The Season’s Best History Books Make Great Gifts

Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors, by George W. Bush
It’s impossible to tell how history will treat ex-presidents. Since leaving office, George W. Bush has kept a low political profile, but has been busy in other, more important ways—working with veterans. As the former commander-in-chief who personally ordered our men and women in uniform into harm’s way, President Bush has been quietly meeting some of America’s veterans, listening to their stories—and painting their portraits. Sixty-six of these amazing works of art have been collected in this beautiful book, each accompanied by an essay about the veteran’s service, penned by the artist. The president’s devotion to our servicemen and women is a testament to his character, as is the fact that the profits will all be donated to the George W. Bush Presidential Center, a non-profit organization that seeks to highlight the struggles of returning veterans and provide practical assistance as they adapt to civilian life.

The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For, by David McCullough
McCullough is one of the most celebrated historians in American history. He has written absorbing accounts of the Wright Brothers, John Adams, and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge—winning two Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards along the way. A thinker like that naturally makes a lot of speeches in front of a lot of audiences, and he compiles here some of his best—speeches made before Congress, before academic audiences, before groups of fellow historians. This is stirring stuff, the sort of of clear-eyed, patriotic, smart rhetoric we need more of in these divisive and confusing times. McCullough brings a calm authority to his words, equal parts comforting and energizing. It is an ideal book to read if your faith in our institutions is fading.

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story, by Douglas Preston
Preston, also known as one half of the team writing the Agent Pendergrast series of thrillers, details his involvement with a team seeking to prove the existence of a lost city in the Honduran wilderness. Legends tell of a city destroyed by a series of natural cataclysms, abandoned as cursed, and forbidden for centuries. Using a combination of cutting-edge technology and boots on the ground, Preston and his team locate two large sites and a wealth of archaeological treasures to prove that a lost civilization once existed in an area of the world where no human being has set foot in centuries. Preston’s skill as a novelist makes the deep-dive into the past at once entertaining, gripping, and informative.

Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam, by Mark Bowden
The battle over Hue, Vietnam’s third-largest city and former capital, in 1968 marked a definitive turning point not just in the conduct of the war (the United States and South Vietnam would never regain their footing) but in the perception of the war. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters employed not just weapons and tactics in the Tet Offensive, but also basic psychological warfare—they had been ordered to “look and behave like winners,” which had a devastating impact on U.S. morale. The subsequent debacle made it only a matter of time before the U.S. pulled out of the conflict, and Bowden expertly lays out the disaster through a series of set pieces brought to life by brilliant, clear prose.

Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West, by Tom Clavin
Bringing a level of factual rigor to the legend of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson in Dodge City isn’t an easy task; the story of those pioneering lawmen, and the famed gunfight at the OK Corral, is slathered with mythic overtones. In this revealing work, Clavin strips away the unnecessary flourishes to focuses on the facets of the story he can verify—and that unadorned tale turns out to be just as fascinating, especially his telling of the lesser-known Dodge City War, a bloodless affair that saw Earp and Masterson return to the area years later to firmly establish the rule of law, once and for all. You might think you know the story of Dodge City’s most famous gunslingers, but like as not, you only know the Hollywood version. Here’s your chance to fix that.

Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom, by Thomas E. Ricks
Context is everything. Although they lived at the same time, were born in the same country, and fought many of the same enemies, Winston Churchill and George Orwell never met, and there’s no evidence they ever even read each other’s work. Ricks places these two remarkable men side-by-side, however, and finds common ground in their shared philosophies and hatred of tyranny. A study of the lives of two men who never interacted might seem like a strange approach to history, but the result is a deeper look at the larger picture of culture and society that shaped their views, and the impact each had on the world around them.

Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War, by Lynne Olson
When Hitler and the Nazis overran much of Europe, Great Britain was flooded with refugees from all nations and walks of life—including people who had implored the British to help them, to no avail, as the German army crashed over their borders. Olson chronicles story after story of heroism, betrayal, heartbreak, and triumph, from the Polish codebreakers who helped Bletchley Park decipher the Nazi codes, to the governments in exile that formed. The experiences and contributions of these dislocated people had a direct impact on the outcome of the war, and many of their stories will be inspirational, even seven decades later.

Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd, Russia, 1917 – A World on the Edge, by Helen Rappaport
History can sometimes seem a bit like looking at a diorama behind glass, leaving you to wonder what it was like to actually be there. Rappaport solves this problem with this fascinating new look at the Russian Revolution, focusing on foreigners from Western nations who were in Petrograd as the powder keg of revolution exploded. Glimpse the beginnings of a violent uprising that transformed an empire (and the world) from the perspective of the confused, scared people who were on hand to witness it. From barricaded offices to views of riots, Rappaport’s lively writing offers a “you are there” approach to history that is sobering in its immediacy.

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History, by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns
As firmly embedded in the popular culture as the Vietnam War remains, it is also rapidly fading into the distant past for younger generations. Burns and Ward know that the time to capture first-hand perspectives on this moment of American and Vietnamese history is fast ending, making this book historically essential as well as fascinating for the modern reader. The point-of-view is intimate and personal, allowing soldiers from both sides to tell their stories, transforming them into characters in a narrative that never resolves. Combined with the startling range of photographs, this is easily one of the best books on the subject of the Vietnam War ever produced.

Obama: An Intimate Portrait, by Pete Souza
You’ll never get a more intimate glimpse of the Obama White House. In more than 300 photos taken by Chief Official White House Photographer Souza, we get to see our 44th President in moments of relaxed intimacy as well as stressful emergency. Each photo is accompanied by explanatory captions that give just enough background and detail to make the photos meaningful—and frequently powerful. You don’t have to be a fan of Obama’s policies or politics to find this deep dive into a White House few people ever get to witness completely absorbing. Obama’s administration was historic simply by existing, and this beautifully-designed collection of stunning photos is a must-have record of it.

Grant, by Ron Chernow
Chernow is poised to do for Grant what he did for Alexander Hamilton, though it remains to be seen if a hip hop-infused Broadway musical will be made from this new book. What is certain is that Grant is as fascinating a character as Hamilton—a man who went from a personal and professional nadir in 1861 to being in charge of the Union armies by 1864, and President of the United States by 1868—only to preside over one of the most corrupt administrations of all time. If anyone can plumb the central mystery of Grant’s contradictions, it’s Chernow.

The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War, by Doug Stanton
One of the most effective techniques in a history book is to focus on a single event, exploring every facet in order to illuminate a larger related tapestry. Stanton does just this with his exploration of the Tet Offensive, the chaotic attack North Vietnam launched on January 31st, 1968 in an effort to destabilize the south and push American forces out of the country. The forty men of Echo Company of the 101st Airborne Division (an army reconnaissance platoon) had just arrived in country, and found themselves enduring a grueling, seemingly endless battle against a desperate, implacable enemy. The gripping descriptions of endless fighting combined with testimonials about the less-than warm welcome the soldiers received when they returned home help to explain the Vietnam era in terms anyone will understand.

Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson
Isaacson begins with the presumption that Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the most creative genius in human history and proceeds from there, digesting more than 7,000 pages of notes da Vinci left behind and producing this biography. Unlike anything else you’ve ever read about the most famous artist of the 15th and 16th centuries, Isaacson paints a portrait of a restless mind that exhibited unusual curiosity and made magical connections between disciplines that had never been made before. At the same time, he shows da Vinci as a man whose always-churning mind could leave many projects unfinished as he dashed from idea to idea. When one of our best modern writers tackles one of the most famous minds in history, it’s time to pay attention.

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II, 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.