Best Year-End

The Best History Books of 2016 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

“What are the best History Books of 2016?” We aggregated 20 year-end lists and ranked the 206 unique titles by how many times they appeared in an attempt to answer that very question!

There are thousands of year-end lists released every year and, like we do in our weekly Best Book articles, we wanted to see which books appear on them the most. We used 20 lists and found 206 unique titles. The top 12 books, all appearing on 3 or more lists, are below with images, summaries, and links for learning more or purchasing. The remaining books, along with the articles we used, can be found at the bottom of the page.

Be sure to check out our other Best Book of the year lists:

And if you want to see how they compare to last year, take a look at the 2015 lists as well!

Happy Scrolling!

 



The Top History Books of 2016



12 .) American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White


Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Omnivoracious
  • Bloomberg

“Based on seven years of research with primary documents—some of them never examined by previous Grant scholars—this is destined to become the Grant biography of our time. White, a biographer exceptionally skilled at writing momentous history from the inside out, shows Grant to be a generous, curious, introspective man and leader—a willing delegator with a natural gift for managing the rampaging egos of his fellow officers. His wife, Julia Dent Grant, long marginalized in the historic record, emerges in her own right as a spirited and influential partner.

Grant was not only a brilliant general but also a passionate defender of equal rights in post-Civil War America. After winning election to the White House in 1868, he used the power of the federal government to battle the Ku Klux Klan. He was the first president to state that the government’s policy toward American Indians was immoral, and the first ex-president to embark on a world tour, and he cemented his reputation for courage by racing against death to complete his Personal Memoirs. Published by Mark Twain, it is widely considered to be the greatest autobiography by an American leader, but its place in Grant’s life story has never been fully explored—until now.

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11 .) Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips


Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • The Smithsonian

“Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, farmers and field hands, tradesmen, servants, and children. Many black residents were poor sharecroppers, but others owned their own farms and the land on which they’d founded the county’s thriving black churches.

But then in September of 1912, three young black laborers were accused of raping and murdering a white girl. One man was dragged from a jail cell and lynched on the town square, two teenagers were hung after a one-day trial, and soon bands of white “night riders” launched a coordinated campaign of arson and terror, driving all 1,098 black citizens out of the county. In the wake of the expulsions, whites harvested the crops and took over the livestock of their former neighbors, and quietly laid claim to “abandoned” land. The charred ruins of homes and churches disappeared into the weeds, until the people and places of black Forsyth were forgotten.”

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10 .) East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands


Lists It Appears On:

  • Stevereads
  • Guardian
  • The Economist

“East West Street looks at the personal and intellectual evolution of the two men who simultaneously originated the ideas of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity,” both of whom, not knowing the other, studied at the same university with the same professors, in a city little known today that was a major cultural center of Europe, “the little Paris of Ukraine,” a city variously called Lemberg, Lwów, Lvov, or Lviv.

The book opens with the author being invited to give a lecture on genocide and crimes against humanity at Lviv University. Sands accepted the invitation with the intent of learning about the extraordinary city with its rich cultural and intellectual life, home to his maternal grandfather, a Galician Jew who had been born there a century before and who’d moved to Vienna at the outbreak of the First World War, married, had a child (the author’s mother), and who then had moved to Paris after the German annexation of Austria in 1938. It was a life that had been shrouded in secrecy, with many questions not to be asked and fewer answers offered if they were.”

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9 .) Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, And The Sterilization Of Carrie Buck by Adam Cohen


Lists It Appears On:

  • St. Lousi Post Dispatch
  • NPR
  • The Vore

“In 1927, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling so disturbing, ignorant, and cruel that it stands as one of the great injustices in American history. In Imbeciles, bestselling author Adam Cohen exposes the court’s decision to allow the sterilization of a young woman it wrongly thought to be “feebleminded” and to champion the mass eugenic sterilization of undesirable citizens for the greater good of the country. The 8–1 ruling was signed by some of the most revered figures in American law—including Chief Justice William Howard Taft, a former U.S. president; and Louis Brandeis, a progressive icon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, considered by many the greatest Supreme Court justice in history, wrote the majority opinion, including the court’s famous declaration “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

Imbeciles is the shocking story of Buck v. Bell, a legal case that challenges our faith in American justice. A gripping courtroom drama, it pits a helpless young woman against powerful scientists, lawyers, and judges who believed that eugenic measures were necessary to save the nation from being “swamped with incompetence.” At the center was Carrie Buck, who was born into a poor family in Charlottesville, Virginia, and taken in by a foster family, until she became pregnant out of wedlock. She was then declared “feebleminded” and shipped off to the Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded.”

