The Best History Books of 2020 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

“What are the best History books released in 2020?” We looked at 194 of the top History books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 27 books, all appearing on 2 or more “Best History” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 150+ titles, as well as the sources we used, are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.

Our other Best Of 2020 Articles:

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

Previous Years: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015

All titles have been added to a Bookshop list as well!

Happy Scrolling!

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Top 27 Best History Books From 2020

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27.) A Curious History of Sex written byKate Lister

Lists It Appears On:

• Book Authority
• The Times

This is not a comprehensive study of every sexual quirk, kink and ritual across all cultures throughout time, as that would entail writing an encyclopaedia. Rather, this is a drop in the ocean, a paddle in the shallow end of sex history, but I hope you will get pleasantly wet nonetheless. The act of

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26.) A Promised Land written byBarack Obama

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• NPR

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making–from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his

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25.) A World Beneath the Sands: Adventurers and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology written byToby Wilkinson

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Times

From the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later, the uncovering of Egypt’s ancient past took place in an atmosphere of grand adventure and international rivalry.In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egy

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24.) Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy written byBen Macintyre

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• Barnes & Noble

The “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) behind the New York Times bestseller The Spy and the Traitor uncovers the true story behind the Cold War’s most intrepid female spy. In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her

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23.) Black SpartacusThe Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture written bySudhir Hazareesingh

Lists It Appears On:

• The Times
• Book Authority

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize “Black Spartacus is a tour de force: by far the most complete, authoritative and persuasive biography of Toussaint that we are likely to have for a long time . . . An extraordinarily gripping read.” –David A. Bell, The Guardian A new interpretation of the l

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22.) Britain’s War: A New World, 1942-1947 written byDaniel Todman

Lists It Appears On:

• The Telegraph
• Financial Times

The second volume of Daniel Todman’s account of Great Britain and World War II The second of Daniel Todman’s two sweeping volumes on Great Britain and World War II, Britain’s War: A New World, 1942-1947, begins with the event Winston Churchill called the “worst disaster” in British military history:

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21.) Crucible of Hell: Okinawa, the Last Great Battle of the Second World War written bySaul David

Lists It Appears On:

• The Telegraph
• The Times

With Allied forces sweeping across Europe and into Germany in the spring of 1945, one enormous challenge threatened to derail America’s audacious drive to win the world back from the Nazis

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20.) Eat The Buddha: Life And Death In A Tibetan Town written byBarbara Demick

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• NPR

A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the bestselling author of Nothing to Envy. “You simply cannot understand China without reading Barbara Demick on Tibet.”–Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition Just as she did with North Korea, award-winning journalist Ba

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19.) Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain written byPen Vogler

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Times

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18.) Sicily ’43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe written byJames Holland

Lists It Appears On:

• The Wall Street Journal
• The Times

On July 10, 1943, the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted took place, larger even than the Normandy invasion eleven months later: 160,000 American, British, and Canadian troops came ashore or were parachuted onto Sicily, signaling the start of the campaign to defeat Nazi Germany on European soi

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17.) The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story written byKate Summerscale

Lists It Appears On:

• The Telegraph
• The Times

Shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford prize Internationally bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Kate Summerscale follows a ghost hunter in 1938 London in a case that illuminates changing social attitudes toward psychoanalysis, sexuality, and the supernatural London, 1938. In the suburbs of

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16.) The Last Assassin: The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar written byPeter Stothard

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Times

Many men killed Julius Caesar. Only one man was determined to kill the killers. From the spring of 44 BC through one of the most dramatic and influential periods in history, Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, exacted vengeance on the assassins of the Ides of March, not only

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15.) The Ratline written byPhilippe Sands

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Telegraph

Hypnotic, shocking, and unputdownable. –John le Carr From the author of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning East West Street: A tale of Nazi lives, mass murder, love, cold war espionage, a mysterious death in the Vatican–and the Ratline, the Nazi escape route to Peron’s Argentina. Baron O

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14.) The White Ship written byCharles Spencer

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Telegraph

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13.) War written byProfessor Margaret MacMillan

