. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.
• The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson. Kevin J. Hayes. Oxford University Press, 2007.

• Sherman's March in Myth and Memory. Edward Caudill. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers , c2008.
• The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade. Gerard J. De Groot. Harvard University Press, 2008.
• The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves. Andrew Ward. Houghton Mifflin Co., c2008.
• The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America. Louis P. Masur. Bloomsbury Press: Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2008.
• Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea. Noah Andre Trudeau. Harper, c2008.
• Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North. Thomas J. Sugrue. Random House, c2008.

• This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. Drew Gilpin Faust. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
• Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877. Walter A. McDougall. Harper, c2008.
• Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. H.W. Brands. Doubleday, c2008.
• Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. James M. McPherson. Penguin Press , 2008.

• Voices Rising: Stories from the Katrina Narrative Project. Rebeca Antoine.  UNO Press, c2008.
• A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. Tony Horwitz. Henry Holt and Co., 2008.

• Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson. David S. Reynolds. Harper, c2008.
• What's Wrong with Obamamania? Ricky L. Jones. State University of New York Press, 2008.
• The Wordy Shipmates. Sarah Vowell. Riverhead Books, 2008.
• The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. Ned Sublette. Lawrence Hill Books, c2008.

 

Ancient

• Discovery!: Unearthing the New Treasures of Archaeology. Thames & Hudson, 2007.
• The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History. James J. O'Donnell. Ecco, 2008.

 

Asia

• Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan. Sean L. Malloy. Cornell University Press, 2008.
• The Bitter Sea: Coming of Age in a China Before Mao. Charles N. Li. Harper, 2008.
• China's First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors. Frances Wood. St. Martin's Press, 2008.
• Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Ahmed Rashid. Viking, 2008.
• The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars. Andrew X. Pham. Harmony Books, 2008.
• Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age. Arthur Herman. Bantam Book, 2008.
• Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire. Rajmohan Gandhi. University of California Press, 2008.
• Hiroshima: The World's Bomb. Andrew Jon Rotter. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Backstreets of a Changing City. Michael Meyer. Walker & Company, [2007].
• The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir. Kao Kalia Yang. Coffee House Press, 2008.
• The Man on Mao's Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China's Foreign Ministry. Chaozhu Ji. Random House, 2008.
• Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience. Justin Wintle. Skyhorse Pub., c2007.
• Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. Max Hastings. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
• The Terra Cotta Army: China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation. John Man. Da Capo Press, c2008.

 

Europe

• The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples. Shirley Hazzard. University of Chicago Press, c2008.
• The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War. Asne Seierstad. Basic Books, 2008.
• Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces. Robert Clark. Doubleday, 2008.
• The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997. Piers Brendon. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
• Glorious Revolution, 1688: Britain's Fight for Liberty. Edward Vallance. Consortium Book Sales & Dist, 2007 [2008].
• God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215. David L. Lewis. W.W. Norton, c2008.
• Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution. Ian Kershaw. International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem; Yale University Press, c2008.
• The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews. Patrick Desbois. Palgrave Macmillan, [2008].
• The Journal of Helene Berr. Helene Berr. Little Brown & Co, 2008.
• Life and Death in the Third Reich. Peter Fritzsche. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.
• London Rising: The Men Who Made Modern London. Leo Hollis. Walker & Co., 2008.
• Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon. Andrea Di Robilant. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
• Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter. Susan Nagel. Bloomsbury; Distributed to the trade by Macmillan, 2008.
• Napoleon: The Path to Power. Philip G. Dwyer. Yale University Press, 2008.
• Resistance: A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France. Agnes Humbert. Bloomsbury, 2008.
• Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love, War and Survival. Owen Matthews. Walker & Co., 2008.
• Unknown Soldiers: Reliving World War II in Europe. Joseph E. Garland. Protean Press, 2008.
• Versailles: A Biography of a Palace. Tony Spawforth. St. Martin's Press, 2008.
• The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914. Phillipp Blom. Basic Books, c2008.
• Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna. David King. Harmony Books, c2008.
• Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945. Carlo D'Este. Harper, c2008.

 

Latin America

• Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause. Tom Gjelten. Viking, 2008.
• The Bay of Pigs. Howard Jones. Oxford University Press, c2008.
• Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs. Buddy Lee. Bantam Books, 2008.
• Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography. Fidel Castro. Scribner, 2008, c2007.

 

Middle East

• The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam. Jonathan Riley-Smith. Columbia University Press, c2008.
• The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Jane Mayer. Doubleday, c2008.
• Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East. Robin B.  Wright. Penguin Press, 2008.
• Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives.  Jim Sheeler. Penguin Press, 2008.
• The Forever War. Dexter Filkins. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
• The Man Who Brought America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmed Chalabi. Aram Roston. Nation Books, c2008.
• Napoleon in Egypt. Tony Strathern. Bantam Books, 2008.
• Standard Operating Procedure. Philip Gourevitch. Penguin Press, 2008.
• Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. Linda Robinson. PublicAffairs, c2008.
• Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed, and Forgery in the Holy Land. Nina Burleigh. Smithsonian Books, c2008.
• Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-Day Iraq. Fernando Baez. W W Norton & Co Inc , 2008.
• Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq. Fassihi Farnaz. PublicAffairs, 2008.
• War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq. Richard Engel. Simon & Schuster, 2008.

World

• The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Niall Ferguson. Penguin Press, 2008.
• Battle at Sea: 3,000 Years of Naval Warfare. R. G. Grant. DK Pub., 2008.
• Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. Samantha Power. Penguin Press, 2008.
• Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason. Russell Shorto. Doubleday, c2008.
• Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention. Gary Jonathan Bass. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
• Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-- and How it Died. Philip Jenkins. HarperOne, c2008.

 

Rev. 1/09 KK

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