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World History

The annual list below contains selections from the New York Times annual list of 100 Notable Books of the Year, Publishers Weekly's annual Best Books of the Year lists, and starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist.  For more reading suggestions check out Madison Public Library Insider newsletter-- History.

Africa | Asia | Europe | Latin and South America | Middle East | Global History | Ancient through Medieval History

See the book list Military History for books about the World Wars and more.

Africa

Cover of The Prison Letters of Nels
Nelson
Mandela

The first, and only, authorized and authenticated collection of correspondence spanning the 27 years Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner.

Cover of The Fortunes of Africa: A
Martin
Meredith

A sweeping history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.

Cover of City of Thorns: Nine Lives
Ben
Rawlence

A researcher for Human Rights Watch describes the refugee camp in Dabaab, home to those fleeing civil war in Somalia, and highlights the life of various residents, including a former child soldier, a schoolgirl and a youth leader.

Available to download: eBook Audio

Cover of Beneath the Tamarind Tree:
Isha
Sesay

The host of "CNN Newsroom Live" presents a definitive account of Boko Haram's 2014 abduction of two hundred seventy-six Chibok schoolgirls, sharing first-person insights based on the author's escape with twenty-one survivors.

Cover of Circling the Square: Stori
Wendell
Steavenson

Through a series of stunningly rendered, character-driven vignettes, New Yorker writer Wendell Steavenson recounts the events of the Egyptian Revolution--from Mubarak's fall to Morsi's. Here is the panoply of Tahrir Square, a pointillist portrait of a people enacting and reacting to change and hope.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of Stringer: A Reporter's Jou
Anjan
Sundaram

A journalist who has reported from Africa and the Middle East presents a memoir about his life-threatening, disorienting year of self-discovery in one of the world's most conflicted nations in 2005-2006.

Asia

Cover of Sophia: Princess, Suffrage
Anita
Anand

The life story of Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of Maharajah Duleep Singh, heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs, and god-daughter of Queen Victoria, who was raised a genteel aristocratic Englishwoman until a trip to India led her to devote herself to battling injustice and inequality.

Cover of The Invitation-Only Zone:
Robert S.
Boynton

For decades, North Korea denied any part in the disappearance of dozens of Japanese citizens from Japan's coastal towns and cities in the late 1970s. But in 2002, with his country on the brink of collapse, Kim Jong-il admitted to the kidnapping of thirteen people as part of a global espionage project and returned five of them in hopes of receiving Japanese aid. From the moment Robert S. Boynton saw a photograph of these men and women, he became obsessed with their story. Drawing on extensive interviews with the abductees, Boynton reconstructs the story of their lives inside North Korea and ponders the existential toll the episode has had on them, and on Japan itself.
 

Cover of A River in Darkness: One M
Masaji
Ishikawa

The harrowing true story of one man's life in--and subsequent escape from--North Korea, one of the world's most brutal totalitarian regimes.

Cover of Autumn Light: Season of Fi
Pico
Iyer

From one of our most astute observers of human nature, a far-reaching exploration of Japanese history and culture and a moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief. For years, Pico Iyer has split his time between California and Nara, Japan, where he and his Japanese wife Hiroko have a small home. But when his father-in-law dies suddenly, calling him back to Japan earlier than expected, Iyer begins to grapple with the question we all have to live with: how to hold onto the things we love, even though we know that we and they are dying. 

Cover of Without You, There Is No U
Suki
Kim

A haunting account of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign.

Available to download: eBook Audio

Cover of African Samurai: The True
Thomas
Lockley & Geoffrey Girard

The remarkable life of history's first foreign-born samurai, and his astonishing journey from Northeast Africa to the heights of Japanese society.

Cover of Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam
Viet Thanh
Nguyen

All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the bestselling novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War--a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations.

Cover of Daughters of the Samurai:
Janice P.
Nimura

In 1871, five young girls were sent by the Japanese government to the United States. Their mission: learn Western ways and return to help nurture a new generation of enlightened men to lead Japan. Ten years later, they returned to Japan-- a land grown foreign to them-- determined to revolutionize women's education. 

Cover of Age of Ambition: Chasing F
Evan
Osnos

As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In this award-winning work, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of Street of Eternal Happines
Rob
Schmitz

An unforgettable portrait of individuals who hope, struggle, and grow along a single street cutting through the heart of China's most exhilarating metropolis, from one of the most acclaimed broadcast journalists reporting on China today.

Cover of Sea People: The Puzzle of
Christina
Thompson

A thrilling intellectual detective story that looks deep into the past to uncover who first settled the islands of the remote Pacific, where they came from, how they got there, and how we know.

Cover of Last Boat Out of Shanghai:
Helen
Zia

The dramatic, real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist Revolution--a precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today.

Available to download: eBook

Europe

Cover of 1947: Where Now Begins
Elisabeth
Asbrink

The year 1947 marks a turning point in the twentieth century. Peace with Germany becomes a tool to fortify the West against the threats of the Cold War. The CIA is created, Israel is about to be born, Simone de Beauvoir experiences the love of her life, an ill George Orwell is writing his last book, and Christian Dior creates the hyper-feminine New Look as women are forced out of jobs and back into the home.

