171 unique books were found in the 21 “Best History” book lists we consulted. Of the 171 books, 37 titles appeared on multiple lists.

We’ve added pictures and links for the top 37 history books that appear on multiple lists. To see our aggregated year-end lists for other categories, follow the links below.

The Best Non-Fiction Books of 2015

The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2015

The Best Cook Books of 2015

The Best Art & Photography Books of 2015

The Best Graphic Novels of 2015

The Best Poetry Books of 2015

The Best Biography & Memoir Books of 2015

The Best Science Books of 2015

The Top 37 History Books of 2015

1) SPQR A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

Appears On: 7 Lists
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2) The Oregon Trail, A New American Journey by Rinker Buck

Appears On: 6 Lists
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3) Lafayette In The Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell

Appears On: 5 Lists
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4) The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf

Appears On: 5 Lists
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5) The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff

Appears On: 5 Lists
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6) Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

Appears On: 4 Lists
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7) KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann

Appears On: 4 Lists
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8) Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard

Appears On: 4 Lists
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9) The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman

Appears On: 4 Lists
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10) Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits, & Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World by Noel Malcolm

Appears On: 3 Lists
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11) Empire of Cotton: A Global History By Sven Beckert

Appears On: 3 Lists
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12) Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan

Appears On: 3 Lists
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13) The Maisky Diaries, Red Ambassador to the Court of St James, 1932-1943

Appears On: 3 Lists
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14) The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 by Joseph J. Ellis

Appears On: 3 Lists
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15) The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan

Appears On: 3 Lists
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16) The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

Appears On: 3 Lists
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17) Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles By Bernard Cornwell

Appears On: 3 Lists
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18) A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story Of A Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, And A Young Dictator’s Rise To Power by Paul Fischer

Appears On: 2 Lists
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19) Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning By Timothy Snyder

Appears On: 2 Lists
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20) Destiny And Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham

Appears On: 2 Lists
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21) Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland

Appears On: 2 Lists
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22) Magna Carta by Dan Jones

Appears On: 2 Lists
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23) Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy Of India’s Partition by Nisid Hajari

Appears On: 2 Lists
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24) Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women

Appears On: 2 Lists
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25) Tears of the Rajas by Ferdinand Mount

Appears On: 2 Lists
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26) The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry by Ned Sublette and Constance Sublette

Appears On: 2 Lists
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27) The Battle of Agincourt by Anne Curry

Appears On: 2 Lists
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28) The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

Appears On: 2 Lists
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29) The End of the Cold War by Robert Service

Appears On: 2 Lists
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30) The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East By Eugene Rogan

Appears On: 2 Lists
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31) The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945 by Nicholas Stargardt

Appears On: 2 Lists
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32) The Jemima Code: Two Centuries Of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin

Appears On: 2 Lists
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33) The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee

Appears On: 2 Lists
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34) The News from Waterloo by Brian Cathcart

Appears On: 2 Lists
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35) The Raj at War by Dr. Yasmin Khan

Appears On: 2 Lists
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36) Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia By Dominic Lieven

Appears On: 2 Lists
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37) Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears by Thomas Dixon

Appears On: 2 Lists
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The 134 Additional Titles Appearing on a Single List

