“What are the best History books released in 2023?” We looked at 316 of the top History books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
The top 19 books, all appearing on 3 or more “Best History” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 275+ titles, as well as the sources we used, are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.
Our other Best Of 2023 Articles:
Previous Years: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015
Happy Scrolling!
Lists It Appears On:
The early sixties in Britain told as only David Kynaston (‘the most entertaining historian alive’ Spectator ) can. Running from 1962 to 1965, A Northern Wind is the anticipated new volume in the landmark ‘Tales of a New Jerusalem’ series….
Lists It Appears On:
Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the war succeeded in shatt…
Lists It Appears On:
From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans….
Lists It Appears On:
Traditional interpretations of the British Empire’s emerging success and expansion have long overshadowed the deep uncertainty that marked its initial entanglement with India. In Courting India: Renaissance London, Mughal India, and the Origins of Em…
Lists It Appears On:
We have long been taught to presume that modern global history began when the “Old World” encountered the “New”, when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America in 1492. But, as Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows in this groundbreaking book, fo…
Lists It Appears On:
Architecturally breathtaking and rich in splendid art and décor, Hampton Court Palace has been the stage of some of the most important events in British history, such as the commissioning of King James’s version of the Bible, the staging of many of S…
Lists It Appears On:
The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in the USSR? What did it look, feel, smell, and sound like? In The Soviet Century, Karl Sch…
Lists It Appears On:
Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States and the artist who rea…
Lists It Appears On:
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces the path from the last triumphs o…
Lists It Appears On:
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband an…
Lists It Appears On:
Pax is a captivating narrative history of Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to realms beyond the frontier, historian Tom Holland shows ancient Rome in all its glory: Nero’s downfall, the destruction of Jerusalem and Pompeii, th…
Lists It Appears On:
Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its …
Lists It Appears On:
The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. This long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, as a new generation of scholars insist…
Lists It Appears On:
Around 950,000 years ago, a family of five walked along the beach and left behind the oldest family footprints ever discovered. For award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, these poignant, familiar fossils serve as an inspiration for a new kin…
Lists It Appears On:
In her international bestseller SPQR, Mary Beard told the thousand-year story of ancient Rome. Now she shines her spotlight on the emperors who ruled the Roman empire, from Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) to Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE…
Lists It Appears On:
The Roaring Twenties–the Jazz Age–has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They…
Lists It Appears On:
Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait…
Lists It Appears On:
As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth century. And yet in 1848 nearly all of Europe was aflame with conflict. Parallel political tumults sprea…
Lists It Appears On:
On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wa…
20) A Nasty Little War: The West’s Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution – Anna Reid List: (History Extra, Waterstones)
21) An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era – Beth Bailey List: (Open Letters review, Shepherd)
22) Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History – Tracy Borman List: (Smithsonian, Waterstones)
23) Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain – Paul Preston List: (Telegraph, Waterstones)
24) Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune – Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe List: (Goodreads, NPR)
25) Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 – Katja Hoyer List: (Telegraph, Waterstones)
26) Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo – Dayton Duncan List: (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)
27) Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson List: (Goodreads, Shepherd)
28) Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations – Simon Schama List: (History Extra, Waterstones)
29) France on Trial – Julian Jackson List: (Shepherd, Telegraph)
30) I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction – Kidada E. Williams List: (Amazon, Smithsonian)
31) Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint – Peter Sarris List: (History Extra, Waterstones)
32) Killing Thatcher – Rory Carroll List: (Shepherd, Waterstones)