Cover of Queen Victoria’s Matchma
Deborah
Cadbury

An exploration of Queen Victoria's matchmaking exploits details how she used her grandchildren to further the influence of the British Empire, despite their own plans and the turmoil that rocked Europe starting in the nineteenth century.

Cover of The Last Palace: Europe’
Norman
Eisen

A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa's greatest houses--and the lives of its occupants.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of The Pursuit of Power: Euro
Richard J.
Evans

Examines the century between the fall of Napoleon and the outbreak of World War I, discussing events ranging from the crumbling of the Spanish, Ottoman, and Mughal empires and the rise of British imperial ambition to the violent revolution in Spain and the unifications of Germany and Italy.

Cover of How to Be a Victorian: A D
Ruth
Goodman

Ruth Goodman believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her own adventures living in recreated Victorian conditions, Goodman serves as our bustling and fanciful guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of the most perennially fascinating era of British history.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of The Global Age: Europe 195
Jack
Hartnel

After the overwhelming horrors of the first half of the twentieth century, described by Ian Kershaw in his previous book as being 'to Hell and back,' the years from 1950 to 2017 brought peace and relative prosperity to most of Europe. Enormous economic improvements transformed the continent. The catastrophic era of the world wars receded into an ever more distant past, though its long shadow continued to shape mentalities. Yet Europe was now a divided continent, living under the nuclear threat in a period intermittently fraught with anxiety.

Cover of Rome: A History in Seven S
Matthew
Kneale

Novelist and historian Matthew Kneale, a longtime resident of Rome, tells the story of the Eternal City--from the early Roman Republic through the Renaissance and the Reformation to Mussolini and the German occupation in World War Two--through pivotal moments that defined its history.

Cover of Burning Down the Haus: Pun
Tim
Mohr

It began with a handful of East Berlin teens who heard the Sex Pistols on a British military radio broadcast to troops in West Berlin, and it ended with the collapse of the East German dictatorship. This secret history of East German punk rock is not just about the music; it is a story of extraordinary bravery in the face of one of the most oppressive regimes in history. 

Cover of The Romanovs: 1613–1918
Simon Sebag
Montefiore

The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world's surface for three centuries. How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world's greatest empire? And how did they lose it all?

Available to download: eBook Audio

Cover of The Edge of the World: A C
Michael
Pye

Saints and spies, pirates and philosophers, artists and intellectuals: they all criss-crossed the grey North Sea in the so-called "dark ages," the years between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of Europe's mastery over the oceans. Now the critically acclaimed Michael Pye reveals the cultural transformation sparked by those men and women: the ideas, technology, science, law, and moral codes that helped create our modern world. 

Cover of Churchill and Orwell: The
Thomas E.
Ricks

A fascinating dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, with a focus on the pivotal years from the mid-1930s through the 1940s, when their farsighted vision and inspired action in the face of the threat of fascism and communism helped preserve democracy for the world.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of The Borgias: Power and For
Paul
Strathern

The glorious and infamous history of the Borgia family--a world of saints, corrupt popes, and depraved princes and poisoners--set against the golden age of the Italian Renaissance.

Cover of The English and Their Hist
Robert
Tombs

Presents the momentous story of England "first as an idea, and then as a kingdom, as a country, a people and a culture." Here, in a single volume, is a fresh and comprehensive account of the English and their history.

Available to download: Audio

Cover of Victoria: A Life
A.N.
Wilson

Wilson explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria's coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage to Prince Albert and his pivotal influence even after death and her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with her Highland servant John Brown, all set against the backdrop of a momentous epoch in Britain's history -- and the world's.

Available to download: eBook Audio

Latin and South America

Cover of Silver, Sword & Stone: Thr
Marie
Arana

Tells the stories of three people in contemporary Latin America whose lives emblemize the three powerful historical forces that still shape Latin America: mineral exploitation (silver), violence (sword), and the Church (stone).    

Cover of Jungle of Stone: The True
William
Carlsen

Documents the true story of the nineteenth-century rediscovery of the Mayan civilization by American ambassador John Lloyd Stephens and British architect Frederick Catherwood, illuminating how their findings profoundly changed Western understandings about human history.

Cover of Cuba on the Verge: 12 Writ
Leila
Guerriero

Spanning politics and art, music and baseball, these essays provide a timely look at a society's profound transformation--from inside and out.

Cover of Pirate Hunters: Treasure,
Robert
Kurson

A gripping account of two courageous divers' quest to uncover the shipwrecked vessel of Joseph Bannister, one of history's most infamous pirates, off the coast of the Dominican Republic.

Available to download: eBook Audio

Cover of When Montezuma Met Cortés
Matthew
Restall

A dramatic rethinking of the encounter between Montezuma and Hernando Cortés that completely overturns what we know about the Spanish conquest of the Americas.

