Books like The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

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

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Simon Schama · History

Simon Schama's Citizens was published to mark the bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 and immediately became one of the most controversial histories of the event in decades.

Both dig into france.

03

Guns, Germs, and Steel

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?

Both dig into geography.

04

Alexander Hamilton

Ron Chernow · Biography

Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton — immigrant, orphan, Revolutionary War aide-de-camp, first Secretary of the Treasury, founder of the American financial system, and victim of Aaron Burr's bullet — is the most comprehensive single-volume account of Hamilton's life and the book that most directly sparked the Hamilton revival in popular culture, including Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical.

A kindred history read.

05

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

James M. McPherson · History

James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, published in 1988, is the standard one-volume history of the Civil War era and won the Pulitzer Prize in the year of its publication.

Both dig into national identity.

06

The Civil War: A Narrative

Shelby Foote · History

Shelby Foote spent twenty years writing this three-volume, 1.5-million-word account of the American Civil War, and the result is one of the most ambitious narrative history projects ever attempted by a single author.

Both dig into national identity.

07

The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon · History

The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961 shortly before Fanon's death from leukemia, is a political and psychiatric analysis of colonialism and the conditions required for genuine decolonization.

Both dig into national identity.

08

Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant · Memoir

Ulysses S.

Both dig into national identity.

09

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.

10

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Charles C. Mann · History

Where 1491 ends, 1493 begins.

A kindred history read.

11

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.

12

A Man on the Moon

Andrew Chaikin · History

A Man on the Moon is Andrew Chaikin's exhaustive narrative history of the Apollo program, from the first lunar orbit of Apollo 8 in 1968 through the final mission, Apollo 17, in 1972.

A kindred history read.