Top 20 popular books for understanding American history
Since I began writing Mal Warwick on Books in 2010, I’ve read and reviewed more than 200 popular books in the categories of history, current affairs, and biography. Most of them cast light on the history of the United States. Here, I’ve listed my 20 top picks for understanding American history. They’re arranged in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names. Each title and author is followed by the name and link for its review. Below this list you’ll find more than 60 others you may also find illuminating.
Included among the 80+ titles are books by such prominent authors as Robert A. Caro, T. J. Stiles, Erik Larson, Adam Hochschild, Paul Kennedy, and Stephen Kinzer.
As you’ll see, one of the 20 books in this list is a novel. All the rest are nonfiction, except where otherwise noted in the lists of runners-up that follow.
This post was updated on October 7, 2020.
The top 20 books for understanding American history
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander — The New Jim Crow: reexamining mass incarceration in America
Prof. Alexander explains how the country’s criminal justice system has been warped to the point of non-recognition by a series of Presidential actions, Congressional legislation, and Supreme Court decisions. Read the full review.
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire by Kurt Andersen — Conspiracy theories, fake news, and other delusions in American history
If you think only Donald Trump, Fox News, anonymous online pundits, and Russian hackers have a monopoly on “fake news,” guess again. Mainstream media have indulged as well. Read the full review.
Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding… Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis by Sam Anderson—America revealed through the lens of a single mid-sized city
The sometimes shocking history of Oklahoma City illuminates the essence of America, as this entertaining account makes abundantly clear. Read the full review.
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass — Nixon, Kissinger, and the genocide history has ignored
ÂIn 1971, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger colluded in the murder of hundreds of thousands of people in what today is Bangladesh. Read the full review.
The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley — Teddy Roosevelt and the dark side of American foreign policy
Racist attitudes were prevalent and unchallenged in the US at the turn of the 20th Century and achieved full expression in Teddy Roosevelt’s aggressive foreign policy. Read the full review.
The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies by Jason Fagone — The woman codebreaker who caught gangsters and Nazi spies
Elizebeth [sic] Friedman played a seminal role in developing America’s codebreaking capacity over the course of two world wars, inventing new techniques that transformed the science of cryptology. Read the full review.
Drive! Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age by Lawrence Goldstone—This thrilling account of the early auto industry sets the record straight on Henry Ford
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. Nor was he the first automaker to introduce interchangeable parts and mass production. Instead, his chief talents lie as a manager and businessman. Read the full review.
Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace by Peter Janney — Why did JFK die? The most convincing explanation I’ve ever read
For decades I’ve resisted the conspiracy theories swirling around the murder of John F. Kennedy. This remarkable book has changed my mind about the culpability of the CIA. Read the full review.
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi—Racism still kills
Lynching is an artifact of the past, but racism still kills, shortening the lives of Black and Brown people not just through occasional official violence but on a large scale through inequities in healthcare, housing, criminal justice, and tax policy. That’s the central message of historian Ibram Kendi’s groundbreaking book, How to Be an Antiracist. Read the full review.
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War by Stephen Kinzer — They shaped US foreign policy for decades to come
Eisenhower’s Secretary of State and the long-time CIA director set the US on a path of undermining foreign governments in the name of anti-Communism. Read the full review.
Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream by Nicholas Lemann—Economic inequality deconstructed in a brilliant historical study
Lemann traces the evolution of the three “big ideas” that have guided economic policymakers in the decades since World War I. He characterizes them as institutions, transactions, and networks. These three ideas “have a common thread. They share a kind of conceptual grandeur, a conviction that if we aim at producing a good society by adopting one all-encompassing principle, the result will be positive for everybody.” But Lemann soundly rejects this notion. Read the full review.
One Nation Under Gods: A New American History by Peter Manseau — America’s surprising religious history in a highly readable book
In a book that’s full of surprises, Manseau surveys the country’s diverse religious history from the arrival of the Conquistadores and the Puritans to Scientology, the Right-Wing evangelicals, and New Age cults of recent years. Read the full review.
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer — How the Koch brothers are revolutionizing American politics
As Warren Buffet has said, “There’s class warfare all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” The Koch brothers are at the very center of the war machine. Read the full review.
The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present by John Pomfret — A revealing history of U.S.-China relations
The destinies of the U.S. and China have been closely linked for more than a century—and began when the U.S. shed its identity as a British colony in 1776. Read the full review.
Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin — The shocking reality behind the secret US war on “terror”
1,074 federal government organizations and nearly two thousand private companies are involved with programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence in at least 17,000 locations across the United States. Read the full review.
Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power by Seth Rosenfeld — J. Edgar Hoover, Ronald Reagan, and the violence in 1960s Berkeley
Edgar Hoover and Ronald Reagan were personally and directly engaged in managing the secret government campaigns that helped provoke the violence in 196os Berkeley. Read the full review.
The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News—and Divided a Country by Gabriel Sherman — Roger Ailes: the man who built Fox News and divided America
Roger Ailes helped swing the 2000 election to George W. Bush, championed the rise of the Tea Party, and promoted partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill. Read the full review.
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles — The first robber baron and the emergence of the corporation
Vanderbilt pieced together the massive New York Central Railroad, one of the first of the huge corporations that soon came to dominate American life. Read the full review.
The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot — When America’s secret government ran amok
It’s difficult not to conclude that Allen Dulles’ virtually unchallenged reign at the CIA in the 1950s was an unparalleled disaster, moving the agency into the business of assassination. Read the full review.
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard—Understanding America’s polarization and how we got to now
Does the Red State-Blue State analysis of recent US elections make sense to you? Or pointing to the difference between Republicans and Democrats to explain election outcomes? Colin Woodward doesn’t think either one is useful in explaining how and why we vote as we do. Nor, in his opinion, are the boundaries that define our fifty states or the regions normally termed Northeast, Midwest, South, and so forth. None of these arbitrary distinctions stand up to scrutiny in light of the cultural history he relates so beautifully in his eye-opening book, American Nations. To understand polarization as it defines the American project today, reading this book is a must. Read the full review.
Other insightful books that help in understanding American history
More than 60 other titles follow that might be considered runners-up. All are nonfiction. They’re arranged in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names.
One Person No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson — Voter suppression, gerrymandering, and voter ID laws brilliantly explained
A Warning by Anonymous, a Senior Trump Administration Official—An anonymous White House Republican tells all
The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-44 by Rick Atkinson — Friendly fire and bumbling generals in WWII
Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches From America’s Class War by Joe Bageant — On the front lines of America’s class war
Pelosi by Molly Ball—A critical but admiring biography of Nancy Pelosi
American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church by Alex Beam — Joseph Smith: the remarkable man who founded the Mormon Church
The Longest War: Inside the Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda by Peter L. Bergen — “The Longest War”: The conflict between the U.S. and Al Qaeda
American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power by Andrea Bernstein—The Trumps and the Kushners: the backstory
The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames by Kai Bird — The PLO, Miss Universe, and the CIA—and it’s all true
“The Rest of Us”: The Rise of America’s Eastern European Jews by Stephen Birmingham—Start here to understand Jews in America
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin III — Berkeley in 1969: Black Panthers, the FBI, and the Vietnam War
Republican Gomorra: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party by Max Blumenthal — When religion dominated the views of American conservatives
The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia by James Bradley — “Who lost China?” Nobody.
The Black Calhouns: From Civil War to Civil Rights with One African American Family by Gail Lumet Buckley — Living the African-American experience
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro — A masterful portrait of Lyndon Johnson as President
The Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman—Reflecting on 100 years of landmark ACLU cases
Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It by Jeffrey D. Clements — Citizens United, corporate personhood, and the way forward
The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen — The amazing story of America’s Banana King
Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II by Jennet Conant—The amateur scientist who helped deliver radar and the atomic bomb
The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy by Ed Conway — The clash of personalities that determined our economic history
Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary by Geoffrey Cowan—Teddy Roosevelt: progressive, champion of primary elections, and a racist
The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran by David Crist — The ugly US-Iran war, past, present, and future
American Disruptor: The Scandalous Life of Leland Stanford by Roland de Wolk—The California Governor who was a notorious thief
The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught in Between by Michael Dobbs—Did FDR betray the Jews of Europe?
The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero by Timothy Egan — The “Muslim immigrants” of the nineteenth century
Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell — Clarence Darrow, superstar of the Gilded Age
Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA by Amaryllis Fox—Life undercover in the CIA chasing suitcase nukes
Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II by Marc Gallicchio—The unconditional Japanese surrender in WWII
National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon — Who makes national security decisions? Not the President!
