The 100 best history books

No. 11 on this list. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · Edward Gibbon · 1776

Published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, it has stayed in print ever since and is a set text in courses on historiography, the Enlightenment and English prose. It appears on every major list of essential works of history in English.

No. 12 on this list. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism · Max Weber · 1905

One of the founding texts of sociology, taught in introductory and theory courses alongside Marx and Durkheim and assigned across history, economics and religious studies. It ranked fourth in the International Sociological Association's 1998 poll of the books of the century.

No. 13 on this list. The Souls of Black Folk · W. E. B. Du Bois · 1903

Required reading in American universities across sociology, African American studies, history, and literature departments, appearing on more syllabi than almost any other work of American nonfiction. Continuously in print since 1903, it appears on virtually every list of essential American books and is considered foundational to American intellectual history.

No. 14 on this list. Discourses on Livy · Niccolò Machiavelli · 1531

Niccolò Machiavelli spent the last decade of his life under house arrest, banned from Florence's political world, and wrote the Discourses on Livy as a systematic attempt to teach what he could no longer practice. Working through Titus Livy's history of Rome book by book, Machiavelli extracts from each episode a principle of republican governance — how to found a city, sustain a republic, manage armies, treat conquered peoples, handle conspiracies, and survive the inevitable corruption of institutions. The argument runs to 142 chapters across three books, each one a small essay: he states a thesis, marshals Roman examples, and delivers a verdict. Machiavelli's Rome is not an idealized past but a working laboratory. When he recommends that a new republic must sometimes execute its founding families, or that a prince should appear virtuous rather than be virtuous, he is not being provocative — he is being precise. The Discourses is the longer and more theoretically ambitious of his two major works, and the one where his commitment to republican liberty is explicit rather than implied. Readers accustomed to political philosophy as abstract theory will find this text unusual: it thinks in cases, in generals, in the specific behavior of specific tribunes during specific sieges. The Victorian translation adds a layer of archaic syntax to the Renaissance argument. What emerges is a political science conducted before the term existed — unsentimental, empirical, and still asking questions no subsequent political thinker has fully answered.

No. 15 on this list. The Arcades Project · Walter Benjamin

The Arcades Project is required reading in virtually every critical theory, cultural studies, and German Studies graduate program worldwide. Benjamin's concepts — the dialectical image, the flâneur, the wish-image, Jetztzeit — have become foundational vocabulary in the humanities. The book anchors syllabi in fields as disparate as architecture, urban studies, film theory, and literary criticism, making it one of the most cross-disciplinary canonical texts of the 20th century.

No. 16 on this list. The United States Constitution · Founding Fathers · 2011

The Constitution is the founding document of the United States and is taught at every level of American education, in history, civics, law and political theory. It is among the most widely taught texts in the world, though this particular free edition is just one copy of it.

No. 17 on this list. The Gulag Archipelago · Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 1973

Solzhenitsyn documented the Soviet forced-labor system with the evidentiary mass of a prosecutor and the moral witness of a survivor, compiling testimony from over two hundred prisoners into a work that made the word "gulag" part of every language. The book did more to delegitimize the Soviet state than any political movement of its era.

No. 18 on this list. The Wretched of the Earth · Frantz Fanon · 1961

The Wretched of the Earth appears on syllabi in postcolonial studies, African studies, political philosophy, sociology, and literary theory programs worldwide — among the most-assigned theoretical texts of the 20th century. Its Wikipedia article exists in over 40 languages. It is routinely listed alongside Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks as required reading for anyone working in fields touching on race, colonialism, or global politics.

No. 19 on this list. Night · Elie Wiesel · 1960

Required reading in most American and European secondary schools and universities, taught in Holocaust studies, World Literature, and human rights courses worldwide. One of the most assigned memoirs of the 20th century, with Wikipedia coverage in over 80 languages. No major literary prize database entry was found, but its curriculum presence is among the highest of any memoir in the Western canon.

No. 20 on this list. Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History · Art Spiegelman · 1991

Maus is widely taught in schools and universities as a central Holocaust text and as the key work of the graphic novel, and it won a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1992 for the combined work. It is now standard in comics studies and memory studies.

No. 21 on this list. The Origins of Totalitarianism · Hannah Arendt · 1951

One of the most influential works of political philosophy of the twentieth century, required reading in political science, philosophy, and history curricula worldwide. Central to understanding modern political thought.

No. 22 on this list. Parallel Lives · Plutarch · 100

Parallel Lives is among the most foundational texts of Western classical education, central to curricula in classics, ancient history, philosophy, and political thought for over two millennia. Shakespeare drew directly on it for Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens; Montaigne read it constantly; Rousseau credited it with forming his character. Wikipedia articles exist in 37 languages, reflecting its global recognition as a canonical text of antiquity.

No. 23 on this list. The Old Man and the Sea · Ernest Hemingway · 1953

Taught in schools: Kazakh literature curriculum (Kazakhstan)

Included in: Bokklubben World Library

Hemingway reduced fiction to one old man, one marlin, and the Gulf Stream, and proved that a story stripped to its barest elements could carry the weight of a parable about endurance, craft, and the dignity of losing. The novella's final image — the skeleton of the great fish picked clean at the dock — is among the most perfectly earned symbols in American literature.

No. 24 on this list. The Story of Art · E.H. Gombrich · 1950

One of the most assigned art history textbooks globally, continuously in print since 1950 and translated into more than 30 languages. A fixture in introductory art history courses at universities worldwide, it has sold millions of copies and remains the default entry point for the discipline.

No. 25 on this list. The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature · Earl Miner · 1985

The standard English-language reference for classical Japanese literature; no comparable work has appeared since publication.

No. 26 on this list. The American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman · F.O. Matthiessen · 1941

American Renaissance is credited with naming and founding the field — the 1850-55 period is still called 'the American Renaissance' because of this book, and it remains standard graduate reading in American literature and American Studies programs. It sits alongside Edmund Wilson's Patriotic Gore as one of the two or three books that created the discipline it now anchors.

No. 27 on this list. Wolf Hall · Hilary Mantel · 2009

The historical novel that changed the genre's literary status. Thomas Cromwell's rise, rendered in present tense and close third person, made Tudor politics feel immediate. Core text in contemporary fiction and historical fiction courses.

No. 28 on this list. The Histories · Herodotus · c. 430 BCE

Herodotus traveled from Egypt to Scythia, interviewed locals, and wrote down everything—the Persian Wars, the customs of distant peoples, talking foxes, flying snakes—inventing both history and ethnography in a single narrative. Cicero called him the father of history; the label has never been seriously challenged.

No. 29 on this list. The Complete Maus · Art Spiegelman · 2003

Widely taught in universities and high schools as the defining Holocaust graphic memoir, Maus appears on hundreds of literature and history syllabi worldwide. It is listed on virtually every major 'essential reading' and 'greatest books' compilation that includes graphic literature, from the Modern Library to Time's All-TIME 100 Novels. While not on syllabi at the scale of Fitzgerald or Austen, it holds unique canonical status as the book that forced academia to take comics seriously.

No. 30 on this list. The Lives of the Artists · Giorgio Vasari · 1550

Required reading in virtually every art history curriculum worldwide, from introductory surveys to graduate seminars. Vasari's Lives appears on syllabi for Renaissance studies, Western civilization, and art historiography courses across Europe and North America. It is the foundational text of the discipline — no course on Italian Renaissance art omits it.