Middle East

Cover of A Disappearance in Damascu
Deborah
Campbell

In the midst of an unfolding international crisis, renowned journalist Deborah Campbell finds herself swept up in the mysterious disappearance of Ahlam, her guide and friend. Campbell's frank, personal account of a journey through fear and the triumph of friendship and courage is as riveting as it is illuminating.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of Operation Thunderbolt: Fli
Saul
David

The definitive account of one of the greatest Special Forces missions ever, the Raid of Entebbe, by acclaimed military historian Saul David.

Cover of And Then All Hell Broke Lo
Richard
Engel

Based on two decades of reporting, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent’s riveting story of the Middle East revolutions, the Arab Spring, war, and terrorism seen up-close—sometimes dangerously so.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier'
Matti
Friedman

"Describes the author's harrowing experiences manning a remote Israeli outpost with a regiment of other young soldiers, during a small, unnamed war in the late 1990s that foreshadowed other unwinnable conflicts in the Middle East"--NoveList.

Available to download: eBook Audio

Cover of Baghdad: City of Peace, Ci
Justin
Marozzi

For much of its extraordinary life, Baghdad, known for centuries as the "City of Peace," enjoyed both cultural and commercial preeminence. Yet Baghdad's inhabitants have also seen many terrible hardships, from epidemics and famines to invasions and devastating floods. And it has also been one of the most violent cities on earth. Here, in this vivid new history--the first published in English in nearly a century--Justin Marozzi brings to life the whole splendorous and tumultuous story of what was once the greatest capital on earth.

Cover of The Drone Eats With Me: A
Atef Abu
Saif

An ordinary Gazan's chronicle of the struggle to survive during Israel's 2014 invasion of Gaza.

Global History

Cover of Civil Wars: A History in I
David
Armitage

A highly original history, tracing the least understood and most intractable form of organized human aggression from Ancient Rome through the centuries to the present day.

Cover of The Square and the Tower:
Niall
Ferguson

A brilliant recasting of the turning points in world history, including the one we're living through, as a collision between old power hierarchies and new social networks.

Cover of 21 Lessons for the 21st Ce
Yuval Noah
Harari

Shares insights into such present-day issues as the role of technology in transforming humanity, the epidemic of false news, and the modern relevance of nations and religion.

Available to download: eBook Audio

Cover of Age of Anger: A History of
Pankaj
Mishra

How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world--from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism across the world to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the eighteenth century before leading us to the present.

Available to download: eBook

Ancient Through Medieval History

Cover of SPQR: A History of Ancient
Mary
Beard

A prominent classicist explores ancient Rome and how its citizens adapted the notion of imperial rule, invented the concepts of citizenship and nation, and made laws about those traditionally overlooked in history, including women, slaves, and criminals.

Available to download: eBook

Cover of Time Song: Journeys in Sea
Julia
Blackburn

A lyrical exploration--part travelogue and part history--of the area beneath the North Sea which, until 6,000 years ago, was home to a rich ecosystem and human settlement.

Cover of When Women Ruled the World
Kara
Cooney

Explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra--women who ruled with real power. What was so special about ancient Egypt that provided women this kind of access to the highest political office? What was it about these women that allowed them to transcend patriarchal obstacles? What did Egypt gain from its liberal reliance on female leadership, and could today's world learn from its example?

Cover of Meetings with Remarkable M
Christopher
De Hamel

A captivating examination of twelve illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period. Noted authority Christopher de Hamel invites the reader into intimate conversations with these texts to explore what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and about the modern world, too.
 

Cover of The Rise of Athens: The St
Anthony
Everitt

A magisterial account of how a tiny city-state in ancient Greece became history's most influential civilization, from the bestselling author of acclaimed biographies of Cicero, Augustus, and Hadrian.

Cover of Medieval Bodies: Life and
Jack
Hartnel

In this richly illustrated and unusual history, Jack Hartnell uncovers the fascinating ways in which people thought about, explored, and experienced their physical selves in the Middle Ages, from Constantinople to Cairo and Canterbury. Bringing together medicine, art, music, politics, philosophy, religion, and social history, Hartnell's work is an excellent guide to what life was really like for the men and women who lived and died in the Middle Ages. 

Cover of The Darkening Age: The Chr
Catherine
Nixey

Offers a history of the rise of Christianity in the classical world that focuses on its terrible cost, in terms of violence and dogmatic intolerance, that helped bring upon the dark ages.

Cover of Agrippina: The Most Extrao
Emma
Southon

Sister of Caligula. Wife of Claudius. Mother of Nero. The story of Agrippina, at the center of imperial power for three generations, is the story of the Julio-Claudia dynasty--and of Rome itself, at its bloody, extravagant, chaotic, ruthless, and political zenith.

Cover of The Story of Greece and Ro
Tony
Spawforth

The extraordinary story of the intermingled civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, spanning more than six millennia from the late Bronze Age to the seventh century.

Cover of Lotharingia: A Personal Hi
Simon
Winder

In 843 AD, the three surviving grandsons of the great emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited the area we now know as France, another Germany and the third received the piece in between: Lotharingia.