The Best History Books of 2019 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

“What are the best History books released in 2019?” We looked at 154 of the top History books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 23 books, all appearing on 2 or more “Best History” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 125+ titles, as well as the sources we used, are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.

Our other Best Of 2019 Articles:

• The Best Young Adult Books
• The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Books
• The Best Science And Nature Books
• The Best Mystery, Horror, and Thriller Books
• The Best Nonfiction Books
• The Best History Books
• The Best Fiction Books
• The Best Cookbooks
• The Best Graphic Novels And Comics
• The Best Biography And Memoir Books
• The Best Art And Photography Books
• The Best Kids, Children, and Youth Books
• The Best Poetry Books

Our Other Years: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015

Happy Scrolling!

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Top 23 Best History Books From 2019

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23 .) American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation written by Holly Jackson

Lists It Appears On:

• Smithsonian Magazine
• The Pietist Schoolman

A dynamic, timely history of nineteenth-century activists—free-lovers and socialists, abolitionists and vigilantes—and the social revolution they sparked in the turbulent Civil War era “In the tradition of Howard Zinn’s people’s histories, American Radical

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22 .) First: Sandra Day O’Connor written by Evan Thomas

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• NPR

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives—by the New York Time

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21 .) Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, And The Last Trial Of Harper Lee written by Casey Cep

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• NPR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION ‘A triumph on every level. One of the losses to literature is that Harper Lee never found a way to tell a gothic true-crime story she’d spent years researching. Casey Cep has excavated this mes

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20 .) Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power written by Pemma Hämäläinen

Lists It Appears On:

• Smithsonian Magazine
• The Pietist Schoolman

The first comprehensive history of the Lakota Indians and their profound role in shaping America’s history This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty†‘first

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19 .) Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler written by Lynne Olson

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• NPR

The little-known true story of the woman who headed the largest spy network in Vichy France during World War II. In 1941, a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of Allianc

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18 .) Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century written by George Packer

Lists It Appears On:

• The Pietist Schoolman
• NPR

“Portrays Holbrooke in all of his endearing and exasperating self-willed glory…Both a sweeping diplomatic history and a Shakespearean tragicomedy… If you could read one book to comprehend American’s foreign policy and its quixotic forays into quicksand

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17 .) Spying On The South: An Odyssey Across The American Divide written by Tony Horwitz

Lists It Appears On:

• Smithsonian Magazine
• NPR

The New York Times-bestselling final book by the beloved, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Tony Horwitz. With Spying on the South, the best-selling author of Confederates in the Attic returns to the South and the Civil War era for an epic adventure on the

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16 .) The Cigarette: A Political History written by Sarah Milov

Lists It Appears On:

• Smithsonian Magazine
• The Pietist Schoolman

The story of tobacco’s fortunes seems simple: science triumphed over addiction and profit. Yet the reality is more complicated—and more political. Historically it was not just bad habits but also the state that lifted the tobacco industry. What brought abo

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15 .) The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed By Jack The Ripper written by Hallie Rubenhold

Lists It Appears On:

• Dan Jones
• Goodreads

Miscast in the media for nearly 130 years, the victims of Jack the Ripper finally get their full stories told in this eye-opening and chilling reminder that life for middle-class women in Victorian London could be full of social pitfalls and peril.

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14 .) The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America written by Karen Abbott

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• Smithsonian Magazine

The epic true crime story of the most successful bootlegger in American history and the murder that shocked the nation, from the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy In the early days of Prohibition,

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13 .) The Impeachers: The Trial Of Andrew Johnson And The Dream Of A Just Nation written by Brenda Wineapple

Lists It Appears On:

• The Pietist Schoolman
• NPR

“When Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson became President, a fraught time in America became perilous. Congress was divided over how Reconstruction should be accomplished and the question of black suffrage. The South roiled with violence, lawlessne

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12 .) The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 written by Garrett Graff

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• Goodreads

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham “Remarkable…A priceless civic gift…On page after page, a reader will encounter words that startle, or make him angry, or heartbroken.”