33) Madame Restell – Jennifer Wright List: (Shepherd, Smithsonian)
34) November 1942: An Intimate History of the Turning Point of World War II – Peter Englund List: (Barnes & Noble, Waterstones)
35) Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears – Michael Schulman List: (NPR, Shepherd)
36) Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022 – Frank Trentmann List: (Telegraph, Waterstones)
37) Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues – Jonathan Kennedy List: (Goodreads, Shepherd)
38) Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution – Tania Branigan List: (History Extra, Waterstones)
39) Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II – Evan Thomas List: (NPR, Tertulia)
40) Shadows At Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century – Joya Chatterji List: (History Extra, Waterstones)
41) Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio – Chris Laoutaris List: (History Extra, History Today)
42) The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England – Jonathan Healey List: (Telegraph, Waterstones)
43) The Coming of the Railway: A New Global History, 1750-1850 – David Gwyn List: (History Extra, Telegraph)
44) The Forgers: The Forgotten Story of the Holocaust’s Most Audacious Rescue Operation – Roger Moorhouse List: (Telegraph, Waterstones)
45) The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe – Martyn Rady List: (Telegraph, Waterstones)
46) The Penguin History of Modern Spain: 1898 to the Present – Nigel Townson List: (Telegraph, Waterstones)
47) The Savage Storm: The Heroic True Story of One of the Least told Campaigns of WW2 – James Holland List: (History Extra, Waterstones)
48) The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA – Liza Mundy List: (Amazon, Smithsonian)
49) The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts – Loren Grush List: (Amazon, Goodreads)
50) The Windsors at War: The Nazi Threat to the Crown – Alexander Larman List: (The History Reader, Waterstones)
51) There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History – Rory Carroll List: (Goodreads, NPR)
52) Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death – Laura Cumming List: (History Extra, Shepherd)
53) 15646 – List: (Telegraph, History Extra)
54) 1923: The Forgotten Crisis in the Year of Hitler’s Coup (John Murray) – Mark Jones List: (History Extra)
55) 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World – Sean Hewitt and Luke Edward Hall List: (Waterstones)
56) A Brutal Reckoning – Peter Cozzens List: (Shepherd)
57) A Burning House – Brandon Washington List: (Shepherd)
58) A Day of Reckoning – Matthew Harffy List: (Shepherd)
59) A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till – Wheeler Parker List: (Tertulia)
60) A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women – Emma Southon List: (Waterstones)
61) A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe – Mark Dawidziak List: (Shepherd)
62) A Slow, Calculated Lynching: The Story of Clyde Kennard – Devery S. Anderson List: (NPR)
63) A Small Town in Ukraine: The place we came from, the place we went back to – Bernard Wasserstein List: (Waterstones)
64) A Social History of Modern Tehran – Ashkan Rezvani Naraghi List: (Shepherd)
65) A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes – Anthony Bale List: (Waterstones)
66) African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History – Hakim Adi List: (History Extra)
67) Africatown – Nick Tabor List: (The History Reader)
68) Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars – Tara Zahra List: (Financial Times)
69) Agave Spirits – Gary Paul Nabhan List: (Shepherd)
70) Alexandria – Islam Issa List: (Waterstones)
71) All Things Move – Jeannie Marshall List: (Shepherd)
72) American Breakdown – Jennifer Lunden List: (Shepherd)
73) American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis – List: (History Today)
74) Among the Braves – Shibani Mahtani List: (Shepherd)
75) An American Story – Kwame Alexander. Illustrated by Dare Coulter. List: (NPR)
76) An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created – Santi Elijah Holley List: (NPR)
77) Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World – Yepoka Yeebo List: (Tertulia)
78) Another India: The Making of the World’s Largest Muslim Minority, 1947-77 – Pratinav Anil List: (Financial Times)
79) Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art – Lauren Elkin List: (History Extra)
80) Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World – Claire Jean Kim List: (NPR)
81) Atlas of Classical History – Richard Talbert List: (Shepherd)
82) Beastly: A New History of Animals and Us – Keggie Carew List: (History Extra)
83) Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song – Judith Tick List: (NPR)
84) Bede and the Theory of Everything – List: (History Today)
85) Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad – Tamara J. Walker List: (Tertulia)
86) Biography of X – Catherine Lacey List: (NPR)
87) Bipolar General – Gregg F. Martin List: (Shepherd)
88) Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA – Theresa Runstedtler List: (Tertulia)
89) Black Everyday Lives, Material Culture and Narrative: Tings in de House (Routledge) – Shawn-Naphtali Sobers List: (History Extra)
90) Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class – Blair L.M. Kelley List: (Amazon)
91) Blackouts – Justin Torres List: (NPR)
92) Blood on the Snow: The Russian Revolution 1914-1924 – Robert Service List: (Waterstones)
93) Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942-1962 – List: (History Today)
94) Brave the Wild River – Melissa L. Sevigny List: (Shepherd)
95) Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood – Maureen Ryan List: (Shepherd)
96) But Will You Love Me Tomorrow: An Oral History of the ’60s Girl Groups – Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz List: (NPR)
97) Cinderella Boys: The Forgotten RAF Force that Won the Battle of the Atlantic – Leo McKinstry List: (Waterstones)
98) Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning – List: (Telegraph)
99) Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine – David Petraeus List: (Waterstones)
100) Crusader Mark II tanks near El Alamein in November 1942 – List: (Telegraph)
101) Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America – Heather Cox Richardson List: (Amazon)
102) Differ We Must – Steve Inskeep List: (Shepherd)
103) Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House – Alex Prud’homme List: (Amazon)
104) Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth – Signed Edition – Natalie Haynes List: (Waterstones)
105) Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada – List: (History Today)
106) Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans – Daniel Cowling List: (Shepherd)
107) Earth Transformed: An Untold History – Peter Frankopan List: (Open Letters review)
108) Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque – Ed Mitchell and Ryan Mitchell with Zella Palmer List: (NPR)
109) Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East – Uri Kaufman List: (Financial Times)
110) Eject! Eject! – John Nichol List: (Waterstones)
111) Elixir: A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life – Theresa Levitt List: (Financial Times)
112) End Times – Peter Turchin List: (Shepherd)
113) Europe and the Roma: A History of Fascination and Fear – Klaus-Michael Bogdal List: (Waterstones)
114) Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution – Cat Bohannon List: (Amazon)
115) Explaining Successes in Africa – Erin Accampo Hern List: (Shepherd)
116) Fake Heroes: Ten False Icons and How they Altered the Course of History – Otto English List: (Waterstones)
117) Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience and Family Secrets – Burkhard Bilger List: (Shepherd)
118) Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World – John Vaillant List: (Amazon)
119) First to the Front – List: (The History Reader)
120) Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland – Scott Shane List: (Amazon)
121) Follow Me to Hell – Tom Clavin List: (The History Reader)
122) Fool: In Search of Henry VIII’s Closest Man – List: (History Today)
123) Footmarks: A Journey Into our Restless Past – Dr Jim Leary List: (Waterstones)
124) Forgotten Warriors: A History of Women on the Front Line – Sarah Percy List: (Waterstones)
125) Fortune’s Bazaar – Vaudine England List: (Shepherd)
126) Gays on Broadway – Ethan Mordden List: (Tertulia)
127) Girls and Their Monsters – Audrey Clare Farley List: (Shepherd)
128) God Save Benedict Arnold – Jack Kelly List: (The History Reader)
129) Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon – Michael Lewis List: (Goodreads)
130) Great-Uncle Harry: A Tale of War and Empire – Michael Palin List: (Waterstones)
131) Hands of Time: A Watchmaker’s History of Time. – Rebecca Struthers List: (Waterstones)
132) Henry III – David Carpenter List: (Shepherd)
133) Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown – Alison Weir List: (History Extra)
134) Hi Honey, I’m Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture – Matt Baume List: (NPR)
135) His Majesty’s Airship – S C Gwynne List: (Shepherd)
136) Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA, 1975-1983 – Jen B. Larson List: (NPR)
137) Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad – Daniel Finkelstein List: (History Extra)
138) Hitler’s Aristocrats – Susan Ronald List: (The History Reader)
139) Homer and His Iliad – Robin Lane Fox List: (Waterstones)
140) How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South – Esau McCaulley List: (Amazon)
141) How to be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity – Jill Burke List: (Shepherd)
142) How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks – Adam Nicolson List: (Waterstones)
143) Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope – Sarah Bakewell List: (Tertulia)
144) Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage That Shook Europe – John Guy List: (Waterstones)
145) I Could Be So Good for You – John Medhurst List: (Shepherd)
146) Ian Fleming: The Complete Man – Nicholas Shakespeare List: (History Extra)
147) Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks – a Cool History of a Hot Commodity – Amy Brady List: (NPR)
148) If We Burn – Vincent Bevins List: (Shepherd)
149) Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain – Charlotte Lydia Riley List: (Waterstones)