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Wall Street Journal

The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war–organized violence–comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultura

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12.) Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country written bySierra Crane Murdoch

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• NPR

The gripping true story of a murder on an Indian reservation, and the unforgettable Arikara woman who becomes obsessed with solving it–an urgent work of literary journalism. “I don’t know a more complicated, original protagonist in literature than Lissa Yellow Bird, or a more dogged reporter in Ame

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11.) A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence and Social Division in Modern Spain 1874-2018 written byPaul Preston

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Telegraph
• Financial Times

The culmination of a half-century of historical investigation, A People Betrayed is not only a definitive history of modern Spain but also a compelling narrative that becomes a lens for understanding the challenges that virtually all democracies have faced in the modern world.Whereas so many twentie

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10.) Britain at BayThe Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941 written byAlan Allport

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Times
• Book Authority

A sweeping, groundbreaking epic that combines military with social history, to illuminate the ways in which Great Britain and its people were permanently transformed by the Second World War. Here is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the m

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9.) Gladius: Living Fighting and Dying in the Roman Army written byGuy de la Bédoyère

Lists It Appears On:

• Waterstones
• The Telegraph
• The Times

The Roman army was the greatest fighting machine in the ancient world. More than that, it was the single largest organization in Western antiquity, taking in members from all classes, from senators to freed slaves. The Roman Empire depended on its army not just to win its wars, defend its frontiers,

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8.) His Truth Is Marching on: John Lewis and the Power of Hope written byJon Meacham

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Goodreads
• Amazon

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present–from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Soul of America John Lewis, who a

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7.) Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 written byRick Perlstein

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon
• The Times

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power. Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of co

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6.) The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X written byLes Payne

Lists It Appears On:

• Amazon
• NPR
• Smithsonian

Finalist — National Book Award for Nonfiction – Excerpted in The New Yorker – Longlisted — Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction – New Books to Watch Out for in October — New York Times – Best Books of Fall 2020 — O, the Oprah Magazine, The Week, St. Louis Post-Dispatch – Best New B

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5.) The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power written byMartyn Rady

Lists It Appears On:

• The Telegraph
• The Times
• Book Authority

The definitive history of a powerful family dynasty who dominated Europe for centuries — from their rise to power to their eventual downfall. In The Habsburgs, Martyn Rady tells the epic story of a dynasty and the world it built — and then lost — over nearly a millennium. From modest origins, the

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4.) The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom written byH. W. Brands

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon
• Smithsonian

Gifted storyteller and bestselling historian H. W. Brands narrates the epic struggle over slavery as embodied by John Brown and Abraham Lincoln–two men moved to radically different acts to confront our nation’s gravest sin. John Brown was a charismatic and deeply religious man who heard the God of

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3.) You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington written byAlexis Coe

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• NPR
• Smithsonian

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “In her form-shattering and myth-crushing book….Coe examines myths with mirth, and writes history with humor… [You Never Forget Your First] is an accessible look at a president who always finishes in the first ranks of our leaders.” –Boston Globe Alexis Coe

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2.) Caste written byIsabel Wilkerson

Lists It Appears On:

• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon
• Goodreads
• NPR
• Smithsonian

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK – LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD – “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”–Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The W

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1.) The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz written byErik Larson

Lists It Appears On:

• The Wall Street Journal
• Barnes & Noble
• Goodreads
• Amazon
• NPR

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz–an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis One of Chicago Tribune’s Best Books of the Year So

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The 150+ Additional Best History Books Released In 2020

