Global History

Greg Eghigian tells the story of the world's fascination with UFOs and the prospect that they were the work of visitors from outer space. While accounts of great wonders in the sky date back to antiquity, reports of UFOs took place against the unique backdrop of the Cold War and space age. After the Flying Saucers Came traces how a seemingly isolated incident sparked an international drama involving shady figures, questionable evidence, suspicions of conspiracy, hoaxes, new religions, scandals, unsettling alien encounters, debunkers, and celebrities.

The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory.

National Bestseller A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 A “thought-provoking and timely” (The Times, London) global history of witch trials across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, told through thirteen distinct trials that illuminate a pattern of demonization and conspiratorial thinking that has...

As nationalism and anti-immigration rhetoric surge in France (and elsewhere), The Shortest History of France presents a portrait of a nation whose politics and society have always been shaped by global forces. Grounded in up-to-date historical scholarship that avoids the traps of national exceptionalism, Jones reminds us that it was only after the first millennium of French history that a nation-state began to emerge.

The long-awaited memoir by one of the most important political leaders of our time For 16 years, Angela Merkel bore the governmental responsibility for Germany, leading the country through numerous crises and shaping German and international politics and society with her actions and attitude...

A thrilling exposé recounting how members of Opus Dei—a secretive, ultra-conservative Catholic sect—pushed its radical agenda within the Church and around the globe, using billions of dollars siphoned from one of the world’s largest banks. For over half a century, Banco Popular was one of...

The creator of the hit podcast series Tides of History and Fall of Rome explores the four explosive decades between 1490 and 1530, bringing to life the dramatic and deeply human story of how the West was reborn. In the bestselling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the...

In this erudite and enjoyable Los Angeles Times best seller, Joel Kotkin explores the history of cities around the globe. He argues that urban areas must be places where there is a shared feeling of sacredness, civic identity, and moral order. These exciting concentrations of ideas and energy have long been and should continue to be meaningful in our daily lives.

When most people think of the prohibition era, they think of speakeasies, rum runners, and backwoods fundamentalists railing about the ills of strong drink. In other words, in the popular imagination, it is a peculiarly American history. Yet, as Mark Lawrence Schrad shows in Smashing the Liquor Machine, the conventional scholarship on prohibition is extremely misleading for a simple reason: American prohibition was just one piece of a global phenomenon.

A National Book Award winner, Martin E. Marty is a University of Chicago Professor Emeritus, Lutheran minister, and prolific writer on history, culture, and theology. In his comprehensive yet concise The Christian World, Marty outlines the life and teachings of Christ and details how his followers spread the gospel to the world.

How does our government eavesdrop? Whom do they eavesdrop on? And is the interception of communication an effective means of predicting and preventing future attacks? These are some of the questions at the heart of Patrick Radden Keefe’s brilliant new book, Chatter. In the late 1990s, when...

Learn about how foreign soldiers were prized by the Union and Confederate armies because they had experience fighting in European wars.

In the 1890s, bobsledding became a sport, Van Gogh died, and the Eiffel Tower and Tower of London were built.

A fascinating look at archeological finds in Scotland, South Africa, and Malta that offer clues about ancient civilizations.

A Wall Street Journal besteller and a USA Today Best Book of 2020 Named Energy Writer of the Year for The New Map by the American Energy Society “A master class on how the world works.” —NPR Pulitzer Prize-winning author and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin offers a revelatory new...

This New York Times bestseller is a “masterful” (The Washington Post), “juicy tour of the company [Jeff] Bezos built” (The New York Times Book Review), revealing the most important business story of our time by the bestselling author of The Everything Store. Almost ten years ago...

Colonialism: A Global History interprets colonialism as an unequal relationship characterized by displacement and domination and reveals the ways in which this relationship has been constitutive of global modernity.

1816 was a remarkable year - mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.

"[An] extraordinary tale"—Wall Street Journal "Compelling [and] engaging"—Financial Times "Magnificently detailed yet pacy...Think Trading Places meets Wall Street"—Sunday Times (UK) The riveting story of a trading prodigy who amassed $70 million from his childhood bedroom—until the...

A history of libraries and the people who built them, from the ancient world to the digital age “Engaging [and] ambitious” (The Washington Post) The history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident. In The Library, historians Andrew Pettegree and Arthur...