The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession by Dana Goldstein — Teacher training, normal schools, and “bad teachers”
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann — The case that helped put the FBI on the map
A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order by Richard A. Haass — American foreign policy in a “nonpolar” world
The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote — and How to Get It Back by Thom Hartmann—The Republican war on voting unmasked
The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings — A revisionist history of intelligence in World War II
The Bridge at Remagen by Ken Hechler—The strategic breakthrough that opened the Allies’ way to Berlin
Bravehearts: Whistle-Blowing in the Age of Snowden by Mark Hertsgaard — National security or insecurity?
Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex by Michael Hiltzik — The man who fathered Big Science
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 by Adam Hochschild — The American role in the Spanish Civil War
Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes by Adam Hochschild—Early 20th-century America viewed through the life of one extraordinary woman
The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E. Hoffman — A gripping true-life tale of Cold War spycraft
Jonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs — Jonas Salk: the doctor who cured polio and saved millions
The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency by Annie Jacobsen — The mind-boggling story of America’s top-secret military research
Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War by Fred Kaplan — The secret history of cyber war
Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific by Robert D. Kaplan — Competition between the U.S. and China through the lens of geopolitics
Engineers of Victory: The Problem-Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War by Paul Kennedy —The problem-solvers who won World War II
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire by Stephen Kinzer — The origins of the American empire
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy by Robert Kuttner—Why we need to elect a progressive Democratic President in 2020
Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the Man Who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror by Charles Lane—The first man who fought the Ku Klux Klan—and won
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson — Why the U.S. failed to speak out against the rise of Hitlers Germany
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson — When a U-boat sank the Lusitania and changed history
Watergate by Thomas Mallon — Watergate through a novelist’s eyes
Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years, by Thomas Mallon — Ronald Reagan deconstructed in a new Thomas Mallon novel
Landfall by Thomas Mallon—A novelist’s sympathetic portrait of George W. Bush
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable — Malcolm X, reconsidered in the context of his time
The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti — Drones, mercenaries, and targeted murder: the new CIA strategy
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough — The true (and surprising) story of the Wright Brothers
The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton by Jefferson Morley—James Jesus Angleton, the man who nearly destroyed the CIA
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy — The amazing story of the American “Code Girls” who helped win World War II
The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw — An outstanding biography of Joseph P. Kennedy
Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown by Jim Newton—Jerry Brown: politician, would-be monk, “man of tomorrow?”
Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism by Kathryn S. Olmsted — How today’s conservatism grew in the cotton fields of California
Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against Communism by Karen M. Paget — How the CIA infiltrated the National Student Association
The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace by Eric Rauchway — FDR, the gold standard, and the Great Depression
Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese-American Internment in World War II by Richard Reeves — The shameful story of Japanese-American Internment in WWII
The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It by Robert B. Reich—Robert Reich explains how the ultra-wealthy have rigged the system
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick — Historical perspective on the surprising rise of Barack Obama
Steep: The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party, by Lawrence Rosenthal and Christine Trost—Tea Party politics may not be what you think
Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism by Lawrence Rosenthal—A scholar of Right-Wing politics dissects the Trump coalition
Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker — Understanding the secret American campaign against Al Qaeda
Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles by Les Standiford — How the desert town of Los Angeles became the city it is today
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson — A searing look at America’s broken criminal justice system
Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles — A superb biography of George Armstrong Custer
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot — From the Summer of Love to the Jonestown massacre
Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United by Zephyr Teachout — Citizens United, bribery, and corruption in America
America’s Social Arsonist: Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth Century by Gabriel Thompson — The man who trained Cesar Chavez in community organizing
David Brower: The Making of the Environmental Movement by Tom Turner — The remarkable life of David Brower
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse — A wrenching view of how the U.S. military fought the Vietnam War
Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye: A balanced new biography of Bobby Kennedy
Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage by Douglas Waller — The remarkable spymaster who launched the US into espionage
One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon by Tim Weiner — An eye-opening book about the Nixon White HouseÂ
1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History by Jay Winik — The sad story of FDR’s complicity in the Holocaust
The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age by Tim Wu—It’s time for antitrust: break up big corporations to restore democracy
For further reading
You might also be interested in 20 top nonfiction books about history plus 80 other good books and 20 most enlightening historical novels (plus dozens of runners-up).
And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, plus a guide to this whole site, on the Home Page.