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8 .) The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens


Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Omnivoracious
  • The Smithsonian

With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the encroachment experienced by the tribes and the tribal conflicts over whether to fight or make peace, and explores the squalid lives of soldiers posted to the frontier and the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies.

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7 .) The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics by Sean Wilentz


Lists It Appears On:

  • St. Lousi Post Dispatch
  • Early Americanists
  • Kirkus

“First, America is built on an egalitarian tradition. At the nation’s founding, Americans believed that extremes of wealth and want would destroy their revolutionary experiment in republican government. Ever since, that idea has shaped national political conflict and scored major egalitarian victories―from the Civil War and Progressive eras to the New Deal and the Great Society―along the way.

Second, partisanship is a permanent fixture in America, and America is the better for it. Every major egalitarian victory in United States history has resulted neither from abandonment of partisan politics nor from social movement protests but from a convergence of protest and politics, and then sharp struggles led by principled and effective party politicians. There is little to be gained from the dream of a post-partisan world.

With these two insights Sean Wilentz offers a crystal-clear portrait of American history, told through politicians and egalitarians including Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and W. E. B. Du Bois―a portrait that runs counter to current political and historical thinking. As he did with his acclaimed The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz once again completely transforms our understanding of this nation’s political and moral character.”

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6 .) The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore


Lists It Appears On:

  • NPR
  • The Economist
  • Goodreads

“This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin, to Bismarck, Lincoln, Queen Victoria and Lenin.

To rule Russia was both imperial-sacred mission and poisoned chalice: six of the last twelve tsars were murdered. Peter the Great tortured his own son to death while making Russia an empire, and dominated his court with a dining club notable for compulsory drunkenness, naked dwarfs and fancy dress. Catherine the Great overthrew her own husband (who was murdered soon afterward), enjoyed affairs with a series of young male favorites, conquered Ukraine and fascinated Europe. Paul I was strangled by courtiers backed by his own son, Alexander I, who in turn faced Napoleon’s invasion and the burning of Moscow, then went on to take Paris. Alexander II liberated the serfs, survived five assassination attempts and wrote perhaps the most explicit love letters ever composed by a ruler. The Romanovs climaxes with a fresh, unforgettable portrayal of Nicholas II and Alexandra, the rise and murder of Rasputin, war and revolution—and the harrowing massacre of the entire family.”

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5 .) The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition by Manisha Sinha


Lists It Appears On:

  • Stevereads
  • Early Americanists
  • Bloomberg

Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor. Drawing on extensive archival research, including newly discovered letters and pamphlets, Sinha documents the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the centrality of slave resistance in shaping the ideology and tactics of abolition. This book is a comprehensive new history of the abolition movement in a transnational context. It illustrates how the abolitionist vision ultimately linked the slave’s cause to the struggle to redefine American democracy and human rights across the globe.

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4 .) The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb by Neal Bascomb


Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Kirkus
  • Goodreads

“It’s 1942 and the Nazis are racing to be the first to build a weapon unlike any known before. They have the physicists, they have the uranium, and now all their plans depend on amassing a single ingredient: heavy water, which is produced in Norway’s Vemork, the lone plant in all the world that makes this rare substance. Under threat of death, Vemork’s engineers push production into overdrive.

For the Allies, the plant must be destroyed. But how would they reach the castle fortress set on a precipitous gorge in one of the coldest, most inhospitable places on Earth?

