Best History Books

Two economists argue that the difference between rich and poor countries is not geography, culture, or ignorance, but the presence of inclusive versus extractive political and economic institutions.

Thomas Piketty draws on centuries of data to argue that capitalism structurally tends toward rising inequality unless actively counteracted.

An investigation into the U.S. federal government's most consequential departments and what happens when the incoming administration fails to prepare for managing them.

The story of a group of idealistic American airmen in the 1930s who dreamed precision bombing could make war more humane — and why their dream collided with catastrophic reality over Tokyo.

An anarchist anthropologist and an archaeologist argue that conventional narratives of social evolution — from bands to tribes to states — are wrong, and that human history shows far more political experimentation and freedom than we have assumed.

Naomi Klein's investigation into how disaster capitalism exploits crises to implement radical free-market policies that could not survive democratic scrutiny in normal times.

A sweeping vision of humanity's future as Homo sapiens pursues the ancient goals of immortality, bliss, and divinity — and what we risk losing in the process.

David Grann investigates the disappearance of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who vanished in the Amazon in 1925 while searching for an ancient lost civilization he called Z.

George Orwell's first book: a memoir of destitution — months spent penniless in Paris, working as a plongeur in restaurant kitchens, and then weeks tramping between workhouses in England — written with the observational precision that would define everything that followed.

Twenty-one meditations on pressing questions of our time — from artificial intelligence and political disillusionment to terrorism, nationalism, and the challenge of staying sane in the information age.

Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov recognises, as a juror at a murder trial, the woman he seduced and abandoned years before. Overcome by guilt, he follows Katyusha Maslova through the Russian prison and exile system — a journey that becomes Tolstoy's most sustained indictment of the state, the church, and the landed class.