150) In Search Of Berlin – John Kampfner List: (Waterstones)
151) In the Garden of the Righteous: The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives To Save Jews During the Holocaust – Richard Hurowitz List: (Open Letters review)
152) Into Siberia – Gregory Wallance List: (The History Reader)
153) Into the Amazon – Larry Rohter List: (Shepherd)
154) Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food – Fuchsia Dunlop List: (Shepherd)
155) Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500 – Peter Wilson List: (Open Letters review)
156) Jackie: Public, Private, Secret – J. Randy Taraborrelli List: (The History Reader)
157) Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History – List: (History Today)
158) Jovita Wore Pants: The Story of a Mexican Freedom Fighter – Aida Salazar, illustrated by Molly Mendoza List: (NPR)
159) Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia – Gary J. Bass List: (NPR)
160) Killing for Country – David Marr List: (Shepherd)
161) Knowing What We Know – Simon Winchester List: (Shepherd)
162) Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir In Archives – Amelia Possanza List: (NPR)
163) Life and Afterlife in Ancient China – Jessica Rawson List: (Waterstones)
164) Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – Peter Moore List: (Waterstones)
165) Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes on a New Age of Crisis – Jeanna Smialek List: (NPR)
166) Loot – Tania James List: (NPR)
167) Love in a Time of Hate: Art and Passion in the Shadow of War, 1929-39 – Florian Illies List: (Waterstones)
168) Luck of the Draw – Frank Murphy List: (The History Reader)
169) Marshal Philippe Pétain in Vichy in June 1941 – List: (Telegraph)
170) Mass Supervision: Probation, Parole, and the Illusion of Safety and Freedom – Vincent Schiraldi List: (NPR)
171) Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter – Ian Mortimer List: (Waterstones)
172) Men at War: Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945 – Luke Turner List: (Waterstones)
173) Messalina: The Life and Times of Rome’s Most Scandalous Empress – Honor Cargill-Martin List: (Waterstones)
174) Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him – List: (Telegraph)
175) Mosquito – Rowland White List: (Waterstones)
176) My Friend Anne Frank – Hannah Pick-Goslar List: (Shepherd)
177) My Hijacking – Martha Hodes List: (Shepherd)
178) Mythos: Illustrated – Stephen Fry List: (Waterstones)
179) Necessary Trouble – Drew Gilpin Faust List: (Shepherd)
180) No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggle of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era – Jacqueline Jones List: (Open Letters review)
181) Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History – Philippa Gregory List: (Waterstones)
182) Old Buildings, New Ideas – Francoise Astorg Bollack List: (Shepherd)
183) On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement – Kerry O’Brien and William Robin (editors) List: (NPR)
184) One Fine Day: Britain’s Empire on the Brink – List: (History Today)
185) Ordinary Notes – Christina Sharpe List: (Shepherd)
186) Oscar Wilde on Trial – Joseph Bristow List: (Shepherd)
187) Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino” – Héctor Tobar List: (NPR)
188) Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World – Malcolm Harris List: (Tertulia)
189) Penning Poison: A History of Anonymous Letters – Emily Cockayne List: (Financial Times)
190) Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia – David Graeber List: (Waterstones)
191) Plants, Politics, and Empire in Ancient Rome – List: (History Today)
192) Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close – Hannah Carlson List: (NPR)
193) Policy of Deceit – Peter Shambrook List: (Shepherd)
194) Politics On the Edge – Rory Stewart List: (Shepherd)
195) Poppy – List: (History Today)
196) Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish – List: (History Today)
197) Queens of a Fallen World – Kate Cooper List: (Shepherd)
198) Reform, Rebellion, Civil War, Settlement 1258-1272 – List: (Telegraph)
199) Romney: A Reckoning – McKay Coppins List: (NPR)
200) Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People – Tracy Kidder List: (Goodreads)
201) Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State – Anna Grzymała-Busse List: (Financial Times)
202) SAS Forged in Hell – Damien Lewis List: (Waterstones)
203) SAS: The Illustrated History of the SAS – Joshua Levine List: (Waterstones)
204) Saved – Benjamin Hall List: (Shepherd)
205) Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians – Tara Isabella Burton List: (Tertulia)
206) Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses – List: (History Today)
207) Sing as We Go: Britain Between the Wars (Hutchinson Heinemann) – Simon Heffer List: (History Extra)
208) Smell and the Past: Noses, Archives, Narratives (free as an ebook from bloomsbury collections.com) – William Tullett List: (History Extra)
209) Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions – Maurizio Isabella List: (Shepherd)
210) Spare – Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex List: (Shepherd)
211) Sparks – Ian Johnson List: (Shepherd)
