History Books Roundup: Reliving the Past

In many ways, history defines us. When we can examine where we have been, we often can see a path to the future. Whether we’re reading books about battles and wars, political and personal triumphs and failures, or tales of places and moments that were significant, stories built on history give us a chance to assess the past with a new perspective. In this monthly Bookreporter.com feature, we take a look at some of the hardcover and paperback releases in the history genre that we think will be of interest to our readers.

April 2014

April’s roundup of History titles includes THE BILL OF THE CENTURY, a thorough exploration of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the single most important piece of legislation passed by Congress in American history; THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF DIXIE, the riveting story of how the Civil War upended the economic, political and social life of the old South, utterly destroying the Confederacy and the society it represented and defended; BOLIVAR: AMERICAN LIBERATOR, a sweeping biography of Simon Bolivar and the winner of this year's Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Biography category; THE LAST WHITE ROSE, a new interpretation of one of the most dramatic periods of British history: the Tudor victory and their dynasty; and 50 CHILDREN, the astonishing true story of how one American couple transported 50 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Austria to America in 1939.

March 2014

March’s roundup of History titles includes MACHINE MADE, a surprising new history of New York’s most famous political machine --- Tammany Hall --- revealing, beyond the vice and corruption, a birthplace of progressive urban politics; THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY, a remarkable true story of the top-secret World War II town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the young women brought there unknowingly to help build the atomic bomb; THE AGE OF RADIANCE, a magisterial account of the men and women who uncovered the secrets of the nucleus, brought its power to America, and ignited the 20th century; WASHED AWAY, the incredible story of a flood of near-biblical proportions --- its destruction, its heroes and victims, and how it shaped America's natural-disaster policies for the next century; and THE ETERNAL NAZI, the never-before-told story of the most hunted Nazi war criminal in the world, by the New York Times reporters who first uncovered S.S. officer Aribert Heim’s secret life in Egypt.

February 2014

February's roundup of History titles includes DARK INVASION, Howard Blum’s true-life tale of German espionage and terror on American soil during World War I, and the NYPD Inspector who helped uncover the plot (the basis for the film to be produced by and starring Bradley Cooper); THE RACE UNDERGROUND, in which Doug Most chronicles the competition between Boston and New York to construct America's first subway; DOWN TO THE CROSSROADS by Aram Goudsouzian, the story of the last great march of the Martin Luther King, Jr. era, and the ﬁrst great showdown of the turbulent years that followed; Richard Overy's THE BOMBERS AND THE BOMBED, the ultimate history of the Allied bombing campaigns in World War II; and THE ART OF BETRAYAL by Gordon Corera, which provides a unique and unprecedented insight into the British Secret Service and the reality that lies behind the fiction.

January 2014

January's roundup of History titles includes THE BURGLARY by Betty Medsger, the never-before-told full story of the 1971 history-changing break-in of the FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania; Greg Gandin’s THE EMPIRE OF NECESSITY, the story of a remarkable slave rebellion that illuminates America’s struggle with slavery and freedom during the Age of Revolution and beyond; WAKING FROM THE DREAM, David L. Chappell's examination of the new phase that the civil rights movement entered following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.; THE POPE AND MUSSOLINI by David I. Kertzer, the gripping story of Pope Pius XI’s secret relations with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini; and CHURCHILL’S FIRST WAR, Con Coughlin's fascinating account of Winston Churchill's early military career fighting in the 1890 Afghan campaign, offering fresh and revealing parallels into today's war in Afghanistan.

December 2013

As 2013 comes to a close, history buffs will be delighted by the number of outstanding history books releasing this month. Among these December releases, which have been compiled by Bookreporter.com's Greg Fitzgerald, are HEIR TO THE EMPIRE CITY: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward P. Kohn, WARSAW 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising by Alexandra Richie, BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST: An Unlikely Explorer and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm by Monte Reel, and BEETHOVEN: THE MAN REVEALED by John Suchet.

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