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#	Book	Author	Lists
28	100 Great Black Britons	Patrick Vernon Angelina Osborne	Waterstones
29	999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz	Heather Dune Macadam	Goodreads
30	A Black Women’s History of the United States	Daina Ramey Berry	Goodreads
31	A Mind Spread Out on the Ground	Alicia Elliott	Amazon
32	A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America’s First All-Black High School Rowing Team	Arshay Cooper	Amazon
33	A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order	Judith Flanders	The Times
34	African Europeans	Olivette Otele	Waterstones
35	AKBARThe Great Mughal	Ira Mukhoty	Book Authority
36	Alaric the GothAn Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome	Douglas Boin	Book Authority
37	All Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and the Origins of the Second World War	Paul Jankowski	Financial Times
38	American HistoryA Captivating Guide to the History of the United States of America, American Revolution, Civil War, Chicago, Roaring Twenties, Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, and Gulf War	Captivating History	Book Authority
39	Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House	Rachel Maddow	Barnes & Noble
40	Banned Book Club	Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada	NPR
41	Behind the Enigma	John Ferris	Waterstones
42	Black Heroes Of The Wild West	James Otis Smith	NPR
43	Blood On The River: A Chronicle Of Mutiny And Freedom On The Wild Coast	Marjoleine Kars	NPR
44	Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe	Robert Bartlett	Financial Times
45	Bread Winner		The Telegraph
46	British Summer Time Begins	Ysenda Maxtone Graham	Waterstones
47	Burning the Books	Richard Ovenden	Waterstones
48	Capital And Ideology	Thomas Piketty	NPR
49	Conditional Citizens: On Belonging In America	Laila Lalami	NPR
50	Conquistadores: A New History	Fernando Cervantes	The Times
51	Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music And Changed American Culture	Grace Elizabeth Hale	NPR
52	Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy	Larry Tye	Amazon
53	Desert Notebooks: A Road Map For The End Of Time	Ben Ehrenreich	NPR
54	Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness	Sinclair McKay	The Times
55	Elizabethans		Waterstones
56	Endell Street	Wendy Moore	Waterstones
57	Everything Man: The Form And Function Of Paul Robeson	Shana L. Redmond	NPR
58	ExilePortraits of the Jewish Diaspora	Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, Tiffany Gabbay	Book Authority
59	Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases	Michael Chabon	Goodreads
60	Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy	Alastair Gee Dani Anguiano	Amazon
61	First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country	Thomas E. Ricks	Amazon
62	Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto	Miren Arzalluz	NPR
63	Gambling With Armageddon	Martin J. Sherwin	The Wall Street Journal
64	Genocide in Libya	Ali Abdullatif Ahmida	Book Authority
65	George III		The Telegraph
66	Glass Town: The Imaginary World Of The Brontës	Isabel Greenberg	NPR
67	GreeceBiography of a Modern Nation	Roderick Beaton	Book Authority
68	Haldane		The Telegraph
69	Heaven and HellA History of the Afterlife	Bart D. Ehrman	Book Authority
70	His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life	Jonathan Alter	NPR
71	HumankindA Hopeful History	Rutger Bregman, Elizabeth Manton, Erica Moore	Book Authority
72	I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir	Esther Safran Foer	NPR
73	If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future	Jill Lepore	Barnes & Noble
74	In the Reign of King John	Dan Jones	Waterstones
75	International Brigades		The Telegraph
76	Inventing Latinos: A New Story Of American Racism	Laura E. Gómez	NPR
77	Islamic EmpiresThe Cities that Shaped Civilization: From Mecca to Dubai	Justin Marozzi	Book Authority
78	JFK		The Telegraph
79	Kent State: Four Dead In Ohio	Derf Backderf	NPR
80	Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders		The Telegraph
81	Lancaster	John Nichol	Waterstones
82	Legendary Children: The First Decade Of RuPaul’s Drag Race And The Last Century Of Queer Life	Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez	NPR
83	Life Of A Klansman: A Family History In White Supremacy	Edward Ball	NPR
84	Lifting As We Climb: Black Women’s Battle For The Ballot Box	Evette Dionne	NPR
85	Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America	Michael Eric Dyson	Amazon