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11 .) The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West written by David McCullough

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• Goodreads

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important and dramatic chapter in the American story–the settling of the Northwest Territory by dauntless pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that

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10 .) They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South written by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Lists It Appears On:

• Smithsonian Magazine
• The Pietist Schoolman

A bold and searing investigation into the role of white women in the American slave economy Bridging women’s history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery.

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9.) Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence written by Harlow Giles Unger

Lists It Appears On:

• Smithsonian Magazine
• The Pietist Schoolman

From New York Times bestselling author and Founding Fathers’ biographer Harlow Giles Unger comes the astonishing biography of the man whose pen set America ablaze, inspiring its revolution, and whose ideas about reason and religion continue to try men’s so

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8.) A Woman Of No Importance: The Untold Story Of The American Spy Who Helped Win World War II written by Sonia Purnell

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• Goodreads
• NPR

The never-before-told story of Virginia Hall, the American spy who changed the course of the World War II, from the author of Clementine In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and

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7.) Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster written by Adam Higginbotham

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• NPR
• The Pietist Schoolman

–THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER– ‘An invaluable contribution to history.’ Serhii Plokhy, Evening Standard ‘Tells the story of the disaster and its gruesome aftermath with thriller-like flair. Midnight in Chernobyl is wonderful and chilling … written wit

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6.) Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder And Memory In Northern Ireland written by Patrick Radden Keefe

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• Goodreads
• NPR

One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR – TIME MAGAZINE ONE OF THE BEST 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR – WASHINGTON POST NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD “Masked

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5.) The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, And The Pillage Of An Empire written by William Dalrymple

Lists It Appears On:

• Telegraph
• Goodreads
• NPR

“Superb … A vivid and richly detailed story … worth reading by everyone.” -The New York Times Book Review From the bestselling author of Return of a King, the story of how the East India Company took over large swaths of Asia, and the devastating resul

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4.) The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 written by Rick Atkinson

Lists It Appears On:

• The Pietist Schoolman
• Goodreads
• Amazon

From the bestselling author of the Liberation Trilogy comes this extraordinary history of the American Revolution.

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3.) The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present written by David Treuer

Lists It Appears On:

• The Pietist Schoolman
• Goodreads
• NPR

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Chapter after chapter, it’s like one shattered myth after another.” – NPR “An informed, moving and kaleidoscopic portrait…

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2.) The Season: A Social History Of The Debutante written by Kristen Richardson

Lists It Appears On:

• Smithsonian Magazine
• The Pietist Schoolman
• NPR

In this enthralling history of the debutante ritual, Kristen Richardson sheds new light on contemporary ideas about women and marriage. Kristen Richardson, from a family of debutantes, chose not to debut. But as her curiosity drove her to research this end

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1.) How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States written by Daniel Immerwahr

Lists It Appears On:

• Telegraph
• Smithsonian Magazine
• The Pietist Schoolman
• Goodreads
• NPR

A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power aro

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The 125+ Additional Best History Books Released In 2019

