Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been read by tens of millions of people all over the world. It remains a beloved and deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. Restored in this Definitive Edition are diary entries that were omitted from the original edition. These passages,... (more)

Night Trilogy: Book 1

Night

by Elie Wiesel

In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night , a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers... (more)

Robert Langdon: Book 2

The Da Vinci Code

by Dan Brown

An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe. An astonishing truth concealed for centuries . . . unveiled at last. As millions of readers around the globe have already discovered, The Da Vinci Code is a reading experience unlike any other. Simultaneously lightning-paced, intelligent, and intricately layered with remarkable... (more)

Guns, Germs, and Steel

The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller—over 1.5 million copies sold—is now a major PBS special. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the... (more)

The Devil in the White City

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

by Erik Larson

True Crime, Chicago World's Fair

A Short History of Nearly Everything

by Bill Bryson

One of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey -- into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. In A Walk in the Woods , Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country , he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest... (more)

1776

by David G. McCullough

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based on extensive... (more)

John Adams

by David G. McCullough

In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot -- "the colossus of independence," as Thomas Jefferson called him -- who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering... (more)

A People's History of the United States

1492 - Present

by Howard Zinn

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews,... (more)

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How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

by Jared Diamond

In his runaway bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel , Jared Diamond brilliantly examined the circumstances that allowed Western civilizations to dominate much of the world. Now he probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to fall into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island... (more)

The Professor and the Madman

A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

by Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman , masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led... (more)

How the Irish Saved Civilization

by Thomas Cahill

Bringing readers to the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells, a historical examination of Ireland's role in the rise of medieval Europe cites the work of countless monks and scribes in the preservation of the West's written treasury. Reprint. Tour. K. AB.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

by James W. Loewen

Winner of the 1996 American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship Americans have lost touch with their history, and in this thought-provoking book, Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying twelve leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an... (more)

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Team of Rivals is a multiple biography that focuses on Abraham Lincoln and his team of personal and political competitors during the American Civil War. The book profiles five of the biggest personalities of the time, four of whom were contenders for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination, and all of whom would later work in Lincoln's presidential cabinet.

Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich

by William L. Shirer

Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer's monumental study of Hitler's German Empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of this century's blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of... (more)

The World Is Flat

A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

by Thomas L. Friedman

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating... (more)

The Art of War

by Sun Tzu

The Art of War is one of the oldest books on military strategy in the world. It is also one of the most famous studies of strategy and has had a huge influence on Eastern and Western military planning, business tactics, and beyond. First translated into a European language in 1782 by French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, and had possibly influenced Napoleon, and even the planning of Operation Desert Storm.... (more)

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

by Dee Brown, Dee Alexander Brown

Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking...Impossible to put down" Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller... (more)

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

by Karen Armstrong

"An admirable and impressive work of synthesis that will give insight and satisfaction to thousands of lay readers." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. From classical philsophy and medieval... (more)

Founding Brothers

The Revolutionary Generation

by Joseph J. Ellis

In this landmark work of history, the National Book Award—winning author of American Sphinx explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals–Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison–confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation. The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed,... (more)

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Browse Subjects: History

Top Books

by Anne Frank

by Elie Wiesel

by Dan Brown

The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

by Erik Larson

by Bill Bryson

by David G. McCullough

by David G. McCullough

1492 - Present

by Howard Zinn

How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

by Jared Diamond

A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

by Simon Winchester

by Thomas Cahill

by James W. Loewen

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

by William L. Shirer

A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

by Thomas L. Friedman

by Sun Tzu

by Dee Brown, Dee Alexander Brown

by Karen Armstrong

The Revolutionary Generation

by Joseph J. Ellis