Best History Books of February 2025, as chosen by the Amazon Editors
February may be a short month—but these great new history books are full of big ideas. Whether you’re looking for a heart-pounding adventure to one of the most remote locales on earth, a walk down memory lane of iconic female rockers, a meditative take on the symbolism of the color blue, or so much more, the Amazon Editors always have new favorites to recommend. Want more for your TBR list? Be sure to see our top 10 titles in history, nonfiction, biography-memoir, and across every category.
The race to the farthest edges of earth—the North Pole—comes alive in this daring story of adventure, gumption, and ambition. Written by two-time National Outdoor Book Award-winning author Buddy Levy, you’ll feel the chill in your bones and adrenaline in your blood as you read about the sheer determination of bon vivant explorer/journalist Walter Wellman to venture north. And no, he doesn’t want to take a boat, with its rocky waves that risk freezing to ice, stranding and starving its sailors. He wants to fly a blimp! Well, technically it’s called an airship—but imagining his plans to build, take apart, and then reconstruct the giant vessel is half the wonder of this action-packed narrative. Transportive adventures are so satisfying to read, even if they don’t have the tidy ending you may be expecting. Because the real story can be found in the journey, not necessarily the destination. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
With her trademark eloquence, Imani Perry (who won the 2022 National Book Award for South to America) examines the meaning and the role of the color blue throughout Black history and how it's woven throughout daily lives. Insightful and meditative, this slim but revelatory work of nonfiction (with a dash of memoir) explores color from the indigo dyed clothes of hundreds of years ago to the music known as the blues to its appearance in contemporary art. Perry's work is well worth the read and your time. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
This eye-opening book will make you rethink everything you learned in school—consider it required reading for anyone who wants to build a more equal world. What is the point of school, asks professor Eve L. Ewing—whose pupils have ranged in age from preschool to retirement—on the first page of her book. Access to an education is a great equalizer, the surest path to the American Dream, yes, she agrees. But pull back the pithy promises, and a deeper—and darker—picture emerges. Who has access to schools, the teachers who stand in front of each classroom, the biases that lurk, the shaping of lessons… all these factors are not applied equally to all students of all races and ethnicities. But there is hope. Writer-activist James Baldwin once said “nothing can be changed until it is faced,” and Ewing pushes us to do just that, before considering how we could reimagine the possibilities of how we educate every child. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
The devastating downfall of one neighborhood illustrates a larger story of inequality, crime, and opportunity that has taken place around America. East New York was once a thriving, vibrant area of Brooklyn—if you could afford to live there, you’d made it. But that all changed with the passing of the seemingly revolutionary Housing and Urban Development Act in 1968, which was supposed to help lower-income families of color achieve home ownership. Enter the predators who learned to bend the law for their benefit. Stacy Horn (whose books have investigated everything from ghosts to mental asylums) has written a true crime narrative of dastardly deeds and corrupt criminals that will make you shake your head in disbelief as the neighborhood becomes known by its new nickname, the Killing Fields. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
You’ll hum the tunes of the boundary-breaking female rockers of the ‘90s as you read this riveting music history about a sound that changed the world. Professor Tanya Pearson schools readers on the far-reaching impact of Garbage’s Shirley Manson, Liz Phair, Veruca Salt, Hole’s Courtney Love (with a view of her late husband, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, I hadn’t considered before), and so many more legends. But her school of rock never feels like homework. It's written in an oral history style, mixed with her personal observations, and experiences interviewing the women of rock. This riveting, perspective-expanding read strikes all the right nostalgia chords. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
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