Based on a trove of top secret documents and never-before-seen diaries and letters of the saboteurs, The Winter Fortress is an arresting chronicle of a brilliant scientist, a band of spies on skies, perilous survival in the wild, sacrifice for one’s country, Gestapo manhunts, soul-crushing setbacks, and a last-minute operation that would end any chance Hitler could obtain the atomic bomb—and alter the course of the war.”

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3 .) Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick


Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • Kirkus
  • Omnivoracious
  • The Smithsonian

“In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental Army under an unsure George Washington (who had never commanded a large force in battle) evacuates New York after a devastating defeat by the British Army. Three weeks later, near the Canadian border, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeds in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have ended the war. Four years later, as the book ends, Washington has vanquished his demons and Arnold has fled to the enemy after a foiled attempt to surrender the American fortress at West Point to the British. After four years of war, America is forced to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from within.
Valiant Ambition is a complex, controversial, and dramatic portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation. The focus is on loyalty and personal integrity, evoking a Shakespearean tragedy that unfolds in the key relationship of Washington and Arnold, who is an impulsive but sympathetic hero whose misfortunes at the hands of self-serving politicians fatally destroy his faith in the legitimacy of the rebellion. As a country wary of tyrants suddenly must figure out how it should be led, Washington’s unmatched ability to rise above the petty politics of his time enables him to win the war that really matters.”

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2 .) Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard


Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • NPR
  • Omnivoracious
  • St. Lousi Post Dispatch
  • The Smithsonian

“At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British Army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him.

Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, there to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels. But just two weeks after his arrival, the soldiers he was accompanying on an armored train were ambushed, and Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape–but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him.”

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1 .) White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg


Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Bloomberg
  • Dallas Voice
  • Early Americanists
  • Goodreads
  • Kirkus
  • NPR
  • St. Lousi Post Dispatch

“The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today’s hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds.

Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.”

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#13-206 Best History Books of 2016



 

