History · Similar reads
Books like The Big Change
The best books like The Big Change are A People's History of the United States, The Warmth of Other Suns, and American Nations. The Big Change by Frederick Lewis Allen is about american history, social change, economic progress. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- A People's History of the United States
01
A People's History of the United States
Howard Zinn · History
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, retells American history from the perspective of those who rarely appear in conventional textbooks: Native Americans, enslaved people, industrial workers, women, immigrants, and dissidents of various kinds.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - The Warmth of Other Suns
02
Isabel Wilkerson · Memoir
Isabel Wilkerson's account of the Great Migration — the movement of six million Black Americans from the South to the North and West between 1915 and 1970 — is one of the most important works of narrative nonfiction published in the twenty-first century.
A kindred history read.
Read the summary → - American Nations
03
Colin Woodard · History
American Nations is Colin Woodard's argument that North America is not a single nation but a continent of 11 distinct regional cultures, each founded by different waves of settlers with different values, institutions, and political philosophies, and that understanding those foundational cultures is more useful for explaining American political conflict than the standard red-state/blue-state framing.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
04
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.
Read the summary → - Guns, Germs, and Steel
05
Jared Diamond · Science
Guns, Germs, and Steel is Jared Diamond's attempt to answer a question posed to him by a Papua New Guinean politician named Yali: why did Europeans end up with so much cargo — wealth, technology, power — while other peoples had comparatively little?
A kindred history read.
Read the summary → - Americana
06
Bhu Srinivasan · History
Americana is Bhu Srinivasan's attempt to tell the history of American capitalism through its defining industries and the entrepreneurs who built them.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - Empires of Light
07
Jill Jonnes · History
Empires of Light is Jill Jonnes's history of the War of Currents — the late-nineteenth-century battle between Thomas Edison's direct-current electrical system and George Westinghouse's alternating-current system, with Nikola Tesla as the third figure whose genius made AC practical.
Both dig into technology.
Read the summary → - Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
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Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
Erik Larson · History
Isaac's Storm reconstructs the deadliest natural disaster in American history: the hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killing somewhere between six and twelve thousand people in a single day.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - Perfecting Sound Forever
09
Greg Milner · History
Perfecting Sound Forever is Greg Milner's history of recorded music as a technology — and an argument about what that technology has cost.
Both dig into technology.
Read the summary → - Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
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Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi · History
Stamped from the Beginning is Ibram X.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - The Fourth Turning
11
William Strauss & Neil Howe · History
The Fourth Turning is William Strauss and Neil Howe's 1997 argument that Anglo-American history moves in recurring eighty-to-one-hundred-year cycles, each composed of four "turnings" corresponding to distinct social moods.
Both dig into social change.
Read the summary → - Thunderstruck
12
Erik Larson · History
Thunderstruck interweaves two narratives set in Edwardian England and the North Atlantic: the story of Guglielmo Marconi's obsessive drive to make wireless telegraphy work across the Atlantic Ocean, and the story of Hawley Harvey Crippen, a mild-mannered American doctor who murdered his wife in London in 1910 and fled with his mistress — only to be captured at sea because of a wireless telegraph message, the first criminal caught with the technology's help.
Both dig into technology.
Read the summary →
Books like The Big Change: quick answers
What are the best books like The Big Change?
The best books like The Big Change by Frederick Lewis Allen are A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, American Nations by Colin Woodard, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Big Change, such as american history, social change, economic progress.
What should I read after The Big Change?
A natural next read after The Big Change is A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Both dig into american history. Other strong choices are The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, American Nations by Colin Woodard, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.
What books are similar to The Big Change by Frederick Lewis Allen?
The Big Change centers on american history, social change, economic progress. Books with a similar feel include A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, American Nations by Colin Woodard, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Americana by Bhu Srinivasan — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