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#	Books	Authors	Lists
24	1919	Eve L. Ewing	NPR
25	A Good American Family: The Red Scare And My Father	David Maraniss	NPR
26	A Wild And Precious Life: A Memoir	Edie Windsor and Joshua Lyon	NPR
27	Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, The World’s Greatest Rodeo, And A Hidden History Of The American West	David Wolman and Julian Smith	NPR
28	American Pop: A Novel	Snowden Wright	NPR
29	An American Sunrise: Poems	Joy Harjo	NPR
30	Attlee and Churchill		Telegraph
31	Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society		Goodreads
32	Big Wonderful Thing: A History Of Texas	Stephen Harrigan	NPR
33	Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words	Jeremy Mynott	Five Books
34	Bringing Down The Duke	Evie Dunmore	NPR
35	Building Anglo-Saxon England	John Blair	Five Books
36	Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead		Amazon
37	Cantoras: A Novel	Carolina De Robertis	NPR
38	Cherokee America: A Novel	Margaret Verble	The Pietist Schoolman
39	Code Name: Lise. The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy		Goodreads
40	Cold Warriors		Telegraph
41	Court Number One: The Old Bailey Trials that Defined Modern Britain		Telegraph
42	D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II		Amazon
43	Delayed Rays Of A Star: A Novel	Amanda Lee Koe	NPR
44	Desire Lines	Elizabeth Kingston	NPR
45	Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind		Telegraph
46	Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through The Heart Of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom	Adam Chandler	NPR
47	Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II		Goodreads
48	Edison	Edmund Morris	The Pietist Schoolman
49	Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and England, Mother of Empires	Sara Cockerill	Dan Jones
50	Elizabethan Globalism: England, China And The Rainbow Portrait	Matthew Dimmock	NPR
51	Empress: Queen Victoria and India	Miles Taylor	Five Books
52	Epic Continent: Adventures In The Great Stories Of Europe	Nicholas Jubber	NPR
53	First to Fight: The Polish War 1939		Telegraph
54	Floating Coast: An Environmental History Of The Bering Strait	Bathsheba Demuth	NPR
55	Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story	Kevin Noble Malliard, illustrated	NPR
56	Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest	Hanif Abdurraqib	NPR
57	God Save The Queens: The Essential History Of Women In Hip-Hop	Kathy Iandoli	NPR
58	Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy		Amazon
59	Hitler		Telegraph
60	Hitler: Only the World Was Enough		Telegraph
61	Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz And The Secret History Of L.A.	Lili Anolik	NPR
62	How Was It For You? Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s		Telegraph
63	Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War		Amazon
64	In Waves	A.J. Dungo	NPR
65	Inventing Victoria	Tonya Bolden	NPR
66	Jerome Robbins, By Himself: Selections From His Letters, Journals, Drawings, Photographs, And An Unfinished Memoir	Jerome Robbins, edited	NPR
67	Jubilee: Recipes From Two Centuries Of African-American Cooking	Toni Tipton-Martin	NPR
68	Just Like Beverly: A Biography Of Beverly Cleary	Vicki Conrad, illustrated	NPR
69	King and Emperor		Telegraph
70	King of the World		Telegraph
71	Lady In The Lake: A Novel	Laura Lippman	NPR
72	Last Boat Out Of Shanghai: The Epic Story Of The Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution	Helen Zia	NPR
73	Legacy		Telegraph
74	Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography — Herself Alone	Charles Moore	The Pietist Schoolman
75	Mitz: The Marmoset Of Bloomsbury	Sigrid Nunez	NPR
76	Mrs. Everything: A Novel	Jennifer Weiner	NPR
77	Nightingale	Paisley Rekdal	NPR
78	Nobody’s Looking At You: Essays	Janet Malcolm	NPR
79	Norco ’80: The True Story Of The Most Spectacular Bank Robbery In American History	Peter Houlahan	NPR
80	Oblivion or Glory		Telegraph
81	One Day: The Extraordinary Story Of An Ordinary 24 Hours In America	Gene Weingarten	NPR
82	Opium: How An Ancient Flower Shaped And Poisoned Our World	John H. Halpern and David Blistein	NPR
83	Oscar: A Life	Matthew Sturgis	Five Books
84	Out Of Darkness, Shining Light: A Novel	Petina Gappah	NPR
85	Permanent Record	Edward Snowden	NPR
86	Places And Names: On War, Revolution, And Returning	Elliot Ackerman	NPR
87	Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom		Smithsonian Magazine
88	Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself		Telegraph
89	Queen Of The Sea	Dylan Meconis	NPR
90	Rebel	Beverly Jenkins	NPR
91	Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice	Mary Fulbrook	Five Books
92	Republic Of Shame: Stories From Ireland’s Institutions For ‘Fallen Women’	Caelainn Hogan	NPR
