The Greatest Works of History
This selection of nonfictional historical works is based on the continuing research carried out for The Greatest Literature of All Time and additional research into historical literature acclaimed by the world's readers, writers, critics and scholars.
The Greatest Works of History includes popular works aimed at educating the public on historical topics, as well as expert research intended for those trained in the field.
You may also be interested in The Greatest Nonfiction, The Greatest Historical Fiction or The Greatest Alternative History Literature.
This list is updated as new works are discovered and appreciation of older works evolves. Please note the revision date when citing the list.
Latest update: November 15, 2025
The 55 Greatest Works of History
431–404 BCE
Histories
by Herodotus, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as The History, originally Historíai
c.380 BCE
History of the Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides, Greece
Nonfiction
c.370 BCE
Anabasis
by Xenophon, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as The March of the Ten Thousand or The March Up Country
c.350 BCE
Hellenica
by Xenophon, Greece
Nonfiction
c.50–42 BCE
Conspiracy of Catiline
by Sallust, Rome
Nonfiction, originally Bellum Catilinae
27–9 BCE
History of Rome
by Livy, Rome
Nonfiction, also known as Ab urbe condita (From the Founding of the City)
c.116 CE
Annals
by Tacitus, Rome
Nonfiction, originally Annales
c.731
Ecclesiastical History of the English People
by Bede, England
Nonfiction, orioginally Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, also known as A History of the English Church and People
c.1136
The History of the Kings of Britain
by Geoffrey of Monmouth, England
Nonfiction
1776–1789
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon, England
Nonfiction, also known as Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1835–1840
Democracy in America
by Alexis de Tocqueville, France
Nonfiction, originally De la démocratie en Amérique
1845
Facundo
by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argentina
Nonfiction, subtitled Civilization and Barbarism
1848
The History of England from the Accession of James the Second
by Thomas Babington Macauley, England
Nonfiction
1860
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
by Jacob Burckhaardt, Switzerland
Nonfiction, originally Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien
1893
The Significance of the Frontier in American History
by Frederick Jsackson Turner, United States
Nonfiction
1930
History of the Russian Revolution
by Leon Trotsky, Russia
Nonfiction
1934–1961
A Study of History
by Arnold J. Toynbee, England
Nonfiction
1935
The Strange Death of Liberal England: 1910-1914
by Gerorge Dangerfield, United States
Nonfiction
1948
The American Political Tradition
by Richard Hofstadter, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled And the Men Who Made It
1948–1953
The Second World War
by Winston Churchill, England
Nonfiction
1949–1966
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II
by Fernand Braudel, France
Nonfiction, originally La Méditerranée et le Monde méditerranéen a l'époque de Philippe II
1958–1974
The Civil War: A Narrative
by Shelby Foote, United States
Nonfiction
1960
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
by William L. Shirer, United States
Nonfiction
1961
What Is History?
by E.H. Carr, England
Nonfiction
The Contours of American History
by William Appleman Williams, United States
Nonfiction
1962
The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848
by Eric Hobsbawn, England
Nonfiction
The Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman, United States
Nonfiction
1963
The Making of the British Working Class
by E.P. Thompson, United States
Nonfiction
1968
The Pine Barrens
by John McPhee, United States
Nonfiction
1970
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
by Dee Brown, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled An Indian History of the American West
1972
The Great Bridge
by David McCullough, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
1973
Hidden From History
by Sheila Rowbotham, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled 300 Years of Women's Oppression and the Fight Against It
1978
Orientalism
by Edward Said, United Sstates
Nonfiction
1980
A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn, United States
Nonfiction
1982
Robin Hood
by James Holt, England
Nonfiction
1984
The Good War
by Studs Terkel, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled An Oral History of World War II
1985
Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade
by Assia Djebar, Algeria
Nonfiction, originally L'Amour, la fantasia
1986
The Fatal Shore
by Robert Hughes, Australia
Nonfiction, subtitled The Epic of Australia's Founding
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
by Richard Rhodes, United States
Nonfiction
1988
Battle Cry of Freedom
by James M. McPherson, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Civil War Era
1990
The Search for Modern China
by Jonathan D. Spence, United States
Nonfiction
1992
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
by Gordon S. Wood, United States
Nonfiction
1997
Guns, Germs and Steel
by Jared Diamond, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Fates of Human Societies or A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years
1998
Stalingrad
by Antony Beevor, England
Nonfiction
2000
In the Heart of the Sea
by Nathaniel Philbrick, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
2003
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson, United States
Nonfiction of science
2003–2008
The Third Reich Trilogy
by Richard J. Evans, England
Nonfiction
2005
Team of Rivals
by Doris Kearns Goodwin, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
by Tony Judt, England
Nonfiction
2011
Sapiens
by Yuval Noah Harari, Israel
Nonfiction, subtitled A Brief History of Humankind
The Opium War
by Julia Lovell, England
Nonfiction, subtitled Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China
2013
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
by Svetlana Alexievich, Belarus
Nonfiction, originally Vremya sekond khend
The Bully Pulpit
by Doris Kearns Goodwin, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
2014
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, United States
Nonfiction
2018
Say Nothing
by Patrick Radden Keefe, Ireland
Nonfiction, subtitled A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