# Book Author Lists
(Books Appear On 2 Lists Each)
13 All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women And The Rise Of An Independent Nation Rebecca Traister NPR
Goodreads
14 American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst Jeffrey Toobin Amazon
St. Lousi Post Dispatch
15 American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 Alan Taylor Early Americanists
Kirkus
16 Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith Amazon
Goodreads
17 Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy Heather Ann Thompson Stevereads
Bloomberg
18 City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York Tyler Anbinder Amazon
Kirkus
19 Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949 David Cesarani Guardian
Stevereads
20 Hidden Figures: The American Dream And The Untold Story Of The Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win The Space Race Margot Lee Shetterly NPR
Goodreads
21 Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 Volker Ullrich Amazon
The Smithsonian
22 Joe Gould’s Teeth Jill Lepore NPR
Early Americanists
23 Lenin on the Train Catherine Merridale The Economist
Financial Times
24 Louisa: The Extraordinary Life Of Mrs. Adams Louisa Thomas NPR
The Smithsonian
25 Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet History Day
History Day
26 Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds Pamela Rotner Sakamoto Kirkus
Goodreads
27 Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars Nathalia Holt Goodreads
The Vore
28 Secondhand Time: The Last Of The Soviets Svetlana Alexievich Kirkus
NPR
29 Spain In Our Hearts Adam Hochschild St. Lousi Post Dispatch
Goodreads
30 Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Early Americanists
Kirkus
31 The Gene: An Intimate History Siddhartha Mukherjee St. Lousi Post Dispatch
NPR
32 The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero Timothy Egan Amazon
Goodreads
33 The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story Of Indian Enslavement In America Andrés Reséndez Kirkus
NPR
34 The Rise and Fall of American Growth Robert J. Gordon Bloomberg
Kirkus
35 The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Robert Gerwath Stevereads
Financial Times
36 The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer Kate Summerscale Guardian
Amazon
37 Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South Beth Macy St. Lousi Post Dispatch
The Smithsonian
(Books Appear On 1 List Each)
38 1666: Plague, War and Hellfire Huffington Post 2
39 A Divided City St. Lousi Post Dispatch
40 A History of Britain in 21 Women: A Personal Selection Huffington Post 2
41 A Kingdom of their Own Joshua Partlow St. Lousi Post Dispatch
42 A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910 Early Americanists
43 A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley Early Americanists
44 A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe The Smithsonian
45 A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of the Establishment The Vore
46 After Caravaggio History Day
47 AMERICA’S WAR FOR THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST: A MILITARY HISTORY Andrew J. Bacevich Kirkus
48 American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread To Classic Layer, The Stories And Recipes Behind More Than 125 Of Our Best-Loved Cakes Anne Byrn NPR
49 American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason Early Americanists
50 Animal Electricity: How We Learned That the Body and Brain Are Electric Machines Robert B. Campenot Bioteaching
51 Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett Early Americanists
52 Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve Tom Bissell Stevereads
53 Ardor Roberto Calasso Verso
54 At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger,… Sarah Bakewell Amazon
55 Barkskins: A Novel Annie Proulx NPR
56 Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World Tim Whitmarsh Stevereads
57 Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature History Day
58 Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation Early Americanists
59 Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper and Arsenic in the Victorian Home Huffington Post 2
60 Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany Guardian
61 Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse The Vore
62 Brothers at Arms Larrie Ferreiro Stevereads
63 Burn Baby Burn Meg Medina NPR
64 Bush Jean Edward Smith St. Lousi Post Dispatch
65 Carry Me: A Novel Peter Behrens NPR
66 Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd, 1917 Huffington Post 2
67 Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures Of Urban Decay Ben Katchor NPR
68 Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran Laura Secor Amazon
69 City of Sedition: The History of New York City During the Civil War John Strausbaugh Dallas Voice
70 COLUMBUS—THE UNTOLD STORY Manuel Rosa Huffington Post
71 Countdown to Pearl Harbor Steve Twomey The Smithsonian
72 Culloden History Day
73 Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America Early Americanists
74 Dark Money: The Hidden History Of The Billionaires Behind The Rise Of The Radical Right Jane Mayer NPR
75 Darktown: A Novel Thomas Mullen NPR
76 Darwin’s Man in Brazil: The Evolving Science of Fritz Müller David A. West Bioteaching
77 Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us about Evolution Michael Ruse Bioteaching
78 Dead Presidents Brady Carlson St. Lousi Post Dispatch
79 Don’t Call Me Grandma Vaunda Nelson, illustrated NPR
80 Earth’s Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters Martin J. S. Rudwick Bioteaching
81 Ego Is The Enemy Ryan Holiday NPR
82 Eleanor And Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped A First Lady Susan Quinn NPR