86	Looking To Get Lost: Adventures In Music And Writing	Peter Guralnick	NPR
87	Love Child’s Hotbed Of Occasional Poetry: Poems & Artifacts	Nikky Finney	NPR
88	Machiavelli: His Life and Times	Alexander Lee	Financial Times
89	March On	Lucy Lang, Grace Lang	Book Authority
90	Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II	Linda Porter	The Times
91	Music For The Dead And Resurrected: Poems	Valzhyna Mort	NPR
92	Mussolini’s War		The Telegraph
93	My Autobiography Of Carson McCullers: A Memoir	Jenn Shapland	NPR
94	Night Letters: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar And The Afghan Islamists Who Changed The World	Chris Sands with Fazelminallah Qazizai	NPR
95	Notre-DameThe Soul of France	Agnès Poirier	Book Authority
96	One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965	Jia Lynn Yang	Smithsonian
97	Our Bodies Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women	Christina Lamb	The Times
98	Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast Of The 50 States	Colin Quinn	NPR
99	Pandora’s Jar	Natalie Haynes	Waterstones
100	Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last	Wright Thompson	Amazon
101	Political Sign (Object Lessons)	Tobias Carroll	NPR
102	Prisoners of History: What Monuments to the Second World War Tell Us About Our History and Ourselves	Keith Lowe	The Times
103	Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate	Paul Lay	The Times
104	Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens The Unsolved Murder Cases Of The Civil Rights Era	Jerry Mitchell	NPR
105	Race For Profit: How Banks And The Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership	Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor	NPR
106	Ravenna		The Telegraph
107	RavennaCapital of Empire, Crucible of Europe	Judith Herrin	Book Authority
108	Remembrance	Rita Woods	NPR
109	Revolutions	Peter Furtado	Waterstones
110	Roadside Americans: The Rise And Fall Of Hitchhiking In A Changing Nation	Jack Reid	NPR
111	Royal WitchesWitchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England	Gemma Hollman	Book Authority
112	Salazar		The Telegraph
113	Sam Houston and the Alamo AvengersThe Texas Victory That Changed American History	Brian Kilmeade	Book Authority
114	Show Me A Sign	Ann Clare LeZotte	NPR
115	Spartans		Book Authority
116	Spies and Scholars: Chinese Secrets and Imperial Russia’s Quest for World Power	Gregory Afinogenov	Financial Times
117	Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, And You	Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi	NPR
118	Story of the World Text Bundle, PaperbackHistory for the Classical Child: Ancient Times through The Modern Age	Susan Wise Bauer	Book Authority
119	Strange Antics		The Telegraph
120	Survivors		The Telegraph
121	Swimming In The Dark: A Novel	Tomasz Jedrowski	NPR
122	Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel	Rachel Holmes	The Times
123	The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power	Deirdre Mask	Goodreads
124	The Age Of Phillis	Honorée Fanonne Jeffers	NPR
125	The Autobiography Of Alice B. Toklas Illustrated	Gertrude Stein	NPR
126	The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance	Catherine Fletcher	The Times
127	The Boston Massacre: A Family History	Serena Zabin	Amazon
128	The Care and Feeding Of Waspish Widows	Olivia Waite	NPR
129	The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings	Neil Price	The Times
130	The Craft	John Dickie	Waterstones
131	The Daughters of Yalta	Catherine Grace Katz	The Telegraph
132	The Decline of Magic: Britain in the Enlightenment	Michael Hunter	Financial Times
133	The Deepest South Of All: True Stories From Natchez, Mississippi	Richard Grant	NPR
134	The Fortress: The Siege of Przemyśl and the Making of Europe’s Bloodlands	Alexander Watson	Financial Times
135	The Glamour Boys	Chris Bryant	Waterstones
136	The Good Germans	Catrine Clay	Waterstones
137	The Good Sharps		The Telegraph
138	The Great Secret: The Classified World War II Disaster that Launched the War on Cancer	Jennet Conant	Smithsonian
139	The History of Magic		The Telegraph
140	The History of Middle-earth Boxed Set	Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien	Book Authority
141	The history of the island of Antigua, one of the Leeward Caribbees in the West Indies, from the first settlement in 1635 to the present time	Vere Langford Oliver	Book Authority
142	The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism	Susan Berfield	Amazon
143	The House of Kennedy	James Patterson	Goodreads
144	The Human Cosmos: Civilization And The Stars	Jo Marchant	NPR
