Books like Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

01

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · History

Sapiens traces the full arc of human history from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa roughly 70,000 years ago to the present.

A kindred history read.

02

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

A kindred history read.

03

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky · Science

Behave is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to explain why humans do what they do — the violence, the altruism, the tribalism, the heroism — by working through every layer of biology that contributes to a single act.

A kindred history read.

04

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen · History

Hitler's Willing Executioners is Daniel Goldhagen's argument that the Holocaust was made possible by a specifically German form of antisemitism — what he calls "eliminationist antisemitism" — that was so deeply embedded in German culture by the twentieth century that ordinary Germans participated in the genocide willingly, not reluctantly, and often with evident enthusiasm.

Shares the holocaust and perpetrators with Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

05

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning

Timothy Snyder · History

Black Earth is Timothy Snyder's reinterpretation of the Holocaust that places it in an ecological and political framework rather than a strictly ideological one.

Both dig into the holocaust.

06

The Captive Mind

Czesław Miłosz · History

The Captive Mind is Czesław Miłosz's study of how intellectuals living under Soviet-imposed communism in postwar Eastern Europe came to accommodate, justify, and eventually internalize the ideology they had initially resisted.

Both dig into conformity.

07

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

Adam Grant · Psychology

Originals is Adam Grant's examination of how people champion new ideas without losing their jobs, their relationships, or their nerve.

Both dig into conformity.

08

The Secret History

Donna Tartt · Literary fiction

The Secret History opens with its ending: the narrator, Richard Papen, tells us on the first page that his friend Bunny is dead, and that he and four other students killed him.

Both dig into group psychology.

09

The Social Animal

Elliot Aronson · Psychology

Elliot Aronson is one of the most influential social psychologists in the history of the field, and The Social Animal, first published in 1972 and now in its twelfth edition, is the textbook introduction to social psychology that has shaped how generations of students think about human behavior.

Both dig into conformity.

10

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Charles C. Mann · History

Charles Mann's 1491 sets out to correct a widespread misconception: that the Americas before Columbus were a mostly empty wilderness populated by small, isolated bands of hunter-gatherers living in gentle harmony with an untouched nature.

A kindred history read.

11

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Charles C. Mann · History

Where 1491 ends, 1493 begins.

A kindred history read.

12

1776

David McCullough · History

David McCullough's 1776, published in 2005, covers a single year of the American Revolution — from the winter siege of Boston through Washington's crossing of the Delaware and the surprise victory at Trenton.

A kindred history read.