83 Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3: The War Years And After, 1939-1962 Blanche Wiesen Cook NPR
84 Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years John Guy Financial Times
85 Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First Frank Trentmann Bloomberg
86 Endeavouring Banks: Exploring Collections from the Endeavour Voyage 1768-1771 Neil Chambers Bioteaching
87 Eve of a Hundred Midnights: The Star-Crossed Love Story of Two WWII Correspondents and their Epic Escape Across the Pacific Bill Lascher Goodreads
88 Eyes On The Street: The Life Of Jane Jacobs Robert Kanigel NPR
89 Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution Ruth Scurr Verso
90 Feeding Gotham: The Political Economy and Geography of Food in New York, 1790-1860 Gergely Baics Financial Times
91 Fine Lines: Vladimir Nabokov’s Scientific Art Stephen H Blackwell Bioteaching
92 First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies Kate Andersen Brower Goodreads
93 Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford Clint Hill Goodreads
94 Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives And Dreams Brought To Life Ashley Bryan NPR
95 From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America Early Americanists
96 Ghostland: An American History In Haunted Places Colin Dickey NPR
97 Hamilton: The Revolution Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarter NPR
98 Harry & Arthur St. Lousi Post Dispatch
99 Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire Peter Wilson The Economist
100 History of Islamic Philosophy Henry Corbin Verso
101 House of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth Richard Conniff Bioteaching
102 HOW EVERYTHING BECAME WAR AND THE MILITARY BECAME EVERYTHING: TALES FROM THE PENTAGON Rosa Brooks Kirkus
103 How To Be A Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide To Tudor Life Ruth Goodman NPR
104 How to Survive a Plague David France Stevereads
105 Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science Matthew Stanley Bioteaching
106 Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era Thomas C. Leonard Bloomberg
107 India Conquered: Britain’s Raj and the Chaos of Empire Guardian
108 India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia 1939-1945 Srinath Raghavan Financial Times
109 Invasion Genetics: The Baker and Stebbins Legacy Spencer C.H. Barrett Bioteaching
110 James Sowerby: The Enlightenment’s Natural Historian Paul Henderson Bioteaching
111 Kill ‘Em And Leave: Searching For James Brown And The American Soul James McBride NPR
112 Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan Bill O’Reilly Goodreads
113 Landmarks Robert Macfarlane Bloomberg
114 Leninism Under Lenin Marcel Liebman Verso
115 Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man William Shatner Goodreads
116 Listen To The Moon Rose Lerner NPR
117 Lives and Times of Great Pioneers in Chemistry: From Lavoisier to Sanger C N R Rao Bioteaching
118 March: Book Three John Lewis, with Andrew Aydin, illustrated NPR
119 Mind Your Manors Lucy Lethbridge Dallas Voice
120 Moonglow: A Novel Michael Chabon NPR
121 Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination Early Americanists
122 Moths, Myths, and Mosquitoes: The Eccentric Life of Harrison G. Dyar, Jr. Marc Epstein Bioteaching
123 New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America Early Americanists
124 New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration Early Americanists
125 NOTHING EVER DIES: VIETNAM AND THE MEMORY OF WAR Viet Thanh Nguyen Kirkus
126 Organizing Enlightenment History Day
127 Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions Early Americanists
128 Paracuellos Volume 1 Carlos Giménez NPR
129 PART OF THE FAMILY Jason Hensley Huffington Post
130 Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World Adrian Goldsworthy Amazon
131 Peplum Blutch NPR
132 Pit Bull: The Battle Over An American Icon Bronwen Dickey NPR
133 Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History Of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain NPR
134 Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World Early Americanists
135 Possession: The Curious History Of Private Collectors From Antiquity To The Present Erin Thompson NPR
136 Radio and the Politics of Sound in Interwar France, 1921-1939 Rebecca P Scales Financial Times
137 Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950 Marwa Elshakry Bioteaching
138 Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor Clinton Romesha Amazon
139 Republic of Taste: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America Early Americanists
140 Richard III: A Ruler and his Reputation History Day
141 Richard Posner William Domnarski Bloomberg
142 Rogue Heroes: The History Of The SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged The Nazis And Changed The Nature Of War Ben Macintyre NPR
143 Romantic Biology, 1890-1945 (History and Philosophy of Biology) Maurizio Esposito Bioteaching
144 Science among the Ottomans: The Cultural Creation and Exchange of Knowledge Miri Shefer-Mossensohn Bioteaching
145 Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life Ruth Franklin Goodreads
146 Shock And Awe: Glam Rock And Its Legacy, From The Seventies To The Twenty-first Century Simon Reynolds NPR
147 Show Me the Bone: Reconstructing Prehistoric Monsters in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America Gowan Dawson Bioteaching
148 Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of Economic Development Early Americanists
149 Sleep in Early Modern England Huffington Post 2
150 So Great a Prince: England in 1509 Huffington Post 2
