History for Adults

This isn't some sketchy R-rated section for those 18 and over. The heading merely indicates that these aren't titles of a specifically "educational" nature, in the sense that they'd fit well into a K-8 curriculum. That said, you probably don't want your kiddos reading Intellectuals by Paul Johnson.

We believe it's important for parents to know at least as much history as their children, especially during a child's formative years, and especially especially if you're teaching him or her at home. This isn't just so you can answer questions more easily—how can we impart a sense of the trajectory of the human story to our kids if we have a truncated or incomplete view ourselves?

A lot of the books here aren't "comprehensive" in the sense that they span continents and epochs. Many of them are, but the point isn't to give you the whole picture, but to fill in gaps and make connections. Plus, history is just plain interesting, and while it's still beneficial, reading about the Chinese dynasties or the first overland railroad is as fun as it is instructive.

These aren't primarily "literary" histories. Many excellent writers are represented, but most of them are first and foremost professional historians, and they approach their subjects as academics and scholars rather than artists. Sadly, the two have grown increasingly apart since the days of men like Hakluyt and the Venerable Bede.

Have fun browsing our collection. Its construction has been less intentional on our part than that of many other categories, but we haven't chosen anything that looks boring, weighted too heavily against (at the least) a fairly conservative worldview, or treats topics best unconsidered. While we specifically designate "adults" as the prime beneficiaries of this section, many high school students would be just as comfortable and have just as much fun here. If you think learning shouldn't be fun, we could surely find you some really dreary titles if you ask nicely.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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122 Items found Print
Active Filters: Biographies
13 Soldiers
by John McCain and Mark Salter
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
from Penguin Random House
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Alexander the Great, Killer of Men
by David J. Lonsdale
from Carroll & Graf Publishers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (2 in stock)
Alice
by Stacey A. Cordery
from Viking Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
America 1933
by Michael Golay
from Free Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
America the Beautiful
by Ben Carson with Candy Carson
from Zondervan
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
American Caesar
by William Manchester
from Little, Brown & Company
for 10th grade-adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
by Jon Meacham
from Random House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
by Gordon S. Wood
from Penguin Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by M. K. Gandhi
from Navajivan Publishing House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Charles G. Finney
by Charles G. Finney
from Bethany House
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Band of Brothers
by Stephen Ambrose, Foreword by Tom Hanks
25th anniversary from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$19.99
Battle from the Start
by Brian Steel Wills
from HarperCollins
for 9th grade-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Behind the Scenes
by Elizabeth Keckley, edited by Frances Smith Foster
from Lakeside Press
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Better a Shield Than a Sword
by Edward Teller
from Free Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Between the Lines
by Tom and Delphine Frazier
from Regent Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Buffalo Bill and the Wild West
by Henry Blackman Sell and Victor Weybright
Reprint from International Cody Family Assoc.
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Bully Pulpit
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Christians on the Oregon Trail
from College Press
for Adult
in Church History (Location: XCH-HIS)
Christopher Columbus and His Legacy
Opposing Viewpoints Series
by Mary Ellen Jones, Editor
from Greenhaven Press
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Christopher Columbus: His Story and His Journals
Knowledge Keepers Home Library Series 1492
by Edward Everett Hale and Edward Gaylord Bourne
from Knowledge Keepers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$9.60 (1 in stock)
Churchill and Empire
by Lawrence James
from Pegasus Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Churchill: Walking with Destiny
by Andrew Roberts
from Penguin Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Columbus and Cortez, Conquerors for Christ
by John Eidsmoe
from New Leaf Press
Biography for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Comrades
by Stephen E. Ambrose
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in Clearance: History & Geography (Location: ZCLE-HIS)
Conversations with Myself
by Nelson Mandela, foreword by Barack Obama
from Picador
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Coolidge
by Amity Shlaes
from Harper Perennial
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Crime Encyclopedia
by Marie J. MacNee
1st edition
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Cry of the Kalahari
by Mark and Delia Owens
from Houghton Mifflin
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Dante
Penguin Lives
by R.W.B. Lewis
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Daughter of Auschwitz
by Tova Friedman and Malcolm Brabant
from Hanover Square Press
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Dearest Mama
by Roger Fulford, editor
from Evans Brothers Limited
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Discoverers
by Daniel J. Boorstin
from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$26.00
Easy Company Soldier
by Sgt. Don Malarkey
from St. Martin's Press
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Eighty Days
by Matthew Goodman
from Ballantine Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Eighty Days
by Matthew Goodman
from Ballantine Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Einstein's Cosmos
by Michio Kaku
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$3.60 (1 in stock)
Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History
by Lytton Strachey
4th Printing from Harcourt, Brace & Company
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Embattled Rebel
by James M. McPherson
from Penguin Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
Extravagant Hunger
by Anne Zimmerman
from Counterpoint, LLC
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
FDR
by Jean Edward Smith
from Random House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
First Lady of the Revolution
by Katharine Anthony
from Doubleday & Company
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Flyboys
by James Bradley
2nd edition from Back Bay Books
for 10th grade-adult
in World War II (1939-1945) (Location: HISA-20WW2)