212) Spies – Calder Walton List: (Shepherd)
213) Star Crossed: A True Romeo and Juliet Story in Hitler’s Paris – Heather Dune Macadam List: (Goodreads)
214) Stolen History: The Truth About the British Empire and How it Shaped Us (Penguin) – Sathnam Sanghera List: (History Extra)
215) The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church – Rachel L. Swarns List: (Tertulia)
216) The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market – Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway List: (Shepherd)
217) The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis – List: (History Today)
218) The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons – Cat Jarman List: (Waterstones)
219) The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man – David von Drehle List: (Goodreads)
220) The Britannias: An Island Quest – Alice Albinia List: (Waterstones)
221) The British Home Front and the First World War – Hew Strachan (editor) List: (Shepherd)
222) The Burning of the World – Scott W. Berg List: (Shepherd)
223) The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America – Christopher C. Gorham List: (Goodreads)
224) The Deadline – Jill Lepore List: (Shepherd)
225) The Declassification Engine – Matthew Connelly List: (Shepherd)
226) The Dirty Tricks Department – John Lisle List: (The History Reader)
227) The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180 (OUP) – Chris Wickham List: (History Extra)
228) The Evangelical Imagination – Karen Swallow Prior List: (Shepherd)
229) The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, Mit, and the Fight for Women in Science – Kate Zernike List: (Shepherd)
230) The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome’s Most Dangerous Political Symbol – List: (History Today)
231) The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge – List: (History Today)
232) The French Art of Living Well – Cathy Yandell List: (Shepherd)
233) The Frozen River – Ariel Lawhon List: (NPR)
234) The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941 – Robert Kagan List: (NPR)
235) The Global Pantry Cookbook: Transform Your Everyday Cooking with Tahini, Gochujang, Miso, and Other Irresistible Ingredients – Scott Mowbray and Ann Taylor Pittman List: (NPR)
236) The Great Defiance – David Veevers List: (Waterstones)
237) The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race – Farah Karim-Cooper List: (NPR)
238) The Hundred Years War Vol 5: Triumph and Illusion – Jonathan Sumption List: (Waterstones)
239) The Iliad – Emily Wilson List: (Waterstones)
240) The Illiterate – Ágota Kristóf, translated by Nina Bogin List: (NPR)
241) The Infinite City: Utopian Dreams on the Streets of London – Niall Kishtainy List: (Waterstones)
242) The Intimate State: How Emotional Life Became Political in Welfare-State Britain (OUP) – Teri Chettier List: (History Extra)
243) The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County – Tim Burrows List: (Waterstones)
244) The Last Outlaws – Tom Clavin List: (The History Reader)
245) The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time – Richard Fisher List: (History Today)
246) The Longest Minute – Matthew J. Davenport List: (The History Reader)
247) The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China – Robert D. Kaplan List: (Tertulia)
248) The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination – Stuart A Reid List: (Financial Times)
249) The Madman in the White House – Patrick Weil List: (Shepherd)
250) The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind A Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts – Christopher De Hamel List: (Open Letters review)
251) The Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras, pictured at the turn of the 20th century – List: (Telegraph)
252) The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity – Nicholas Day, illustrated by Brett Helquist List: (NPR)
253) The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill – Brad Meltzer List: (Goodreads)
254) The Nobel Family: Swedish Geniuses in Tsarist Russia – Bengt Jangfeldt, translated by Harry D Watson List: (Financial Times)
255) The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper: A New Statesman and Spectator Book of the Year – Roland Allen List: (Waterstones)
256) The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley – David Waldstreicher List: (Shepherd)
257) The Orwell Tour – Oliver Lewis List: (Shepherd)
258) The Patriarchs – Angela Saini List: (Shepherd)
259) The Picnic – Matthew Longo List: (Shepherd)
260) The Race to the Future: The Adventure that Accelerated the Twentieth Century, Radio 4 Book of the Week – Kassia St Clair List: (Waterstones)
261) The Red Hotel: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Disinformation War – Alan Philps List: (Waterstones)
262) The Rest is History – Goalhanger Podcasts List: (Waterstones)
263) The Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past – Christopher Hadley List: (Waterstones)
264) The Ruble: A Political History – List: (History Today)
265) The Russo-Ukrainian War – Serhii Plokhy List: (Shepherd)
266) The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China – List: (History Today)
