Nonfiction
History That Reads Like a Story
Narrative history that pulls you through the past.
14 books · ranked
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1
Sapiens
A sweeping history of humanity from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa to the present, arguing that what made humans uniquely powerful was the ability to create and believe in shared fictions — nations, religions, money — that allowed large-scale social cooperation impossible for other species. One of the bestselling non-fiction books of the 21st century.
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2
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Why some societies came to dominate others, argued from geography rather than race; sweeping and influential.
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3
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Great Migration of Black Americans told through three unforgettable lives; monumental narrative history.
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4
A People's History of the United States
American history told from the bottom up; a deliberately partisan and hugely influential counter-narrative.
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5
The Guns of August
How Europe stumbled into the First World War over a few weeks; narrative history at its most gripping.
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6
The Devil in the White City
A world's fair and a serial killer in 1890s Chicago, braided together; history that reads like a thriller.
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7
Team of Rivals
How Lincoln governed by appointing his opponents; a masterful study of political leadership.
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8
Stalingrad
The brutal turning-point battle of the Second World War; definitive, vivid military history.
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9
1776
The year America's revolution nearly failed; intimate, propulsive popular history.
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10
A man could stand up
"Surrounded by the jubilation of Armistice Day, Valentine Wannop receives a telephone call which brings alarming news of her dear friend Christopher Tietjens. For whilst she strains to hear against th
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11
Aesop's Fables
Aesop fables are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE.
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12
Ali Pacha
The beginning of the nineteenth century was a time of audacious enterprises and strange vicissitudes of fortune. Whilst Western Europe in turn submitted and struggled against a sub-lieutenant who made
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13
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
De dochter van een Griekse dokter wordt tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog gescheiden van haar geliefde, een kapitein in het Italiaanse leger.
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14
Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle:
I have stated in the preface to the first Edition of this work, and in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle, that it was in consequence of a wish expressed by Captain Fitz Roy, of having some scien