Historical Nonfiction

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, “one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day. One of...

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, an electrifying re-examination of one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many...

The story of a dog so brave he saved lives and won hearts. This is the true heart-warming story of Stubby, a small, stump-tailed terrier who fought alongside Allied forces on the Western Front during World War I. This brave and clever dog could detect enemy soldiers, impending gas attacks, and even salute higher-ranking officers! But even more, this is the story of the remarkable friendship between an American soldier named Robert Conroy and the stray who adopted him and his unit.

In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened.

In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations. “A towering achievement.... Reading this book is like visiting an exhilarating city for the first...

For 700 years, Japan was ruled by military commanders who waged war against one another incessantly. Shogun tells the fascinating story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who finally unified and brought lasting peace to the nation. He established a new central government which enabled his descendants to rule Japan for the next 260 years—a period in which Japanese culture as we know it today flourished.

From the renowned paleontologist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a sweeping evolutionary history of birds, from their dinosaur origins to the 10,000+ extraordinary species alive today. Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishingly diverse...

In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea...

“Thought-provoking—a must read for [everyone] seeking a firm grasp of accurate American history." —Kirkus (starred review) Brilliant, readable, and raw. Maj. (ret.) Danny Sjursen, who served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at West Point, delivers a true epic...

"Courageous and bracing, learned and ethical, rigorous and mind-expanding.” —Naomi Klein “This profoundly important and urgent book finds Mishra, one of our most intellectually astute and courageous writers, at the peak of his powers.” —Hisham Matar “A triumphant work of empathy in a...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A magisterial world history unlike any other that tells the story of humanity through the one thing we all have in common: families From the author of The Romanovs A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, Smithsonian “Succession meets Game of Thrones.”...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the author of Ghost Soldiers comes an eye-opening history of the American conquest of the West—"a story full of authority and color, truth and prophecy" (The New York Times Book Review). In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route...

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that probes the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe Sprawling across a...

“Dazzling and instructive . . . [a] magisterial new book.” —Walter Isaacson, Time "An astute analysis that illuminates many of today's critical international issues." —Kirkus Reviews Henry Kissinger offers in World Order a deep meditation on the roots of international harmony and global...

In November 1941, Hitler ordered German forces to complete the final drive on the Soviet capital, now less than 100 kilometers away. Army Group Center was pressed into the attack for one last attempt to break Soviet resistance before the onset of winter. From the German perspective, the final drive on Moscow had all the ingredients of a dramatic final battle in the east, which, according to previous accounts, only failed at the gates of Moscow.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE Written with the style of a great novelist and the intrigue of a Cold War thriller, Embers of War is a landmark work that will forever change your understanding of how and why America went to war in Vietnam. Tapping newly accessible diplomatic archives in several...

“Fascinating, shrewd . . . The book deftly traces the rhythms and patterns of Chinese history.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “No one can lay claim to so much influence on the shaping of foreign policy over the past 50 years as Henry Kissinger.” —The Financial Times In this...

The Nuremberg Interviews reveals the chilling innermost thoughts of the former Nazi officials under indictment at the famous postwar trial. The architects of one of history’s greatest atrocities speak out about their lives, their careers in the Nazi Party, and their views on the Holocaust...