Great Gifts for History Lovers 2018
Picking gifts for friends and family can be tough, but if your friend or family member loves history these suggestions may be helpful.
Books
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner (W.W. Norton & Company) A well-orchestrated examination of Lincoln's changing views of slavery, bringing unforeseeable twists and a fresh sense of improbability to a familiar story.
Camilla Townsend (Rutgers Univ.) for Annals of Native America: How the Nahuas of Colonial Mexico Kept Their History Alive (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016)
Jeremy Hartnett (Wabash Coll.) for The Roman Street: Urban Life and Society in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017)
Ann M. Little (Colorado State Univ.) for The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright (Yale Univ. Press, 2016)
Bethany Jay (Salem State Univ.) and Cynthia Lynn Lyerly (Boston Coll.), editors, for Understanding and Teaching American Slavery (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2016)
Julia Guarneri (Univ. of Cambridge) for Newsprint Metropolis: City Papers and the Making of Modern Americans (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017)
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable (Viking)
An exploration of the legendary life and provocative views of one of the most significant African-Americans in U.S. history, a work that separates fact from fiction and blends the heroic and tragic.
Tera W. Hunter (Princeton Univ.) for Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century (Belknap Press, 2017)
The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, by Jack E. Davis (Liveright/W.W. Norton) An important environmental history of the Gulf of Mexico that brings crucial attention to Earth’s 10th-largest body of water, one of the planet’s most diverse and productive marine ecosystems.
Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics, by Kim Phillips-Fein (Metropolitan Books)
Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America, by Steven J. Ross (Bloomsbury)
Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson (Vintage, 2017)
Blood in the Water investigates the Attica prison in September 1971 and its consequences. The Attica riot is key event in U.S. civil rights history. Thompson carefully reconstructs the events at the prison during the riot between September 9-13, 1971. The New York Times stated that the power of her book come "from its methodical mastery of interviews, transcripts, police reports and other documents covering 35 years." The book was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for History.
Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It, by Larrie D. Ferreiro (Alfred A. Knopf) New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America, by Wendy Warren (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of American by T.J. Stiles (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015)
Custer is one of the most debated and controversial 19th century American military leaders. Stiles attempts to better understand a complicated man and shatter the mythology that has surrounded him. Stiles book shows that Custer helped shaped an era that he often struggled to adapt to. Custer's Trials was the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for history.
Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War, by Brian Matthew Jordan (Liveright/Norton)
Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor, by James M. Scott (W.W. Norton & Company)
The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire by Karl Jacoby (W.W. Norton & Company, 2017)
How did a former slave from Texas named William Ellis, transform himself into a fabulously wealthy Mexican millionaire named Guillermo Elliseo after the Civil War? Historian Martha A. Sandweiss stated that Jacoby's tale of William Ellis crafts "a powerful narrative about the porous borders of class, race, and national identity in late 19th and early 20th-century American life." Jacoby's book successfully illuminates both a life of a unique and fascinating American while addressing broader issues of race and the American borderlands. The book was also the recipient of the Ray Allen Billington Prize from the OHA.
DailyHistory.org Booklists
Need more help? You can check out some of our most popular booklists for ideas.
- American Revolution Top Ten Booklist
- Alexander the Great Top Ten Booklist
- Gilded Age/Progressive Era History Top Ten Booklist
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- 2016 American Historical Association Book Awards
- 2017 Organization of American Historians Book Awards
- 2016 Organization of American Historians Book Awards
Fun Stuff
Almost everyone can now read books on laptops, smartphones, and tablets. These are fairly unsatisfactory options because the reading experience is typically a disappointment. It's hard to recommend reading serious history books on a phone or tablet over a paper book. The Kindle Paperwhite most closely mimics paper books. It's easier to read for long periods of time than phones and tablets. While you cannot take notes in the book the way you can with paper books, you can store an enormous number of books on the Paperwhite.
In an ideal world, paper books are the best solution, but the Paperwhite is a solid device for reading books and it's great for travel. Amazon has Kindles that range in price from $79.99 to $249.99. The Paperwhite at $119.99 is a great deal. It has more than enough storage and a great screen. That makes it hard to recommend the more expensive models.