93	Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations		Amazon
94	Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation	Steve Luxenberg	The Pietist Schoolman
95	Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI		Telegraph
96	Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11	James Donovan	The Pietist Schoolman
97	Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives In World War II		Goodreads
98	Spy Runner	Eugene Yelchin	NPR
99	Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow	Henry Louis Gates	The Pietist Schoolman
100	Supreme Glamour	Mary Wilson with Mark Bego	NPR
101	Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine		Amazon
102	The Archive Of Alternate Endings	Lindsey Dragger	NPR
103	The Border: A Novel	Don Winslow	NPR
104	The Broken Road: George Wallace And A Daughter’s Journey To Reconciliation	Peggy Wallace Kennedy	NPR
105	The Brothers York: An English Tragedy		Telegraph
106	The Castle On Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, And Scandal At Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont	Shawn Levy	NPR
107	The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age	Leo Damrosch	The Pietist Schoolman
108	The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century	Clay Risen	The Pietist Schoolman
109	The Darksome Bounds of a Falling World		Telegraph
110	The Dead Queens Club	Hannah Capin	NPR
111	The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story		Goodreads
112	The Downstairs Girl	Stacey Lee	NPR
113	The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California		Amazon
114	The Education Of An Idealist: A Memoir	Samantha Power	NPR
115	The End Is Nigh		Telegraph
116	The Europeans		Telegraph
117	The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington		Goodreads
118	The Future Of Another Timeline	Annalee Newitz	NPR
119	The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians and Other European Immigrants Out of America	Daniel Okrent	The Pietist Schoolman
120	The Heartland: An American History	Kristin L. Hoganson	NPR
121	The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick		Goodreads
122	The Man Who Was Saturday		Telegraph
123	The Map of Knowledge: How Classical Ideas were Lost and Found: A History in Seven Cities		Telegraph
124	The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal.	Evan Ratliff	NPR
125	The Mosquito: A Human History Of Our Deadliest Predator	Timothy C. Winegard	NPR
126	The Nickel Boys: A Novel	Colson Whitehead	NPR
127	The Old Drift: A Novel	Namwali Serpell	NPR
128	The Plaza: The Secret Life Of America’s Most Famous Hotel	Julie Satow	NPR
129	The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution		Amazon
130	The Secrets We Kept: A Novel	Lara Prescott	NPR
131	The Shadow King: A Novel	Maaza Mengiste	NPR
132	The Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI	Lauren Johnson	Dan Jones
133	The Song of Simon de Montfort: England’s First Revolutionary	Sophie-Thérèse Ambler	Dan Jones
134	The Stationery Shop	Marjan Kamali	NPR
135	The Undefeated	Kwame Alexander, illustrated	NPR
136	The Voices of Nîmes: Women, Sex and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc	Suzannah Lipscomb	Dan Jones
137	The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War	Andrew Delbianco	The Pietist Schoolman
138	The War Nobody Wanted: 1939: A People’s History		Telegraph
139	They Called Us Enemy	George Takei, Justin Eisinger and Steven	NPR
140	They Will Have To Die Now: Mosul And The Fall Of The Caliphate	James Verini	NPR
141	This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto	Suketu Mehta	NPR
142	Trading in War: London’s Maritime World in the Age of Cook and Nelson	Margarette Lincoln	Five Books
143	Underground: A Human History Of The Worlds Beneath Our Feet	Will Hunt	NPR
144	Unexampled Courage: The Blinding Of Sgt. Isaac Woodard And The Awakening Of President Harry S. Truman And Judge J. Waties Waring	Richard Gergel	NPR
145	Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis		Goodreads
146	Useful Enemies		Telegraph
147	Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories Of Social Upheaval	Saidiya Hartman	NPR
148	What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir Of Witness And Resistance	Carolyn Forché	NPR
149	When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History	Massoud Hayoun	NPR
150	Who Dares Wins: Britain 1979-82		Telegraph
151	Winds of Change		Telegraph
152	Witcraft		Telegraph
153	Working		Amazon
154	You Will Be Safe Here	Damian Barr	NPR

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8 Best History Book Sources/Lists

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Source
Amazon
Dan Jones
Five Books
Goodreads
NPR
Smithsonian Magazine
Telegraph
The Pietist Schoolman