History & Politics

If you have any interest in history, social justice, or true crime, and you haven’t already picked up this book, you need to right now. Grann lays a meticulous thriller, but it’s all true. Introducing vivid characters, painting a living landscape, pacing the twists and turns of the mystery, and highlighting the injustices whose effects echo today, this will keep you up reading, and stay with you. - Jocelyn

Fanon’s masterwork on colonial struggle and racial difference has influenced countless anti-colonial revolutionaries and civil rights activists since the 1960s. Wretched examines the psychological framework by which colonial rule is legitimized and perpetuated, championing violent resistance as the only avenue to real change. Prescient, thought-provoking, and emotionally-gripping. - Travis

While many scientists cling to the idea that humans didn’t inhabit the American continents until fairly recently, evidence proving the contrary continues to build. In his latest, unorthodox analysis of human history, Hancock parses this evidence to prove that technologically and socially advanced humans inhabited the Americas for 10,000s of years before European conquest. - Aric

Upon the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing, award-winning historian Douglas Brinkley takes a fresh look at the space program, President John F. Kennedy’s inspiring challenge, and America’s race to the moon. “Brinkley is a national treasure. His writing brings history alive and reminds what can be achieved when our nation mobilizes our optimism, ambition, and ideals to a greater purpose.” —Ryan Coonerty

This companion book to the PBS documentary series (airing in July) tells the stories of the visionaries who helped America complete JFK’s historic moon landing challenge. “Chasing the Moon is so informative and so entertaining that it can easily stand on its own as a popular history of the Space Race. Stone and Andres capture not only the Cold War rivalry and turmoil of the period, but its heady optimism.” —Joseph Kanon

A history and assessment of California’s (misguided) water distribution system and the population growth it has engendered, The Dreamt Land reads like an expansive, expertly crafted novel. Propelled by endless curiosity and the courage to go where his story leads, Arax captures the personalities and voices of farmers, land barons, developers, laborers, environmentalists, politicians, and consumers who depend on (and fight over) access to our state’s most precious natural resource, and details the shady dealings and political nonsense that determines who gets to profit from it. What Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert is to the Western United States, this book is to California—an imperative and timely work that will be around for decades to come. - Rico

When most people think of the bubonic plague, they don’t associate it with America, and there are a handful of people who are responsible for that. Randall chronicles the largely forgotten efforts of the men who gave happiness, health, and in some cases their careers, to stop the spread of plague in San Francisco. Thoroughly researched and at times quite graphic, Randall’s account of this epidemic is a fascinating look at a disease largely forgotten but lurking in the shadows to this day. - Jade

In his latest work, Diamond chose seven countries that have had major crises within the last 150 years and examines how they’ve dealt with those crises. He then extrapolates from how those countries have evolved since to examine the state of the world today and to project how our future might unfold. Diamond has tackled several broad, complex, and sensitive topics here with the same intelligent and accessible writing that has made his earlier book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, an enduring classic. Part history lesson, part editorial, and part science lecture, I found this to be a truly fascinating read that should become required reading. - Jade

This exceptional collection of essays is as political as it is environmental, allowing for and celebrating the places we actually are, not just where we go, and how they inform who we are and how we live. With pieces by Belle Boggs, Camille T. Dungy, Lauret E. Savoy, Terry Tempest Williams, and others, Trespass brings intersectionality to environmental writing, exploring gender, race, and sexuality, reminding us that important place-based writing has always been about more than just the surroundings. - Melinda

Just prior to the Civil War, Frederick Law Olmsted —later the designer of Central Park—went on a tour of the South as a correspondent for the New York Times. Just prior to today’s civil war, Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic, retraced Olmsted’s route from West Virginia to Texas and into Mexico. From plantations and a monster truck mudfest to a New Orleans gospel-rocking church, he documents how much has changed and what’s still strikingly the same. - Dave