Franklin and Winston
by Jon Meacham
from Random House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Freighters and Pilgrims
Knowledge Keepers Home Library Series 1865
by Charles E. Young and Sarah Raymond Herndon
from Knowledge Keepers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
by Gordon S. Wood
from Penguin Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
From a Name to a Number
by Alter Wiener
from Authorhouse
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$10.40 (1 in stock)
Galileo's Daughter
by Dava Sobel
from Penguin Putnam
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Gandhi and India
by Gianni Sofri, translated by Janet Sethre Paxia
from Interlink Books
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
General Lee: Southern Commander
Knowledge Keepers Home Library Series 1861
by John Esten Cooke, Captain Robert E. Lee, foreword by Nicki Truesdell
from Knowledge Keepers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Geoffrey Chaucer of England
by Marchette Chute
from Dutton Adult
for 12th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Grant and Twain
by Mark Perry
from Random House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Heir to the Empire City
by Edward P. Kohn
from Basic Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Hidden Life of Otto Frank
by Carol Ann Lee
from William Morrow & Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$3.20 (1 in stock)
Hitler
by Ernst Hanfstaengl, translated and introduction by John Willard Toland, Afterword by Egon Hanfstaegl
from Arcade Publishing
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
In Search of History
by Theodore H. White
from Harper & Row
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat and Renewal
by Richard Nixon
1st edition from Simon & Schuster Macmillan
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
In the Name of the Father
by Francois Furstenberg
from Penguin Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Invention of Nature
by Andrea Wulf
from Vintage Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Isaac Newton
by James Gleick
from Pantheon Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Jacksonland
by Steve Inskeep
from Penguin Press
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
James Fenimore Cooper, the American Scott
by George Dekker
from Routledge
for 8th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Jarhead
by Anthony Swofford
from Scribner
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Jefferson Davis and His Generals
by Steven E. Woodworth
from University Press of Kansas
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
John Adams
by David McCullough
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$18.70
John Adams
by David McCullough
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$12.00
John Wanamaker: King of Merchants
by William Allen Zulker
from Eaglecrest Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Junior Officer's Reading Club
by Patrick Hennessey
from Riverhead Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Killing Lincoln
by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard
from Henry Holt and Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Last Lion Volumes 1 & 2
by William Manchester
1st edition from Little, Brown & Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Left to Tell
by Immaculée Ilibagiza with Steve Erwin
from Hay House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Left-Handed History of the World
by Ed Wright
from Metro Books
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Lost Executioner
by Nic Dunlop
1st edition from Walker and Company
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lost Men
by Kelly Tyler-Lewis
from Viking Press
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Lost Peace
by Robert Dallek
from HarperCollins
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Love and Loss in Cambodia
by Debra Groves Harman
from Canby Media
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Man Who Would Not Be Washington
by Jonathan Horn
from Scribner
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Mathew Brady
by James D. Horan
from Bonanza Books
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$3.20 (1 in stock)
Memoirs of the Second World War
by Winston S. Churchill, abridged by Denis Kelly
from HarperCollins
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$25.99
Memorial Volume of Jefferson Davis
by J. William Jones
from Sprinkle Publications
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$17.60 (2 in stock)
More Perfect Heaven
by Dava Sobel
from Walker and Company
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Mosby's Rangers
by Jeffry D. Wert
from Simon and Schuster
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West
by LeRoy R. Hafen & Harvey L. Carter
from University of Nebraska
Biography for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$21.95 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Off the Record
by Harry S. Truman, edited by Robert H. Ferrell
from Harper & Row
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Old Master
by Rene Kraus
1st edition from E.P. Dutton & Co.
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Out of My Life and Thought
by Albert Schweitzer
Reprint from Henry Holt and Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Paris 1919
by Margaret Macmillan
from Random House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Peter the Great: His Life and World
by Robert K. Massie
from Wings Books
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Picturing Hemingway
by Frederick Voss, with an essay by Michael Reynolds
from Yale University Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela
by Nelson Mandela, edited by Sahm Venter, foreword by Zamaswazi Dlamini-Mandela
from LiveRight
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Return of George Washington
by Edward J. Larson
from William Morrow & Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Roadhouse Tales
by Matilda Clark
2004 printing from Bullerville Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Robespierre
Sacred Fool Quartet #2: The Fool as Revolutionary
by Otto Scott
from Mason & Libscomb Publishers
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Saint Augustine
by Garry Wills
1st edition from Viking Press
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
Second World War: Hinge of Fate
Second World War Volume 4
by Winston S. Churchill
from Houghton Mifflin
for 10th grade-adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Serving Victoria
by Kate Hubbard
from HarperCollins
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Six Days
by Jeremy Bowen
from Pocket Books
History for 9th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
So Long Until Tomorrow
by Lowell Thomas
from William Morrow & Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Soul of the Lion
by Willard M. Wallace
Reprint from Stan Clark Military Books
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Supreme Commander
by Seymour Morris Jr.
from HarperCollins
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
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