• 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear
• 1815: Regency Britain in the Year of Waterloo by Stephen Bates
• 1916: A Global History by Keith Jeffery
• 1920: THE YEAR THAT MADE THE DECADE ROAR
• 1932: The Rise of Hitler and FDR: Two Tales of Politics, Betrayal, and Unlikely Destiny, by David Pietrusza (Lyons Press)
• 1944: FDR AND THE YEAR THAT CHANGED HISTORY
• A God In Ruins: A Novel by Kate Atkinson
• A Nation and not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913-1923, by Diarmaid Ferriter
• A Nazi in the Family: The Hidden Story of an SS Family in Wartime Germany by Derek Niemann
• Agincourt
• All the Wild that Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West, by David Gessner
• All The World Remains
• ANONYMOUS SOLDIERS: THE STRUGGLE FOR ISRAEL, 1917-1947
• ARDENNES 1944: THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
• As Above, So Below: Art of the American Fraternal Society, 1850-1930
• Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield
• Between the World and Me
• Blood Runs Green: The Murder that Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago, by Gillian O’Brien
• Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope
• By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean
• Charles I and the People of England, by David Cressy
• Closet Queens, Some 20th Century British Politicians
• Conquerors: How Portugal Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empire
• Crucial Interventions: An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles & Practice of Nineteenth-Century Su
• Cunegonde’s Kidnapping: A Story of Religious Conflict in the Age of Enlightenment, by Benjamin Kaplan
• Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America
• DAYS OF RAGE: AMERICA’S RADICAL UNDERGROUND, THE FBI, AND THE FORGOTTEN AGE OF REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE
• Demonology and Scholarship in the Counter-Reformation
• Divorced, Beheaded, Died…: The History of Britain’s Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks by Kevin Flude
• Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, And The Night That Split The Sixties by Elijah Wald
• Edward IV: Glorious Son of York by Jeffrey James
• EIGHTY-EIGHT YEARS: THE LONG DEATH OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1777–1865
• Fallen Glory: the Lives and Deaths of Twenty Lost Buildings from the Tower of Babel to the Twin Towers
• Fortune’s Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth, by Terry Alford
• Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle For Voting Rights In America by Ari Berman
• Go-Betweens for Hitler
• Gold Fever
• Grimson’s Kings and Queens
• Hip Hop Family Tree Book 3: 1983-1984 (Vol. 3) by Ed Piskor
• Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs by Sally Mann
• How To Be A Tudor
• If This Is A Woman
• Images of Conviction: The Construction of Visual Evidence
• In How to Plan a Crusade (Allen Lane
• In London Fog
• In The Poet’s Tale
• In These Times by Jenny Uglow
• Iraq: A History
• Joan Of Arc: A History by Helen Castor
• Katrina: After The Flood by Gary Rivlin
• Killing Reagan
• King John: England, Magna Carta and the Making of a Tyrant, by Stephen Church
• Last Hundred Years
• Legend: A Harrowing Story from the Vietnam War of One Green Beret’s Heroic Mission to Rescue a Special Forces Team Caught Behind
  Enemy Lines
• Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants by Alison Maloney
• March: Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell
• MOD: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement byRichard Weight
• NeuroTribes: The Legacy Of Autism And The Future Of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
• No More Champagne
• Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
• Old Wheelways: Traces of Bicycle History on the Land
• Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story
• OUR MAN IN CHARLESTON: BRITAIN’S SECRET AGENT IN THE CIVIL WAR SOUTH
• Perfect Wives In Ideal Homes
• Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship
• Practice of Empire
• Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire, by Shane White
• Real Men Don’t Sing: Crooning In American Culture by Allison McCracken
• Realm Divided
• Richard III
• Rival Queens, Catherine de Medici, her Daughter, Marguerite de Valois and the Betrayal that Ignited a Kingdom
• Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley
• Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
• Shadows of Doubt: Language and Truth in Post-Reformation Catholic Culture
• Showa: A History of Japan 1953-1989 by Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Zack Davisson
• Showdown: Thurgood Marshall And The Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood
• Sisters In Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor And Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went To The Supreme Court And Changed The World by Linda Hirshman
• Slave Coat
• SPAIN: THE CENTER OF THE WORLD, 1519-1682
• Spectacle: The Astonishing Life Of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk
• Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection by Kate Beaton
• Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution, by Rebecca Spang
• SWANSONG 1945: A COLLECTIVE DIARY OF THE LAST DAYS OF THE THIRD REICH
• Tales Of The Marvellous And News Of The Strange by translated by Malcolm C. Lyons, illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith
• TARGET TOKYO: JIMMY DOOLITTLE AND THE RAID THAT AVENGED PEARL HARBOR
• Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life by Jonathan Bate
• The Age of Catastrophe by Heinrich August Winkle
• The Battle Of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled Into The Spotlight And Made History by Robin Givhan
• The Big Green Tent: A Novel by Ludmila Ulitskaya, translated by Polly Gannon
• The Brethren
• The Byzantine Republic by Anthony Kaldellis
• The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power
• THE CRIME AND THE SILENCE: CONFRONTING THE MASSACRE OF JEWS IN WARTIME JEDWABNE
• The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue
• THE DEVIL’S CHESSBOARD: ALLEN DULLES, THE CIA, AND THE RISE OF AMERICA’S SECRET GOVERNMENT
• The English and Their History by Robert Tombs
• The Face Of Britain
• The First World War: Unseen Glass Plate Photographs of the Western Front
• The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, So
• THE GREAT DIVIDE: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON THAT DEFINED A NATION
• The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant…
• The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire, by Susan Pedersen
• The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science
• The Last of the President’s Men
• The Lost Tudor Princess
• The Lost World of Byzantium
• The Marriage Book: Centuries Of Advice, Inspiration, And Cautionary Tales From Adam And Eve To Zoloft by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler
• The Match Girl and the Heiress, by Seth Koven (Princeton University Press)
• The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger’s Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare’s First Folio
• The New Tsar: The Rise And Reign Of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers
• The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency
• The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?
• The Railways
• The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators And The New Online Revolutionaries by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan
• The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House
• The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, by Josiah Ober (Princeton University Press)
• The Tears of the Rajas
• The Thrilling Adventures Of Lovelace And Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story Of The First Computer by Sydney Padua
• The Turnip Princess And Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales by Franz-Xaver von Schönwerth, translated by Maria Tatar, illustrated by Engelbert Suss
• The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook: Garden-Fresh Recipes Rediscovered And Adapted For Today’s Kitchen by Fania Lewando, translated by Eve Jochnowitz
• THE WAR ON ALCOHOL: PROHIBITION AND THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN STATE
• The Witch Of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, And Houdini In The Spirit World by David Jaher
• The Year of Lear, by James Shapiro (Simon & Schuster)
• The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book by Peter Finn and Petra Couvee
• THEIR LAST FULL MEASURE: THE FINAL DAYS OF THE CIVIL WAR
• They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else’: A History of the Armenian Genocide, by Ronald Grigor Suny
• Tropisms by Nathalie Sarraute, translated by Maria Jolas
• War’s Nomads: A Mobile Radar Unit in Pursuit of Rommel
• WENT THE DAY WELL?: WITNESSING WATERLOO
• What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing. By Brian Seibert
• When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II
• Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History by Francis O’Gorman