145	The Hunt for HistoryOn the Trail of the World’s Lost Treasures―from the Letters of Lincoln, Churchill, and Einstein to the Secret Recordings Onboard JFK’s Air Force One	Nathan Raab, Luke Barr	Book Authority
146	The Infiltrators		The Telegraph
147	The Interest		The Telegraph
148	The International Brigades	Giles Tremlett	Waterstones
149	The Invisible Life Of Addie LaRue	V.E. Schwab	NPR
150	The Invisible RainbowA History of Electricity and Life	Arthur Firstenberg	Book Authority
151	The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade And The Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World	Vincent Bevins	NPR
152	The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives	Christopher Harding	The Times
153	The Jews and the Reformation	Kenneth Austin	Financial Times
154	The Journeys Of Trees: A Story About Forests, People, And The Future	Zach St. George	NPR
155	The King of Nazi Paris: Henri LaFont and the French Gestapo	Othen Christopher	The Telegraph
156	The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons From World War To Cold War	David Nasaw	NPR
157	The Light Ages		The Telegraph
158	The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America’s 16th President⁠—and Why It Failed	Brad Meltzer	Goodreads
159	The Mirror & The Light	Hilary Mantel	NPR
160	The Mountains Sing	Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai	NPR
161	The Napoleonic WarsA Global History	Alexander Mikaberidze	Book Authority
162	The Night Watchman	Louise Erdrich	NPR
163	The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family	Bettye Kearse	Smithsonian
164	The Pilgrim Hypothesis	Timothy Ballard	Book Authority
165	The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War–a Tragedy in Three Acts	Scott Anderson	Amazon
166	The Riches Of This Land	Jim Tankersley	NPR
167	The Shadow King	Maaza Mengiste	NPR
168	The Shortest History of England		Waterstones
169	The Socrates Express: In Search Of Life Lessons From Dead Philosophers	Eric Weiner	NPR
170	The Story of China	Michael Wood	Waterstones
171	The Things They Fancied	Megan Kate Nelson	NPR
172	The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West		Smithsonian
173	The Wax Pack: On The Open Road In Search Of Baseball’s Afterlife	Brad Balukjian	NPR
174	The World Aflame	Dan Jones, Marina Amaral	Waterstones
175	The Young LordsA Radical History	Johanna Fernández	Book Authority
176	They Went Left	Monica Hesse	NPR
177	This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England, 1760-1960	Robert Colls	The Times
178	Time Traveller’s Guide to Regency Britain		The Telegraph
179	To Calais, In Ordinary Time	James Meek	NPR
180	Trouble The Saints: A Novel	Alaya Dawn Johnson	NPR
181	Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism	Anne Applebaum	Amazon
182	Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945	Ian W. Toll	Barnes & Noble
183	Uncrowned Queen: The Life of Margaret Beaufort, Mother of the Tudors	Nicola Tallis	Smithsonian
184	Underground Asia: Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire	Tim Harper	Financial Times
185	Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession Of Native Americans And The Road To Indian Territory	Claudio Saunt	NPR
186	Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, And The Birth Of 24-Hour News	Lisa Napoli	NPR
187	Venus and AphroditeA Biography of Desire	Bettany Hughes	Book Authority
188	Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife	Ariel Sabar	Smithsonian
189	Wagnerism: Art And Politics In The Shadow Of Music	Alex Ross	NPR
190	Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots	Morgan Jerkins	Amazon
191	Waves Across the South	Sujit Sivasundaram	Waterstones
192	We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy	Ta-Nehisi Coates	Amazon
193	Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy	David Zucchino	Amazon
194	Year Of The Rabbit	Tian Veasna	NPR

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11 Best History Book Sources/Lists

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Source	Article
Amazon	Best history books of 2020
Barnes & Noble	Barnes & Noble’s Best History of 2020
Book Authority	28 Best New History Books To Read In 2021
Financial Times	Best books of 2020: History
Goodreads	Best History & Biography
NPR	NPR’s Book Concierge
Smithsonian	The Ten Best History Books of 2020
The Telegraph	The best history books of 2020
The Times	Best history books of the year 2020
The Wall Street Journal	Holiday Gift Books 2020: History
Waterstones	The Best Books of 2020: History