Best history books of July 2024, as chosen by the Amazon Editors
New York always provides a rich playground for historical action, so it’s no surprise two of our Best History Books of July take place in the iconic city. The Amazon Editors also have a juicy read on the Kennedys, one equally eye-opening on math (trust us), and so many more great book recommendations this month.
If you enjoy narrative nonfiction, true crime, glamour, and New York history, you’re going to love A Gentleman and a Thief. Arthur Barry hobnobbed with the crème de la crème of New York society as if he were one of their own, clocking the magnificent jewels adorning women with lauded last names such as Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Pulitzer. He was a “second story” man—a cat burglar—but one with finesse, style, impeccable manners, and an uncanny ability to elude police. This is the story not only of his crimes, but also a devoted love story, a story of double crosses and prison breaks, and of a figure so likable that even his victims found him charming. A Gentleman and a Thief is absolutely captivating, full of marquee names in finance and industry (as well as Harry Houdini and the Prince of Wales), the decadence of the Jazz Age, daring heists, and the rise and fall of a “smooth-talking rogue with an eye for diamonds and a heart of gold.” —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
Narrative and atmospheric, journalist Dan Slater will whisk you away to the bustling streets and tenements of New York City’s Lower East Side in the early 1900s—full of striving newcomers with tough hustles and larger-than-life characters who are all trying to survive, and maybe make a few bucks and a name for themselves. In this “fast-paced, pleasure-loving city,” Slater writes, New Yorkers “drank on Sunday, the Sunday drinking law be damned. They played cards and bet on horses. And a sizeable constituency provided this vice market: not just prostitutes and pimps, but the police and judges who were paid to look the other way.” Against this backdrop, we meet the villains and vigilantes, the reformers and the crusaders. History readers will be riveted by this vivid account of the gangs, gamblers, and goons on Grand Street, and the ragtag squad who set out to stop them, the “Incorruptibles.” —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
John F. Kennedy famously implored us to “ask not what your country can do for you…,” but best-selling author Maureen Callahan sees a more sinister meaning of the phrase “Ask Not,” the title of her rompy, juicy nonfiction that reads like a novel. The “fairy tale of Kennedy greatness and noble men” was built upon the pain, suffering, and silencing of the women who were unfortunate enough to be in their orbit, she writes, before launching into chapters focusing on Jackie Kennedy, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and 10 more women, describing their side of famous stories that are usually only told from the men’s point of view. Although this is a sensational page-turner, it’s also written from years of archival research and interviews—as Callahan writes, “even the emotional fortress that was Jackie Kennedy Onassis shared her most intimate horrors with historians, relatives, and friends.” You’ll never look at the so-called “Kennedy Curse” the same way after devouring this gripping, ripped-from-the-headlines history. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
We take it for granted that math is the straightforward study of numbers. After all, one plus one equals two. But, as Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell explore, the history of mathematics is a “chaotic affair,” full of biases that have accumulated over centuries, with ideas spreading over trade routes and between borders. The invention of calculus—crucial to building rockets and bridges—is usually credited to Isaac Newton in the 1700s. But its origins are not so simple: 300 years earlier, a brilliant mathematician in India named Madhava of Sangamagrama described the first theory of calculus, which laid the groundwork for Newton’s discoveries. The world’s first female math professor, Sophie Kowalevski, was forbidden from pursuing her work in the late 1800s by a father who believed a “learned woman would bring shame upon him.” These unsung heroes, and more, finally get their due in this highly-readable telling that aims to make arithmetic more inclusive and diverse. And perhaps, in the process, all readers—even those who avoided algebra in school—may finally see themselves in the subject. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
This boisterous history of reality TV is best binged like your favorite Real Housewives franchise. Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Emily Nussbaum does a masterful job painting a line between the sagas, stars, and stories that changed television forever and launched a thousand D-listers, from reality TV pioneers in the 1940s, An American Family, America's Funniest Home Videos and Cops (one directly led to the existence of the other), to The Real World, Survivor, and The Apprentice. Cue the Sun! is packed with incredible anecdotes (including the staggering number of people who tried to thwart one of the most popular shows of all time), nostalgia (poor Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey), and a lot of respect for its subjects, who, in bravely airing their innermost thoughts and desires for all to see, changed the country’s opinions and acceptance of race, sexuality, gender roles, and class. RuPaul walked so the Queer Eye cast could run. To write this review, I had to shake the sand out of my copy—bring your own to the beach. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
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