The Best New History Books of October 2017

Big History, by Dorling Kindersley Publishing Staff
If the sprawl of history seems daunting and impossibly huge, this is the book you’ve been looking for. Taking an infographics-heavy approach, Big History traces the interconnected threads of history starting from the Big Bang on, weaving together a balance of subjects and disciplines to paint the big picture. Divided into eight sections linked by several supplied timelines, this is an ideal primer for anyone uncertain how anything fits together with everything else. How many books can promise to offer a comprehensive and easily digested overview of, well, everything?

Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans, by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger
Andrew Jackson remains a divisive figure nearly 200 years after his presidency, making him an ideal candidate for a book like this—a history investigating the man as much as the events that shaped his life. The focal point is the battle that made Jackson a national figure. The British targeted the port of New Orleans in the War of 1812 for obvious reasons: it was the main supply point for the nascent United States of America, and the fledgling country’s defenses were weak and disorganized. Jackson managed to pull together a coalition of defenders and organize a brilliant defense of the city, saving his country and catapulting him to fame. Kilmeade and Yaeger bring slick energy to their subject, making this a fun, informative read.

I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street, by Matt Taibbi
The death of Eric Garner remains a painful moment in our shared history, and a touchstone for the Black Lives Matter movement, which made his dying words—“I can’t breathe”—into a rallying cry. Taibbi takes a dual approach here, on the one hand humanizing Garner, painting a portrait of a complicated man who was neither a saint or a demon; and tracing the political, cultural, and procedural threads that culminated in a New York City police officer putting him in an illegal chokehold while trying to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. The result is a big-picture approach that slowly coalesces into a portrait of modern America, and all of the contradictory forces shaping our collective trajectory.

We Were Eight Years in Power, by An American Tragedy
This collection of essays by Coates are drawn from his writing for The Atlantic during the years 2008 to 2016, roughly paralleling the Obama administration, and ending on the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. These are the essays that made Coates a figure no serious person could ignore; they trace the evolution of his thought from the optimism of Obama’s first election to the somewhat darker mood of the later years. Coates adds a wealth of background material, including introductions in which he reflects on the essays, notes and background taken from his journals, and even personal stories that expand on and illuminate his themes. Coates is one of our best and most important living writers, and this collection is a must-read for any thoughtful American.

Bounty Hunter 4/3: My Life in Combat from Marine Scout Sniper to MARSOC, by Jason Delgado
Delgado’s story is unique in the category of soldier memoirs. Growing up in a rough neighborhood in the Bronx, Delgado escaped poverty, drugs, and crime by joining the Marines. There he found his calling and flourished, eventually joining the legendary Scout Snipers and shipping out to Iraq, where he was key to several victorious operations. Along the way he revolutionized the training and deployment of Marine snipers, and became the first Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC) lead sniper instructor. Delgado details his struggle to deal with the violence and bloodshed he thought he’d left behind when he escaped his neighborhood, transforming this from a victory celebration into a deeply-felt personal reflection that sharply defines the struggle of many modern-day warriors to maintain their humanity in spite of the difficult experiences they must endure.

The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World, by A.J. Baime
Harry Truman should have been a footnote to history, a senator from Missouri chosen to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice president when FDR ran for a fourth term in 1944. When FDR died in office, Truman became president, despite little experience with or access to FDR’s inner circle; his time in office remains one of the most debated presidencies ever. Whether you think Truman was a great or mediocre chief executive, however, one thing can’t be denied: he ascended to the office during one of the most fraught moments in U.S. history, and from Truman’s negotiations with Churchill through his decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, Baime makes a convincing argument Truman’s first few months in office rank among the most decisive in history.

Blood Brothers: The Story of the Strange Friendship between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, by Deanne Stillman
Any novelist would be lucky to develop characters be as confounding as those in real life, and Stillman finds three of the most interesting people to have ever lived in Sitting Bull, chief of the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, Buffalo Bill, and Annie Oakley. The friendship that formed between Bill and Sitting Bull remains one of the most unlikely personal relationships in history, and Stillman uses their friendship—built solidly on mutual respect, if not always understanding—to illuminate some of the darkest moments in U.S. history of the U.S., from the military debacle of the Battle of Little Bighorn to the shameful betrayal of the Indian nations that continues to stain our country’s honor.

Texas Blood: Seven generations Among the Outlaws, Ranchers, Indians, Missionaries, Soldiers, and Smugglers of the Borderlands, by Roger D. Hodge
Hodge traces his personal roots from his childhood in the borderlands of Texas, his family’s arrival in that unforgiving territory after travels through Arizona and Oklahoma, and the history of Texas itself. The huge state has a complicated story all its own—bloody, violent, and inspiring to generations of Americans with their own ideas of how a state should be run. Hodge doesn’t shy away from the impact of the war on drugs, illegal immigration, and other pivotal aspects of southwest Texas’ people and culture, keeping his focus firmly on history as a story of human beings with flaws, courage, and ideas. By making history personal, Hodge gets as close as he can to discovering what makes this area of the country both special, and especially challenging.

Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, by Gordon S. Wood
It’s easy to forget the United States has been in a state of division and argument since its inception; the decades after the ratification of the constitution were fraught with violent political arguments over the form of the government, the meaning of the words in our founding document, and the policies we should pursue. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were arguably the two most gifted and intelligent of our Founding Fathers, but they saw the world and politics in very different ways. Still, a fragile friendship formed in the early days of revolution, which then suffered a long and painful dissolution as the two men again and again found themselves on opposite sides of the question. Wood paints a complex portrait of both men, asking why Jefferson is worshiped while Adams is largely overlooked by modern Americans (David McCullough’s Pulitzer-winning biography notwithstanding).

Code Girls, by Liza Mundy
Stories of World War II often focus on the heroic deeds of male soldiers, but newly declassified documents reveal a shadow army of women who also did their part—the codebreakers. Recruited from colleges and secretarial pools for their math skills, these women were set to the task of breaking enemy codes, but their efforts and achievements were top secret, and their stories largely unknown—until now. Battling the expected sexism and hostile attitudes of their male counterparts and supervisors, tens of thousands of women helped to end the war much more quickly than it would have otherwise, and Mundy rescues their stories from obscurity and gives them the credit they deserve. In fact, she makes a solid case that without these women, we might not have won World War II at all.