Explore our curated collection of history book reviews and recommendations.
Marla Gibbs's memoir, written with contributor Malaika Adero and published by Amistad/HarperCollins, traces the actress's journey from a turbulent Chicago childhood to decades of Hollywood stardom — a frank, personality-driven account that is, per Publishers Weekly, "funny, moving, and more than a little inspiring," even as Kirkus Reviews notes its structural looseness.
Mar 14, 2026
Eddie Jaku's memoir is a New York Times bestseller in which a man who endured Buchenwald, Auschwitz, and a forced death march chooses to call himself the happiest man on earth — a testament to gratitude, friendship, and the conviction that happiness is the best revenge against hatred.
Mar 13, 2026
Tilar J. Mazzeo's biography of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton — originally published in September 2018 and reissued by Gallery Books in 2019 — makes a compelling case for Eliza's place among the unsung heroes of America's founding era, and offers a genuinely provocative central argument about the Maria Reynolds affair. Publishers Weekly called it an expertly told story certain to captivate Hamilton fans, while Kirkus Reviews found it a middling biography of a worthy subject — a split that fairly captures the book's real strengths and real limitations.
Mar 8, 2026
The University of Chicago Press edition of Democracy in America, translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, presents Tocqueville's foundational two-volume work in what the press.uchicago.edu site describes as the finest and most definitive translation yet produced — one that Gordon S. Wood, writing in the New York Review of Books, called "an impeccable new edition and translation." Originally published in Paris in 1835 and 1840, Tocqueville's examination of American democracy, equality, religion, and the social costs of democratic life remains the most often cited work on the United States and on democracy as a form of government.
Mar 7, 2026
First published in 1949 and revised across multiple editions, Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor remains one of the most historically significant and widely respected books on investing ever written, outlining the principles of value investing for both defensive and enterprising investors — a philosophy that shaped generations of practitioners, most famously Warren Buffett.
Feb 28, 2026
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a landmark work of economic nonfiction that draws on data from twenty countries spanning the eighteenth century to the present to argue that when the rate of return on capital outpaces economic growth, wealth concentrates among a shrinking minority — and proposes a global progressive wealth tax as the remedy. Originally published in French in 2013, translated into English by Arthur Goldhammer in 2014, and reissued in paperback by Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, the book reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction and went on to sell over 2.5 million copies worldwide by the end of 2017, becoming the greatest sales success in Harvard University Press history. It is an essential, if demanding, text for anyone serious about understanding economic inequality.
Feb 26, 2026
Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe, originally published by Simon & Schuster in 2007, stands as a landmark biography that draws on newly available primary sources to show how Albert Einstein's rebellious, inquisitive personality was inseparable from his scientific genius — a portrait that earned generally positive critical reception from outlets including The Guardian and Physics Today.
Feb 27, 2026
Donna Balon's Sam Time: History Professor Slips into the Past and Befriends Ulysses S. Grant is a historical time-travel fiction novel published by Desert Day Press LLC in which history professor Samantha Hunter navigates two worlds — a lonely present and a vividly rendered 19th-century America — as her dream-fueled journeys bring her into the orbit of Ulysses S. Grant. Reviewers have praised its well-researched depiction of the Civil War era and its dual-timeline structure, making it a strong pick for fans of history-driven time-travel fiction.
Mar 14, 2026
Norrie Gilliland's Glasgow's Forgotten Village: The Grahamston Story is a local history dedicated to recovering the memory of Grahamston, the Glasgow community that disappeared beneath the foundations of Glasgow Central Station over a century ago. Published in 2002 by Grahamston Publications, it is a focused, research-driven work that will appeal strongly to enthusiasts of Scottish urban history, Glasgow heritage, and the stories hidden beneath modern city infrastructure.
Mar 9, 2026
Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton is a #1 New York Times bestselling biography that recasts one of American history's most debated Founding Fathers — an illegitimate, self-taught Caribbean orphan who rose to become George Washington's aide-de-camp, the primary architect of The Federalist Papers, and the first Treasury Secretary of the United States — as the indispensable, if often misunderstood, engine behind the nation's political and economic foundations. Winner of the George Washington Book Prize and the inspiration for the Broadway musical Hamilton, it stands as the definitive full-length portrait of its subject, drawing accolades from historians including David McCullough, Joseph Ellis, and Robert A. Caro.
Mar 7, 2026
SuperSummary's study guide for Ron Chernow's biography Alexander Hamilton is a chapter-by-chapter academic companion designed to help students, educators, and general readers get more out of one of the most celebrated works of American biographical writing. Written by experienced educators and literary scholars, it covers all 43 chapters of the source biography with summaries, character analysis, theme breakdowns, and discussion material — making Chernow's densely researched account of the Founding Father more accessible without replacing the original text.
Mar 1, 2026
Mary Beard's SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome is a critically acclaimed work of popular history published in 2015, a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction), that interrogates Rome's origins, power structures, and multicultural world through close reading of fragmentary evidence rather than a smooth, triumphalist narrative.
Feb 28, 2026Search
Rating
Active Filters
Search
Rating
Active Filters
Showing 49 - 60 of 81 reviews