151 SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome The Vore
152 Strange Gods Susan Jacoby Stevereads
153 Terror In The City Of Champions: Murder, Baseball, And The Secret Society That Shocked Depression-era Detroit Tom Stanton NPR
154 THE BITTER TASTE OF VICTORY: IN THE RUINS OF THE REICH Lara Feigel Kirkus
155 The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity Early Americanists
156 The Book Of Magic: From Antiquity To The Enlightenment Brian Copenhaver (editor) NPR
157 The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time Keith Houston Bloomberg
158 The Caped Crusade: Batman And The Rise Of Nerd Culture Glen Weldon NPR
159 The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Early Americanists
160 The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976 Frank Dikötter Financial Times
161 The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America Ethan Michaeli Amazon
162 The EU: An Obituary History Day
163 The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science (Synthesis) Jan Golinski Bioteaching
164 THE FIRST CONGRESS: HOW JAMES MADISON, GEORGE WASHINGTON, AND A GROUP OF EXTRAORDINARY MEN INVENTED THE GOVERNMENT Fergus M. Bordewich Kirkus
165 The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture Nerina Rustomji Verso
166 The General vs. the President H.W. Brands St. Lousi Post Dispatch
167 The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley Eric Weiner Amazon
168 The Glass Universe: How The Ladies Of The Harvard Observatory Took The Measure Of The Stars Dava Sobel NPR
169 The Gustav Sonata: A Novel Rose Tremain NPR
170 The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government Early Americanists
171 The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War Arkady Ostrovsky Amazon
172 The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House Jesse J. Holland The Smithsonian
173 The Jazz Of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music And The Structure Of The Universe Stephon Alexander NPR
174 The Life Organic: The Theoretical Biology Club and the Roots of Epigenetics Erik L. Peterson Bioteaching
175 The Lives of Tudor Women Huffington Post 2
176 The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House between the Wars Guardian
177 The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright Early Americanists
178 The Mayor Of Mogadishu: A Story Of Chaos And Redemption In The Ruins Of Somalia Andrew Harding NPR
179 The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer Skip Hollandsworth Goodreads
180 The Moment of Caravaggio History Day
181 The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain Darío Fernández-Morera Financial Times
182 The Nevilles of Middleham Huffington Post 2
183 THE PROFITEERS: BECHTEL AND THE MEN WHO BUILT THE WORLD Sally Denton Kirkus
184 The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914 Richard Evans The Economist
185 The Relic Master History Day
186 The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick Jessica Riskin Bioteaching
187 The Road to little Dribbling Bill Bryson St. Lousi Post Dispatch
188 The Secret Art of Alchemy Robert M. Black Bioteaching
189 THE SECRET WAR: SPIES, CIPHERS, AND GUERRILLAS, 1939-1945 Max Hastings Kirkus
190 The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction Mark Lilla Bloomberg
191 The Trials of the King of Hampshire Guardian
192 The Ultimate Ambition In The Arts Of Erudition: A Compendium Of Knowledge From The Classical Islamic World Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri, translated NPR
193 The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller’s Obsession With A Lost Masterpiece Laura Cumming NPR
194 The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State Lisa McGirr Financial Times
195 The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China Philip Ball The Economist
196 This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy Early Americanists
197 Thomas Jefferson Dreams Of Sally Hemings: A Novel Stephen O’Connor NPR
198 Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought Early Americanists
199 Urban Forests: A Natural History Of Trees And People In The American Cityscape Jill Jonnes NPR
200 Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation Early Americanists
201 WAGING WAR: THE CLASH BETWEEN PRESIDENTS AND CONGRESS, 1776 TO ISIS David J. Barron Kirkus
202 Weeping Britannia History Day
203 West of Eden Jean Stein St. Lousi Post Dispatch
204 White Rage Carol Anderson St. Lousi Post Dispatch
205 William the Conqueror David Bates Financial Times
206 Witness to the Revolution Clara Bingham St. Lousi Post Dispatch


The 20 Best History Book Lists Used



Source Article
Amazon Best history books of 2016
Bioteaching Top 2016 History of Science Books
Bloomberg Great History Books of 2016
Dallas Voice Holiday Gift Guide: Reading list!
Early Americanists My Favorite Books from 2016; or, a Christmas Book List for Your Early American History Nerd Friends
Financial Times Best books of 2016: History
Goodreads BEST HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY
Guardian The best history books of 2016
History Day The best history books of 2016
Huffington Post The Best Self-Published Books of 2016
Huffington Post 2 History Books By Women: Eight Of The Best From 2016
Kirkus Best History Books of 2016
NPR NPR’s Book Concierge Our Guide To 2016’s Great Reads
Omnivoracious The Best History Books of the Year
St. Lousi Post Dispatch The Best Books of 2015
Stevereads Best Books of 2016 – History!
The Economist Books of the Year 2016
The Smithsonian The Top History Books of 2016
The Vore Best new History books in 2016
Verso Staff Picks: Books of the Year 2016—Chosen by Verso

 

A.M. Anderson

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