Books like Why Don't We Learn from History?

01

The Guns of August

Barbara Tuchman · History

The Guns of August covers the first month of the First World War — from the funeral of King Edward VII in May 1910 to the stalled offensives of September 1914 — with a level of narrative authority and moral clarity that has made it the defining popular history of the war's opening disaster.

Both dig into military strategy.

02

The Art of War

Sun Tzu · Philosophy

The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a general and strategist believed to have lived in the fifth century BCE.

A kindred history read.

03

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.

04

The Origins of Totalitarianism

Hannah Arendt · History

Hannah Arendt published The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, just six years after the end of World War II.

A kindred history read.

05

America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve

Roger Lowenstein · History

The Federal Reserve was created in 1913, but the story of how it came into existence spans three decades and involves a level of political resistance, financial panic, and legislative maneuvering that makes the eventual outcome seem unlikely in retrospect.

Both dig into politics.

06

American Nations

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 politics.

07

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 military strategy.

08

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Thomas E. Ricks · History

Thomas Ricks was the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post when he wrote Fiasco, and the book reflects years of direct access to the military officials, planners, and soldiers involved in the Iraq War.

Both dig into military strategy.

09

History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides · History

Thucydides' account of the twenty-seven-year conflict between Athens and Sparta stands as the founding document of political realism and the first work of history that treats evidence and causation as problems to be solved rather than stories to be told.

Both dig into human nature.

10

Strategy: The Indirect Approach

B. H. Liddell Hart · History

Strategy: The Indirect Approach, first published in 1929 and substantially revised and expanded through a definitive 1954 edition, is Basil Liddell Hart's argument that the most effective military strategies throughout history have been indirect — working around an opponent's strength rather than against it — and that direct confrontation, however courageous, tends to be costly and inconclusive.

Both dig into military strategy.

11

The End of History and the Last Man

Francis Fukuyama · History

Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man was published in 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the apparent triumph of liberal democracy as the world's dominant political model.

Both dig into human nature.

12

The Lessons of History

Will & Ariel Durant · History

The Lessons of History is the Durants' distillation of their eleven-volume The Story of Civilization — a project that consumed forty years — into a slim, hundred-page essay.

Both dig into human nature.