The 21 “Best History Book” Year-End Lists Consulted

• 12/30/2015: If it Happened Yesterday, It’s History – Five important history books of 2015
• 12/25/2015: Steve Reads – The Best Books of 2015: History! 
• 12/23/2015: History Buff – 10 Can’t-Miss History Books of 2015 
• 12/21/2015: Gulf News – The best history books of 2015 
• 12/17/2015: Smithsonian Mag – The Best History Books of 2015 
• 12/17/2015: Daily Mail – How to keep a housewife happy: For some (but by no means all) women in the Fifties, a TV and a fridge was all it took. We select the year’s best history books 
• 12/17/2015: What Abotu Culture – The Best History Books of 2015 
• 12/15/2015: Entertainment Weekly – EW Gift Guide: Books for the history lover 
• 12/12/2015: History Today – Books of the Year 2015 
• 12/10/2015: Slate – The Best Coffee-Table Books of 2015 for History Lovers 
• 12/6/2015: NPR – NPR’s Book Concierge Our Guide To 2015’s Great Reads 
• 12/5/2015: The Economist – Books of the year 2015 
• 12/5/2015: The Guardian – The best history books of 2015 
• 11/27/2015: FT – Best books of 2015: History 
• 11/26/2015: Independent – Christmas 2015: The best 6 history books 
• 11/24/2015: Telegraph – Best history books for Christmas 
• Amazon – 2015 Best Books of the Year: History 
• The Book Bag – Top Ten History Books 2015 
• Goodreads – BEST HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY
• Kirkus – Best History Books of 2015 
• Reading Public Library – Best History Books of 2015