267) The Second World War: An Illustrated History – James Holland List: (Waterstones)
268) The Shadow of Isandlwana – John Laband List: (Shepherd)
269) The Shortest History of India – John Zubrzycki List: (Waterstones)
270) The Sniper – Jim Lindsay List: (The History Reader)
271) The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune – Alexander Stille List: (Tertulia)
272) The Summer of 1876 – Chris Wimmer List: (The History Reader)
273) The Talk – Darrin Bell List: (Shepherd)
274) The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption – Katy Kelleher List: (Shepherd)
275) The Vice President’s Black Wife – Amrita Chakrabarti Myers List: (Shepherd)
276) The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times – Wolfram Eilenberger List: (Tertulia)
277) The War Came To Us – Christopher Miller List: (Shepherd)
278) The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918-1933 – List: (Telegraph)
279) The West: A New History of an Old Idea – Naoíse Mac Sweeney List: (Waterstones)
280) The Wife of Bath: A Biography (Princeton University Press) – Marion Turner List: (History Extra)
281) The Wounded World – Chad L Williams List: (Shepherd)
282) There Was a Party for Langston – Jason Reynolds, illus. by Jerome and Jarrett Pumphrey List: (NPR)
283) Time’s Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance – Jeremy Eichler List: (NPR)
284) Tiny Jumper – Candy Dahl List: (Shepherd)
285) To the End of the Earth (Dutton) – John C McManus List: (History Extra)
286) Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail – Andrea Lankford List: (Shepherd)
287) Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America – Jeremy Jennings List: (Open Letters review)
288) Twilight of the Godlings: The Shadowy Beginnings of Britain’s Supernatural Beings – List: (History Today)
289) Unlikely Heroes – Derek Leebaert List: (The History Reader)
290) Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater – Peggy Orenstein List: (NPR)
291) Unruly – David Mitchell List: (Waterstones)
292) Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan – List: (History Today)
293) Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II – Lena Andrews List: (Goodreads)
294) Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887-1975 – List: (History Today)
295) Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918–40 – Richard Dannatt List: (Waterstones)
296) Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions – John Brewer List: (History Today)
297) We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir – Raja Shehadeh List: (NPR)
298) We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy – Ta-Nehisi Coates List: (Amazon)
299) West: A Translation – Paisley Rekdal List: (NPR)
300) What is a Playhouse?: England at Play, 1520-1620 – List: (History Today)
301) What Sorrows Labour in My Parents’ Breast?: A History of the Enslaved Black Family (Rowman and Littlefield) – Brenda Stevenson List: (History Extra)
302) When Winter Came – Mary Beth Sartor Obermeyer List: (Shepherd)
303) White House by the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port – Kate Storey List: (Amazon)
304) Wifedom – Anna Funder List: (Shepherd)
305) Winnie and Nelson – Jonny Steinberg List: (Shepherd)
306) Winston Churchill outside 10 Downing Street in June 1943 – List: (Telegraph)
307) Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials – Marion Gibson List: (Waterstones)
308) Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother – Peggy O’Donnell Heffington List: (NPR)
309) Woman, Captain, Rebel – Margaret Willson List: (Shepherd)
310) Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars – Helen Fry List: (Waterstones)
311) Women of Myth: From Deer Woman and Mami Wata to Amaterasu and Athena, Your Guide to the Amazing and Diverse Women from World Mythology – Jenny Williamson and Genn McMenemy, illustrated by List: (NPR)
312) World War II – Robert Oulds List: (Shepherd)
313) Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey – Edel Rodriguez List: (NPR)
314) You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America – Paul Kix List: (Amazon)
315) Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America’s Revolutions – Mattie Kahn List: (NPR)
316) Young Queens: The gripping, intertwined story of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary, Queen of Scots – Leah Redmond Chang List: (Waterstones)
| Source | Article |
| Amazon | Best History Books of 2023 |
| Barnes & Noble | Barnes & Noble’s Best History Books of 2023 |
| Financial Times | Best books of 2023 — History |
| Goodreads | Best History & Biography 2023 |
| History Extra | 33 best books for history lovers: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year 2023 |
| History Today | Books of the Year 2023 |
| NPR | Books We Love |
| Open Letters Review | The Best Books of 2023: History! |
| Shepherd | The 100 best history books of 2023 |
| Smithsonian | The Ten Best History Books of 2023 |
| Telegraph | The best history books of 2023: from Churchill to Henry III |
| Tertulia | The 18 Best History Books of 2023 So Far |
| The History Reader | Must-Read History Books of 2023 |
| Waterstones | The Best Books of 2023: History |
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